Calderón: "I relieved hunger." No, you didn't.

The delusions of grandeur of Felipe Calderón have grown ever greater the past years. Given that he is only weeks away from leaving office - he has already moved out of the Los Pinos presidential residence as a gesture to the incoming president, Enrique Peña Nieto (as opposed to, say, Vicente Fox, who moved the day before) - we were only right to expect some further messianic pronunciations in these days.

The most recent, just days ago, pronounced in the first person singular:  That he greatly relieved hunger on his watch. He further declared, in all modesty, that "I learned.. that the duty of any public servant is to serve." A breathtaking enlightenment!

As for his "I relieved hunger" claim, here's an excerpt from a coming book from yours truly:

Salvador Escobedo Zoletto, head of the successful poverty-alleviating Oportunidades program, confirmed that the number of poor in Mexico had increased from 42.6 to 47.4 million in the years 2006-2008, or almost 5 million during the first third of the Calderón sexenio. Disturbingly, the number of people who had moved into the “extreme poverty” category had risen from 13.8 to 18.2 million, and the program reported increases in malnourishment and anemia. The figures were particularly shocking as they did not even reflect the full impact of the economic crisis that began in 2009 and lasted almost through 2010. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean noted that in the region, only in Mexico and Honduras, which had experienced a coup in 2009, did poverty rise; elsewhere, market-economic growth coupled with expansive social programs had made life better for ever more people. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which Mexico joined in 1994, instead criticized the Calderón government for growing inequality, lack of investment in human capital, and few social benefits, which in Mexico made up only 7 percent of income after taxes, against an OECD average of 12 percent

Source:
Alivié el dolor del hambre: FCH. El Universal, Oct. 20, 2012.

“En dos años, 4 millones 800 mil pobres más, dice Oportunidades.” Milenio, March 2, 2011
“Cae pobreza en AL.” El Universal, Nov. 30, 2011
“Aumenta en México la desigualdad social.” El Universal, Dec. 6, 2011

October suprise in Mexico's labor reform

With apologies for the cliché of an "October surprise," as the latest developments with Mexico's labor reform have absolutely nothing to do with imminent elections, but what happened when the Senate voted over the reform was in any case quite stunning. I did suggest that we might see a surprise here as well, though I was far from certain the left and right would be able to pull it off, but they did.

In short, the reform sent by president Calderón to the Chamber of deputies had language stripped out of its text that required transparency and democracy in Mexico's unions - notoriously authoritarian, corrupt, and often highly unfriendly to the average worker they claim to represent.

Yet the senate managed quite a feat: Every single one of its 128 senators appeared to vote (a rarity in itself) over reinserting this language, and return the legislation to the Chamber. Here, senators of the ideologically opposed PAN and PRD managed to amass the votes needed, with surprising allies (above all the sole senator of PANAL, the daughter of teacher union boss Elba Esther Gordillo, but also, on some sections, the usually pliant pro-PRI "Green party).

Yet here's the trick: By changing the legislation, rather than voting "yes" or "no," the senators arguably transformed the originally fast-track initiative ("preferred initiative") to merely an ordinary piece of legislation.
(they also seem to have inserted some new lines on collection bargaining, which should pretty much seal the change in character)

Already PRI leader in the Chamber Manlio Fabio Beltrones said there is therefore "no hurry" to pass the reform, again seemingly doing what the PRI has been accused of for years: Dragging its feet over any significant reform, acting as a highly irresponsible opposition party. Yet here is a golden opportunity for president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto to distance himself from the hardliners in his party, and push for the reform to be passed in the Chamber - and demonstrate that he is, as he claims, a true reformer, even when it hurts the clienteles of his own party. The fact that the weathercocks of the PVEM, always eager to suck up to power, broke with the PRI suggests something of this order may be in the works.

The next days should tell.

Source:
Ya no hay prisa para sacar reforma laboral, dice Manlio. El Universal, Oct. 26, 2012
PRI y PVEM titubearon; Panal optó por democracia. El Universal, Oct. 27, 2012

The Labor reform fight: Surprise in store next week?

The Mexican senate will vote on the labor reform next week, and the battle is truly heating up. Despite a persistent drive from the PRI to have the legislation passed just as it is - and as it was passed in the Chamber of Deputies three weeks ago- things may take a very surprising turn in the end.

My own views on the legislation are, in very general terms, that a reform is badly needed, and the original proposal from Calderón had both good and bad parts, yet unfortunately the Chamber essentially voted to remove many of the good parts - democracy and transparency within Mexico's notoriously corrupt and authoritarian PRI-linked (as well, yet to a far lesser extent, PRD-linked ones) unions - while making it far too easy to fire workers, pay starvation wages, and outsource. Yes, one may well argue that in certain instances businesses should be freer to hire and fire, and that this may be a genuine impediment to formalizing jobs. But if one does this without putting any credible social safety net in place in return, it is obvious that the reform will be too slanted towards business interests, and not the workers who, lest we forget, also create the wealth. Even so, the left will not be able to block these parts, but it should work with PAN to pass some other key pieces on union democracy.

The hope is above all that the left will  now act in unison, and avoid the embarrassing spectacle in the Chamber:

On Sept. 29, when the legislation came to a vote, despite having vowed not to undertake any "radical" actions such as storming the congress podium, a group of legislators linked to Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) still resorted to this thug tactic. A few thoughts on this:

* Using physical force to block legislation is about as undemocratic as it gets, and worthy more of blackshirt storm troopers than any political organization that purports to be left wing. No matter how much one opposes  a particular legislation, as a democratically elected legislator you simply don't use violence to stop it. This is not a case of legitimate "civil disobedience" against some authoritarian, colonial power or what not - this is using violence to promote your means when you fail to do so through the democratic channels. In this case, PRD deputies Karen Quiroga and Lourdes Amaya, linked to the "radical" IDN faction in the PRD, violently ripped the microphone from the president of the congressional mesa directiva, and was backed by a handful of other PRD, PT and MC deputies who tried to storm or "take" the congressional dais.

One the one hand, such behavior undermines the image of the Mexican left and presents it as radical, quarrelsome, thuggish, and outright anti-democratic. Even more important, in my view, is that it sets a frightening precedent that would legitimize any force - from the extreme right, for instance - to seek to block i.e. progressive legislation on the grounds that it would against the "will of the people." If the left can openly and violently defy elected democracy by thug actions, why should not the far right, or any other force, feel they have every bit as much right to do so? There is a time for "civil disobedience," yet this is absolutely not it. Love or hate the legislation, it was legitimately voted upon and passed. If you don't accept this, you don't accept democracy.

And the kicker: According to some counts, had the left actually remained united and voted as a block, it could have prevented the entire legislation from being passed in the first place! After protesting, rather than remaining for the vote - which is what these legislators are actually paid to do, that is, to vote - dozens of them simply abandoned the chamber. In addition to lackluster democratic credentials, it illustrates an utter lack of political responsibility.

Jesús Ortega, leader of the social-democratic majority faction in Mexico's largest party on the left, the PRD, noted in an op-ed,

Our "ultra leftists," who "take" tribunes, flee the debate, and who shout instead of responding with arguments, in reality despise the fight in parliament and the electoral path. They feverishly seek to be parliamentarians and when they become so instead of fighting in the battle of ideas - and fighting to win the votes - they withdraw from these, promoting precisely an extremism that, in light of the facts, is tragically useless.

Amen.

They weren't the only to blame, though:
* A handful of PAN deputies as well voted for the legislation in the plenary, even though it came as a "preferred initiative" from president Felipe Calderón, of the PAN.
* A deputy from the "radical" PT, Adolfo Orive, voted in commission against Art. 357, which included union democracy. His vote was decisive in removing this from the final text that was voted upon. Despite disingenuously claiming to have actually voted in favor - the brazenness is simply stunning - the "radical left" legislators in practice ran the errand of PRI, which virulently opposes democracy in the unions.   Afew days later he just happened to be promoted to head the sought-after commission of competitiveness, which he is utterly unqualified for. It reeks of a pay-off.
* The PRD in general backs union democracy, and also wants the government to stop funding unions, instead relying solely on membership dues. This is a Mexican twist that of course stems from the PRI's union advantage, product of its 70 years in power. The PRD also wants to reinstate language removed that regulate work conditions for miners, and prison penalty for owners that neglect worker safety.

(Interestingly, some unions, above all in the PRI-linked CTM, are already calling on the PRI's president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto to block the reform)

Yet then something interesting happened. Despite the many "leaks" in the increasingly pro-PRI Milenio that the senate would simply pass the legislation as it stands - without union democracy and transparency - a few important panistas suggested that PAN would seek to reinstate this language. Finally, PAN president Gustavo Madero confirmed this. The left has also suggested it will try to vote as a block this time. Both PAN and PRD have publicly accused the PRI of exerting enormous pressure on them to not change a comma of the legislation. If united both internally and in unison with the PAN, they have a chance of blocking the legislation, in order to halt it, reinsert the union democracy language (both PAN and the left backs this), and send it back to the Chamber, where, if united they could pass it. This would, however, require an enormous amount of discipline, and, as seen earlier, coherence. I remain cautiously optimistic that they may defy the pessimistic predictions that, come next week, they will fail again.

Source:
PRD lamenta que “tribus” de izquierda abandonaran pleno. El Universal, Sept. 30
Jesús Ortega: El extremismo: Enfermedad senil de la izquierda. Excélsiór, Oct. 2, 2012
AN insiste en incluir democracia sindical. El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012.
Alista PRD más de 150 reservas. El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012.
Proponen a Adolfo Orive para presidir Competitividad. La Jornada, Oct. 11, 2012
Chocan partidos en Senado por sindicatos.  El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012.
Denuncia PAN presión de PRI para no tocar reforma. El Universal, Oct. 10, 2012.
PRI presiona para no mover ley laboral: PRD. El Universal, Oct. 11, 2012.
Pide CTM a EPN frenar la reforma laboral. El Universal, Oct. 12, 2012.
Hay acuerdo en Senado para cambiar ley laboral. El Universal, Oct. 18, 2012
PRI y PAN chocan por ley laboral. El Universal, Oct. 17, 2012

Calderón, visiting professor at Harvard

According to a political gossip column in El Universal, soon-to-be ex president Felipe Calderón's next residence - the subject of much speculation these days - will indeed be outside of Mexico, specifically in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He will give lectures as visiting professor at Harvard.

He holds himself a master's degree in public administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, from as recently as 2000.

If Calderón will indeed end up teaching at Harvard, one can safely assume that this will also entailing beefing up campus security.

Source:
Bajo Reserva. El Universal, Oct. 20, 2012

Calderon "blind" to torture, new Amnesty report

Amnesty International's new report on Mexico is tough reading for Mexico's president. In criticizing his administration's human rights policy, the report concludes,

The government of Felipe Calderón has prioritised public security and combating organize crime, but this has in effect resulted in turning a blind eye to widespread human right violations.

In particular, the human rights group criticizes the Calderón administration's passivity toward "endemic" torture carried out by security forces against detainees, which has increased drastically the past years.

See the press release here, and the report, in pdf form, here,

Source:
Known abusers, but victims ignored: Torture and ill-treatment in Mexico. Amnesty International, 2012

AMLO on violence

AMLO on violence:

I respect highly those who argue that only through armed force can one achieve the changes the country needs, but I do not share this. 

He also rejected to sit down for any talks with president-elect  Enrique Peña Nieto, and advised others to reject dialogue as well.

Noted.

Source:
AMLO rechaza vía armada para cambio. El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012

In Zapata's land, the left's first governor

It may be a small state - it is only beat by Tlaxcala in being Mexico's smallest, and less than 2 million reside there - but for the left, winning the state of Morelos was very important for many reasons beyond the obvious. There is for sure the historical backdrop: Morelos was the land of the great Emiliano Zapata, who launched his agrarian revolutionary movement from the state and died there after a 1919 ambush.

With the left's victory in Morelos, it also won a state it has never held before. The state had already seen alternation in power - PAN ran it from 2000 until recently, in two generally terrible administrations. It is now the left's turn to show it can do better.

A few days ago, Graco Ramírez Garrido Abreu, a veteran on the left and a PRD founder in 1989, finally assumed as governor. While he was at one point the man who recruited AMLO to the PRD - AMLO only ditched the PRI when he failed to become its Tabasco governor candidate - the relationship between "Graco," as he is often referred to, and AMLO is quite abysmal, especially since AMLO's hysterical mobilizations against an imagined privatization of PEMEX in 2008.

With Graco's call for dialogue with Mexico's soon-to-be president, Enrique Peña Nieto - repeated in his inauguration speech - it was hardly a surprise that AMLO did not show up. PRD founder Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas did.

First on his agenda seems to be to carry out what he often brought up during the campaign: A purge of the state's police forces, many of whom are generally regarded to be turning a blind eye, to say the least, to the drug "cartels" * in the state. Next, to "certify" a new force, which he promises to do by the end of 2012.

(Another point: The left governs Mexico City, Morelos, nearby Guerrero, Oaxaca, and finally Tabasco (AMLO loyalist  Arturo Núñez). The geographic concentration is notable in itself , but for governance and inter-state cooperation it may also be a boon. Expect some major pronunciations here soon).


Source:
Graco Ramírez plantea diálogo con Peña Nieto. El Universal, Oct. 2, 2012
Certificar policías este año, ofrece Graco. El Universal, Oct. 10, 2012

* I am happy to note The Economist's style change to put "cartels" in quotation marks. As the news publication duly notes, the murderous drug gangs are hardly price-fixing cartels, but bloody competitors. I think that's a pretty good compromise between keeping a flawed term that is nevertheless in very common use, yet still noting its incorrect usage.