Mexico cools to Obama and US

The 2012 Pew survey of global of opinion of the United States is out, and there is a marked decline in Mexicans' opinion of both Obama and the United States, since the last 2009 survey:

Confidence in Obama drops from 55 to 42, and favorability toward United States from 69 to 56. The most drastic drop, of 17 percent, is Mexico's approval of U.S foreign policy: From 56 to 39.

 Pew

Source: Global Opinion of Obama Slips, International Policies Faulted. Pew Research Center, June 13, 2012.

Stunning The Guardian exposée confirms left suspicions

This is quite explosive news, given in particular its timing: An investigation by Jo Tuckman of the British newspaper The Guardian appears to confirm exactly what the Mexican left and its 2012 presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) - as well as many journalists and analysts - have claimed for many years:

• An outline of fees apparently charged for raising Peña Nieto's national profile when he was governor of the state of Mexico.

• A detailed media strategy explicitly designed to torpedo a previous presidential bid by leftwing candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador, who is currently Peña Nieto's closest rival.

• Payment arrangements suggesting that the office of former president Vicente Fox concealed exorbitant public spending on media promotion.

Read all about it!

Update: See the documents at the Guardian's Web page here.

Sources: 

Computer files link TV dirty tricks to favourite for Mexico presidency. The Guardian, June 8, 2012
Documenta The Guardian la colusión Televisa-Peña. La Jornada, June 8, 2012
Respuesta de la televisora. La Jornada, June 8, 2012
Reacción a nota de The Guardian. La Jornada, June 8, 2012

The amazingly incompetent Vázquez Mota campaign

The incompetence of PAN candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota does not cease to amaze me.
Case in point:  A few weeks ago, she appointed the respected political scientist but highly discredited public servant Juan Molinar Horcasitas to her presidential campaign.

Now, she openly disavows him, and pathetically demands that he remain ajeno or roughly "outside" of her campaign, in order to clarify his role in the infamous Hermosillo, Sonora  fire that killed 49 infants, and so as not to prevent her from from "getting closer" to the parents of the dead children. She also has the guts to demand that he face justice.

Did she simply forget about this when she appointed him?

No wonder she is plummeting in the polls: This is simply the worst PAN candidate for the presidency in more than a generation.

Source:

Pide JVM a Molinar enfrentar a la justicia. El Universal, June 5, 2012. 

Ominami, from Chile, an AMLO adviser?

Apologies for merely re-transmitting a rumor, albeit from the well-informed Bajo Reserva: According to sources in AMLO's campaign team, one foreign adviser to AMLO's 2012 presidential campaign is none other than Marco Enríquez-Ominami, the 38-young Chilean leftwing politician most known for his 2009 presidential run in Chile (he came third with 20 percent or so), but later an important promoter of the student protest movement in Chile.

I am very curious on what role he plays in Mexico, whether as a liaison with the #soy132, as an assessor of the movement, as an actual organizer of the protests, or otherwise, and I find the international aspect quite noteworthy.

Source:

Bajo Reserva. El Universal, June 5, 2012. 

Fox calls for PRI vote

Former President Vicente Fox' sympathy for Enrique Peña Nieto has long been an open secret, which of course makes it no secret at all. Yet I don´t think we've seen it quite this blunt: Fox now openly calls for a vote for the PRI candidate. That's right: Fox calls for a PRI vote in 2012.

This is quite amazing -Fox was a president elected on the the PAN ticket, and the first non-PRI president in 71 years. He is now, one month before the elections, stabbing his own party in the back in the most open of manners. 

I can't but help that this will only be an advantage to AMLO, who has long argued that PRI and PAN, or "PRIAN," are essentially the same. 

What better evidence could one possibly point to than Fox calling for a vote for the PRI?

Update: Key panistas such as Ernesto Cordero are calling for Fox to be kicked out of PAN. PAN president Gustavo Madero also calls on Fox to simply shut up. Now that'll be the day. 

Source: 

Llama Fox a cerrar filas en torno al candidato puntero. Milenio online, June 3, 2012. 
Líderes panistas exigen la expulsión de Vicente Fox. El Universal, June 5, 2012. 
Madero exige a Fox no traicionar a la democracia.  El Universal, June 5, 2012. 

PAN could lose bastion Guanajuato

It is still unlikely, but increasingly less so: PRI is getting within reach of beating PAN in its bastion of Guanajuato, run by the most socially regressive sectors of the party particularly linked to the secret catholic society El Yunque.

PRI candidate Juan Ignacio Torres reportedly pulls 42.2 percent against PAN Miguel Márquez' 50.3. The left has only a marginal presence in the ultra-conservative state, and is in addition running three candidates.

Source:

Guanajuato: aceptan ventaja de panista. El Universal, May 30, 2012.

Reforma shock poll: AMLO only 7 points behind

With apologies for the "shock" usage here, but I don't really know what else to call this:

Reforma newspaper, a center-right leaning newspaper with a remarkably well developed polling team, has AMLO at 34, against 38 of Enrique Peña Nieto. 

Only four points away! The poll reflects a growth of 7 percent for AMLO from the last Reforma poll, taken April 19-22. The most recent poll was taken May 24-27. Other polls on the ADN "poll of polls" also show AMLO rising and EPN diving. 

Source:

Encuesta Reforma: López Obrador a 4 puntos de Peña. ADN Polìtico, May 31, 2012.