Ortega until 2011?

Ebrard and a range of governors are pushing for PRD President Jesús Ortega to stay on until August 2011, when the last round of state elections ends before the 2012 presidential election. 


Before the andresmanualistas and bejaranistas start howling "¡Continuismo! it is worth recalling that while Ortega's 3-year tenure was supposed to start in March 2008, when he won the internal PRD elections, this heavily disputed and dirty election was not settled until November 2008 by the courts.  It therefore makes quite sense that he would serve for the period for which he actually was elected.  


A bit more from La Jornada here. 

New "social democratic" party in DF

Senator René Arce, aware that his chances of becoming the PRD's mayoral candidate in Mexico City evaporated after the Iztapalapa debacle in 2009, has now declared he will form a new party. Arce's claims that the new party will "not be founded on populism, the returning of favors and clientelism" rings rather hollow given his group's resorting to these very same mechanism's in their former stronghold of Iztapalapa. 


The new party, which apparently will attract a range of former perredistas and members of the now-extint Partido Socialdemócrata, will nonetheless likely serve to hurt the PRD's chances of retaining Mexico City. 

When the shoe is on the other foot: PAN government impugns IFE

Here's a first: For the first time since the IFE's creation, the Federal government takes IFE to court (the TEPJF) for its recent resolution on President Felipe Calderón's electoral interference. (IFE decided Calderón had violated the constitution  by proselytizing ahead of the July 4 elections).

The Yunque Strikes Back

The courageous, intrepid reporter Lydia Cacho just held an interesting chat in El Universal. 


Her Monday column in El Universal  is very well worth looking at as it details the gruesome policies of the ultraconservative Guanajuato government of Juan Manuel Oliva.


Her latest book, Esclavas del Poder, deals with the victims of human trafficking. I only read an excerpt in Proceso but it appears a crucial read on this topic.


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Where are the Mexican philanthropists?

Yet another great article from ITAM's Denise Dresser in this weeks's Proceso. 

If important people like Oprah Winfrey, Eli Broad, Ted Turner, David Rockefeller, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, John Doerr and  Pete Peterson –among others– are ready to consider and assume the challenge of giving away half of their net worth, where are Carlos Slim, Jorge Larrea, Emilio Azcárraga, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, and other comparable Mexican  multimillionaires?

Presidential interference during election time: Pending business for electoral reform

President Calderón was deemed  by the Federal Electoral Institute to have interfered unduly in the recent election and directly having violated electoral law through broadcasting "electoral propaganda" in TV channels. This brings to mind sour memories regarding Vicente Fox´s brazenly illegal interference in the 2006 election. 


(read Luis Carlos Ugalde´s 2008 Así lo viví for a great rundown).


Yet just like with Fox in 2006, IFE also declared it is powerless to sanction Calderón, as the president enjoys virtual "immunity." Yet another pending issue of electoral reform. 


More info from El Universal and La Jornada on the topic. 

Will AMLO leave the PRD Sunday? Todos al Zócalo

Much speculation regarding whether AMLO will finally announce his departure from the PRD on Sunday, when he will hold a rally in the Zócalo in Mexico City. He has recently sent signals that this is imminent. Given the fact that he also practically refused to campaign for the PRD in 2009 and as well in the recent elections of July 4, it should hardly be a surprise.
Sadly, it also speaks volumes of AMLO. After his favored candidate Alejandro Encinas lost the election to become party president, rather than to accept the insitutionalized leadership of the PRD, led by Jesús Ortega, AMLO chose to dismiss the party, which appeared bent on keeping its word regarding who will be its presidential candidate in 2012 - AMLO earlier agreed that it would be whoever was ahead in the polls. As the PRD leadership recently reiterated this, rather than falling in line behind AMLO, he may finally leave it all together.
(PT and Convergencia, two utterly opportunistic parties devoid of any ideology or programmatic consistency,  also reiterated this promise, but I am hardly holding my breath here). 

I will certainly head to the Zócalo Sunday in any case to "gauge the mood..."