Oaxaca: Students will finally have their teachers back

After almost two weeks of demonstrations, the "dissident" Sección 22 of the SNTE teachers union (dissident in the sense that it opposes the national leadership of SNTE leader Elba Esther Gordillo), returned to the class rooms today, Monday. In one of Mexico's absolute poorest states, with educational attainment at rock bottom, the teachers left the 1.4 million or so students without a teacher for almost two weeks - all the time collecting their salary.

Yet the protests - which included the occupation of government buildings, public squares, TV and radio stations, and highway toll booths - are not yet officially over, only in "recess."

It's quite ironic that the perennial bad wolf of SNTE, appears to have accepted an obligatory evaluation program of Mexico's teachers, to be held every three years, something the Sección 22 adamantly opposes.

Oaxaca's business sectors reported losses of about 12 billion pesos so far due to Sección 22's teachers (and far from all are; many merely collect their pay yet dedicate themselves to "organizational work" such as the recent strikes) since 2006.

Also of note: Not once in the last 28 years have the teachers actually fulfilled their professional duties to teach the full 200 days per academic year.

PRD offers to have all its candidates certified as free of narco-connections

Jesús Zambrano and Dolores Padierna, the PRD's (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) president and secretary general respectively, handed over a list to the Mexican Federal attorney general's office  of all their candidates for the upcoming state elections, in Coahuila, Nayarit, Mexico State and Hidalgo, asking that the PGR certify then as having no connections to any drug trafficking gangs.

The PGR responded it is beyond its powers and rejected the petition - but quite likely a useful publicity stunt, nonetheless.

Drama in Nayarit: Bullets fly in PRI's and PRD's campaign headquarters

It is hard to imagine the Nayarit gubernatorial campaign in Nayarit heating up further: Armed men entered the hotel in Tepeic where both PRI and PRD have their campaign headquarters, where after a 5-minute shootout they kidnapped a so far unidentified person. Jesús Ortega, former PRD president and now head of the PRD campaign in Nayarit, was at the hotel and tweeted about the shootout as it happened. 

PRD's gubernatorial candidate Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo also suspended campaigning in the Ruiz municipality upon recommendation from his staff. 

Mexican church rallies behind Enrique Peña Nieto

The Mexican Episcopal Conference (Conferencia del Episcopado Mexicano) which is not a conference at all but the official leadership organization of the Mexican Catholic church, deemed the government of Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico State to have been "successful" and one of the best state administrations of Mexico, according to "statistics."

What statistics? Mexico State is an absolute an utter disaster, and the few gains made under Peña Nieto's administration pale compared to to brutal rises in vital statistics such as crime, murders, and unemployment, as detailed recently by e.g. IMCO and COPARMEX.

Yet since when has the top hierarchy of the Mexican catholic church ever been interested in facts?

Roberto Borge, new Quintana Roo, already caught lying

Roberto Borge, the new PRI governor of Quintana Roo, has already been caught lying: He claimed that he was off last weekend to the national conference of governors, Conago (Conferencia Nacional de Gobernadores), but it appears he rather went to Europe for the Champions League Final.

As Joaquín López-Dóriga puts it, "A bad start."

Cristina Fernández in Mexico

Argentine President Cristina Fernández is visiting Mexico, after the postponement of an earlier planned trip. She notably met first with Carlos Slim and other businessmen - Slim is said to consider major investments in Argentina. Both Fernández and her foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, has expressed criticism of U.S. drug fighting strategies: Timerman noted that,

"we already know from where the guns come, and who consumes the drugs; what Mexico provides, is the dead"

Fernández expressed solidarity with Mexico over the scourge of the drug cartels, and called for the more developed countries to reduce consumption, weapons smuggling, and money laundering.

All pretty sensible to me.

The best allies money can buy: The Arce-Círigo brothers, now with PRI

After Carlos Loret de Mola first noted the development in his column, it's now official:
The Arce-Círigo brothers - René Arce and Víctor Hugo Círigo - have amazingly enough, after ditching the PRD in 2009, lined up behind PRI. The Mexico City power brokers - their main stronghold remains Iztapalapa - have now allied with the PRI and Peña Nieto, Senator René Arce announced yesterday.

The El Universal article puts its best in its opening line: "René Arce has always played to the highest bidder," as has his brother. The two ditched the PRD in 2009 when they failed to win control of Iztapalapa, which they earlier took turns governing,  and have now quite notably lined up behind Eruviel Ávila for Mexico State governor. Former PRD deputy Ruth Zavaleta, who also governed the borough Venustiano Carranza, is also closely allied with the brothers (she is the girlfriend of René), and was the first to publicly join Peña Nieto and the PRI, in the failed PRI campaign in Guerrero (she earlier quixotically tried to be the gubernatorial candidate there).

Outside of Mexico City - the importance of the newfound allies lies, of course, in the proximity of the former to key urban zones of Mexico State, which in places completely overlap - an additional new ex-PRD ally is José Diego León Díaz, a former regidor of Neza, who claimed to bring with him 4,000 PRD supperters over to the side of Eruviel Ávila.

PRD candidate for governor Alejandro Encinas said it best: "unfortunately, there are some compañeros who can be bough." The same, of course, applies eminently well to the Arce-Círigo brothers.
Yet beyond the PRD woes, while hardly new, it is a deeply troubling development, as one can hardly blame citizens for their cynicism toward politicians and political parties, with such a spineless lack of ideological and party loyalty.

For Eruviel Ávila, and of course for Peña Nieto in 2012 and whomever the PRI postulates for Mexico City governor, this is an important tactical victory.