Thursday, November 24, 2011

Vote-by-vote recount in Morelia gives victory to PRI

Following a manual, full vote-by-vote recount in Morelia, the victory of PRI in the mayor's race for the capital city of Michoacán was confirmed, with 2,347 more votes for Wilfrido Lázaro Medina over Marko Cortés Mendoza. Final count: 122, 258 to 119, 941. The PRD came in a distant third.

This did not stop Cortés from impugning the election to the state's electoral court.

Narcopolitics in Michoacán, bullet form updates

The brewing narcopolitics scandal in Michoacán is receiving international attention.
In short, Milenio got hold of recorded conversations where third-in-command of La Familia Michoacana (which supposedly is no longer existent), telling villagers in the Tierra Caliente and Tuzantla area to vote for PRI.

Subsequent reactions:

* PRD president Jesús Zambano said it was evidence of narco collusion with PRI and merely the tip of the ice berg

* PRD's defeated candidate Silvano Aureoles Conejo demands election be annulled.

* Cocoa, PAN's candidate and president Calderón's sister,  demands and explanation

* So does the PRI.

* Political commentator Ciro Gómez Leyva apologizes to Cocoa for having belittled her claims of a narco vote

* SIEDO has launched an investigation

* New interior secretary Alejandro Poiré said the recordings were "very worrisome signs"

* PAN has now joined the PRD in demanding the elections be annulled.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

What a beautiful sight

Creative arms-reduction methods in Chiapas, from Milenio:
Milenio

Manlio Fabio Beltrones officially out of PRI race

Senator Manlio Fabio Beltrones officially bowed out of the campaign to be the PRI's nominee for 2012 presidential candidate. No major criticisms in his resignation speech, but many subtle jabs at the PRI leadership, from what I gathered, and a not-so-subtle criticism of how PRI has altered, in recent days, the rules to select its candidates, deemed advantageous to Peña Nito.

Now only PAN remains to choose its 2012 candidate

Bishop Raúl Vera López on Coahuila's debt

The great defender of the downtrodden, Bishop Raúl Vera López, on the subject of Coahuila's massive debt left by the PRI government of Humberto Moreira, now reportedly 35 billion pesos:
"it will be the poor who will have to pay for it."

I am afraid he is absolutely right.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Mexican business warms to AMLO

On the one hand, the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (CCE), the major business council in Mexico, and its president Mario Sánchez Ruiz declared that AMLO is not a "danger" to private investment and business in Mexico - quite a different tone from 2006.

On the other La Jornada has a very interesting article based on interviews with former PAN and PRI-backing businessmen who are now pro AMLO. Anecdotal, yes, and impossible to know how representative, but I found it interesting to hear their narrative, how they have grown disillusioned with the free-market model in Mexico -or perhaps, the poorly functioning free market model. Perhaps they have come to realize that a leftwing government, with an obligatory reference to Lula, may actually not be damaging to growth, but rather quite the contrary?

The tithe is alive and well at the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God

La Jornada has gone "undercover" in an investigation of what in Mexico is known as the Iglesia Universal del Reino de Dios, or the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Of Brazilian origin and of the theology of prosperity, the UCKG probably ranks around 13 million members world wide, and is absolutely and stunningly filthy rich, and under investigation for fraud and tax evasion in multiple countries.

The article is well worth a read. The manners in which the UCKG is trying to extract a tithe - yes, the tithe, or the 10-percent-of-all-your-income tax, from its congregation is simply stunning in its cynicism. Read for yourself.

What charlatans.