AMLO's logic, seemingly increasingly removed from reality

It is increasingly harder to follow AMLO's tortous logic, which if taken at face value is hardly logical at all.
Consider the statements he made yesterday regarding the recent surprise announcement that Yeidckol Polevnsky will be his candidate for governor in Mexico State: "They will not agree to this, those who have as candidate Peña Nieto for the presidency of the republic, that is obvious."

That is obvious? AMLO is presenting his own candidate, before any other party has done this, a candidate that lost badly in 2005 and came in third after PRI and PAN, at the height of AMLO's popularity, and the only thing "obvious" is that his candidate will split the vote for the left - PRD will present its candidate, likely with PAN - thereby ensuring the victory of Governor Enrique Peña Nieto's successor.

Does anyone in their right mind think that Peña Nieto is opposed to Yeidckol Polevnsky's candidacy? It is hard for me to believe AMLO truly does so, but if he does:  Estaría mal de sus facultades mentales. That is obvious.

The Vatican's dangerous hypocrisy: Defending hate speech as "free speech"

It defies belief in its brazen distortion of reality, and I truly wonder if the Mexican clergy truly believes its own  nonsense. According to Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, part of a delegation of visiting Mexican clergy to the Vatian, the lawsuit of Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, and other criticism of the church, "constitute an attack on religious freedom." In the Vatican meeting, the cardinal said,

"one complained that the bishops can not speak out against the homosexuality laws, the adoption of children by homosexuals and gay marriage because one says that they are against the government."

To recall: Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, the most active of clergy "speaking out," has directly accused Ebrard of bribing the Supreme Court, and has viciously denounced gays, including calling them "faggots" in a press conference. To make this an issue of "free speech" is utter nonsense, and the church knows this.

Yes, it is true that the Mexican Constitution explicitly state that clergy can not interfere directly in politics such as calling for people to vote for a party - or against it. This has not, of course, prevented them from doing this - in 2000, bishop Onésimo Cepeda actively favored the PRI, and others, such as Hugo Valdemar, has called on catholics not to vote on a "fascist party" such as the PRD.

Even so: Exactly why is it that the Mexican Constitution is so seemingly curbing of "free speech"? Because the Catholic Church as an institution up until recent years fought against every initiative to change the status quo toward a more free, democratic and just society: From the Independence wars two hundred years ago and onward, in every major events of the 19th and 20th century, the church has stood on the wrong side of history.

Speaking of events the Church opposed tooth and nail, hundred years ago, to this day:
VIVA MÉXICO, CABRONES! TIERRA Y LIBERTAD!

It's the elections, stupid: 55% rise in social spending proposed in Mexico State

For a state that still holds the highest number of people in poverty - seven million - that Mexico State should want to increase its social spending should on the surface be good news - hadn't it been for the timing and unprecedented jump in the suggested spending for next year's budget, which strongly hints at naked electioneering: In 2011, the successor to itting Governor Enrique Peña Nieto will be elected. What better way to buy some support than to crank up social spending 55 (!) percent?

Raúl Murrieta Cummings, Peña Nieto's secretary of finanze, handed over the proposed fiscal package for 2011 to the state congress that includes a whopping 55 percent jump, from 2 to 3 billion pesos, in social spending. 

Also of note: The state Electoral Institute (IEEM), on which the Ley Peña drastically reduced the representation of opposition parties - while before all parties participating in a coalition would have their own representative, now they will only have one for the entire coalition - has been proposed a budget of 1.637 million pesos - a 224 percent jump from the current year. 

Also of note: Of the recently approved federal budget, Mexico State will receive 118.441 billion pesos. Mexico State will only bring in 15.563 billion of their own money, or 12.8 of their total budget. It is quite stunning that despite the diversification in Mexico State's economy, more than 87% of its income still come from the federal government. 

There are persistent rumors of a massive budget hole cover-up in Mexico State; should the opposition against all odds win against the PRI candidate in 2011, we might be in for some interesting reading on how much and where Peña Nieto spent the state's money. 

Yeidckol Polevnsky is the chosen - emphasis on chosen - one

So Yeidckol it is. Less than a week after AMLO declared that the best candidate for Mexico State would be chosen by a poll, AMLO's collaborators let it be known that Yeidckol Polevnsky has been chosen to be AMLO's candidate for Mexico State governor. I've offered some opinions on Polevnsky before and her chances, which are minuscule. Here I will only make three comments:

1) The PAN and the PRD in Mexico State, as well as on the national level, have voted to "explore" a possible common candidate for Mexico State governor. None, however, has been decided upon yet; indeed, the coalition itself has not been set in stone. 

2) AMLO, however, has already decided that no matter what, he will present his own candidate, which of course will split the left's vote and favor Peña Nieto, without even bother to wait for the official campaign period to start. Those pesky rules simply do not apply to him; he has already barnstormed every municipality in  Mexico State and will now do it again, to back his candidate - in the fullest possessive meaning of the word.

3) There was no internal primary or vote among AMLO's followers; Polevnsky was simply "decided upon" in what appears to have been a commissioned opinion poll among the general electorate, though I am not sure about this yet. In any regard, the fact that the candidate's program, the "10 Commitments," was already drawn up and decided by AMLO before the candidate was elected, speaks volumes: Polevnsky is a pure figurehead whose own, and minimal, qualifications do not matter at all: The candidate could have been Winnie the Pooh as long as he had pledged allegiance to AMLO's program and pulled ahead in the polls, and this process has only served to highlight and not obscure this. 

With these considerations in mind: I hope that Mexico State's voters see AMLO's conception of representative democracy for what it is:  Hollow, plebiscitarian, and top-down. 

Roberto Gil Zuarth free to be candidate for the PAN presidency, says TEPJF.

Mexico's highest electoral court TEPJF declared yesterday unanimously that PAN's party rules do not prohibit Roberto Gil for running for the party presidency, rejecting the complaint by Senator Blanca Judith Díaz that Gil's short tenure in the party - he's been a member for barely 2.5 years - made him ineligible.

The tribunal is quite right: Technically, there is no law or stipulation in the party regulations decreeing this explicilty.

However - and there is a big however - party rules explicitly state that anyone who wants to be a member of the PAN's national council must have been a member for at least five years. It would therefore appear to be obvious that the same would apply to the party's top position, its president. One may venture to suggest that this has been so obvious that it didn't occur for anyone to write it down. Until Gil came along, that is: His backers have arrogantly dismissed this rule as having nothing to do with the party presidency.

It should be obvious to any remotely objective observer what while the TEPJF ruling may be technically correct - it is not explicitly written - it is such a blatant violation of the spirit of the party laws, and to be sure, goes against PAN's entire transitory, which remained a party of legality and institutionality until Fox and particularly Calderón heavily battered the party's autonomy. Should Gil become the party president he will be the third president imposed by Calderón. For the PAN it will be a Pyrrhic victory.

Veracruz outgoing PRI Governor Fidel Herrera leaves massive debt

Just a few days after outgoing Governor Fidel Herrera of Veracruz claimed that he left the state's finances in perfect order and with a surplus of 6.5 billion pesos, his finance secretary Salvador Sánchez Estrada revealed the state's budget deficit is 9.3 billion pesos.

Opposition lawmakers, but also members of the ruling PRI, questioned even these figures and demanded in vain more details on the state of Veracruz' finances. Óscar Lara Hernández, a PAN local deputy, claimed the real debt may even be far higher: Close to 40 billion pesos, or more than 3.2 billion US dollars - a historic high. The line of creditors - from private corporations and banks to social security institutes such as IMSS and ISSTE - is long.

All this - and yet nothing stopped stop Herrera from declaring his interest in a 2012 presidential candidacy for the PRI. 

PRD: Ulises Ruiz Ortiz leaves 26 dead and a 10-fold rise in public debt

Oaxaca state legislator Carol Antonio Altamirano, coordinator of the PRD group in the Oaxaca legislature, said that Ulises Ruiz Ortiz will leave a debt of at least 26 murders, and a public debt that skyrocketed from half a million pesos to five billion pesos.

Ruiz, for his part, has warned against any "witch hunt" of his outgoing administration by the new one headed by Gabino Cué.

I say let the witch hunt begin.