Cocoa's the one: President Calderón's sister wins party primary in Michoacán

Luisa María Calderón Hinojosa, "Cocoa," won PAN's primary election in Michoacán to be the party's gubernatorial candidate, with 58 percent of the 25,757 votes cast. Her opponent, Senator Marko Cortés Mendoza, has accepted the defeat - despite some alarmist suggestions that he would cause quite a bit of mayhem and claim a fraud.

Quite the contrary - Cortés said he would fully back Cocoa. His loss is also a defeat for Santiago Creel, who openly backed his aspirations against those of the president's sister.

With her candidacy, the November Michoacán election looks even more set to be a completely open three-way race. Quite likely, PRI and PRD will denounce "nepotism," and accuse Calderón, fairly or not, of intervening in the local election.

Clearly she has every right to participate. But voters should also bear in mind that she is also a woman who does not stick to her word:  She is openly breaking an earlier agreement from 2006 that no family member would be in the public as long as Felipe was president. That was then; this is now - but it was clearly a lie.

PRI has said that a victory Michoacán is essential for the party on its path to 2012: Its leader said he will literally not leave the state until the election.  So it is, of course, for the PRD, as the state might be considered the party's cradle. But finally, also to the PAN, and not only for the above: It won its first municipal president (Quiroga), first local deputy, and first national deputy there, eons ago.

This will be a very dramatic - and competitive - affair.

AMLO: No beef with the church

So that it remains clear: AMLO, in a political rally for his presidency in Tala, Jalisco, said he had "no dispute" (or perhaps, "quarrel," "issue" - the word is pleito) with religious groups:

"I have no dispute at all with the hierarchies of the catholic church, or of any other."

He is, of course, again hoping for the goodwill of the Catholic Church, just like in 2006, when he notoriously refused to commit to any "hot" topics such as abortion rights, the morning after pill, or euthanasia, telling the church he would put this up for vote for his vaunted "people" - as if were something that should simply be decided by majority vote. As mayor of Mexico City, he actively fought against his party's push for abortion and gay rights. While much can be ascribed to the all-encompassing goal of "saving" Mexico through him becoming president, and not put off voters not thrilled with social liberalism, he is in many ways as well a social conservative.

Who carries out electoral fraud in Mexico? The figures reveal

A very interesting column from Carlos Loret de Mola:

Yes, everyone - PRI, PAN, PRD - is engaging in electoral fraud at some point. Yet according to FEPADE, the unit of the Mexican attorney general's office charged with investigating criminal electoral fraud, there is a clear pattern across Mexico's 32 states over the past years: Since its 1994 creation (as part of electoral institution reform), FEPADE has detected 10,227 fraudulent acts. 50 percent of these acts were committed by the PRI, 30 by the PAN, and 20 by the PRD.

What would be even more interesting than the raw percentages would be to divide the # of frauds over the units governed, but that will have to wait.

Spy scandal! Queretaro law maker's phone tapped

Not too often Queretaro is in the news (and when it is, superb coverage is of course found here), so I couldn't resist this one: Pablo Ademir Castellanos Ramírez, state representative in the local Queretaro legislature, denounced that people from the Government Secretariat had tapped his phone. Not only that, Francisco Hernández Velázquez, a state official, allegedly even told Castellanos to "be careful with what to say when I spoke by telephone, because they had recordings of the phone conversations."

Pretty chilling - a state functionary threatening a law maker, in addition to tapping his phone.
From what I can see, no response from PRI Governor José Calzada Rovirosa to these very serious allegations.

Disturbing updated figures on rise of poverty in Mexico

Mexico's CONEVAL (Consejo Nacional de Evaluación de la Política de Desarrollo Social) is as official as it gets, and it is in its name: The National Council of the Evaluation of Social Development Policy. It's recent figures on the massive rise in poverty in Mexico are therefore all the more damning, and credible:

There are now at least 52 million poor in Mexico, out of which 11.7 live in extreme poverty.
In percent, poverty went up from 44.5 percent of the population to 46.2 percent in 2010 - more than three million more poor.

And this is real poverty: The number of people who can't even cover sufficiently their daily nutritional needs went from 23.8 to 28 million.

Peña Nieto's Mexico State came out worst, with biggest rise of those in extreme poverty - 200,000 more in these two years - with PRI-led Veracruz and PAN-led Guanajuato close behind.

Calderón's answer to the CONEVAL report was chiefly to blame the international crisis: "It was out of our hands."

Elba Esther Gordillo's monthly salary: 23,900 pesos

I've heard the figure reported before, but a report by Mexico's Secretary of education reports that Elba Esther Gordillo's monthly salary is 23,900 pesos, or about 2000 USD. This, for her official job positions, which is for being a teacher and director of a campus in Neza in Mexico State.

So can anyone explain me, then, how she can be a proprietor of  "more than 60 residences, including an apartment in Paris and a house in San Diego"?

You spot the difference!

In the picture below, on the left, the proposed new party emblem of the Convergencia party, which this weekend is holding a conference to change its name, leadership, and, yes, logo. On the right, the logo of the "Legitimate Government" of  Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO).