IFE and TEPJ at loggerheads over a crucial issue: What is illegal propaganda vs. what is an "interview"?

The Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) is well aware that something needs to be done to avoid a "perfect storm" ahead of 2012. Specifically, IFE is calling for a new electoral reform to decide, once and for all, what amounts to freely exercising journalism and the free flow of information through interviews with candidates, and what amounts to outright abuse of this mechanism, where "interviews" are merely thinly disguised propaganda for a candidate. The obvious case of Enrique Peña Nieto stands out here: The Mexico State governor continues to flaunt electoral laws such as the prohibition of propaganda by public officials by agreeing to a plethora of "interviews" that only serve to boast of his supposed achievements and drum up support for the  PRI. Yet many of the members of IFE's general council do not agree with TEPJF's recent decision on where to draw the line. 


(This is related to, but not identical, to the recent clampdown on president Felipe Calderón by the TEPJF, where the federal electoral tribunal deemed Calderón to have broken electoral as well as constitutional law by his "announcements" ahead of recent electoral contests).


Put simply, the TEPJF declared that a PAN candidate in Tabasco and his party, as well as the radio station, should be sanctioned for breaking electoral law, as the candidate held a total of nine interviews with the radio station. This was found to be excessive, and as a result both TEPJF and the radio station will be sanctioned in one way or another. 


But clearly we have many competing ideals here, as IFE is well aware of. 
- To what degree do interviews (radio, tv, newspapers, etc) extend to electoral propaganda?
- What is the difference between performing a public service - the free flow of information - and doing propaganda for a candidate?
- Is there a maximum limits for interviews? (nine? eight? five?)
- Should journalists, already under enormous pressures in Mexico, also work under the threat of possibly being sanctioned while merely doing their job of informing?


The burden here clearly falls on the IFE to draw the line, and the electoral institute is not all too happy of this enormous extension of its sphere of operation that the TEPJF's decision in practice entails for the IFE. 


To recall, the 2007-2008 reform set strict limits on political campaigning, such as granting parties a set amount of time/resources for electoral propaganda, yet banning the parties (and, to be sure, other actors such as business, NGSOs, the church, etc) from paying for further political advertising. 

Yet where does one draw the line between what is carrying out the crucial duty of political reporting, versus actively campaigning for a party through phony/paid "interviews"?
There is hardly an easy answer, but it is in my view of utmost importance that this line is clearly drawn ahead of 2012.


And may I also add: Mexico's neighbor to the north could very well use a revamping of its own electoral and media laws: Should Fox "News" really be allowed to operate as such when it  is not only acting as a propaganda arm for the Republican party and the nativist fringe "Tea Party" organizations,  but its owners even donate money to the party it is supposed to cover objectively as a news organization?

Senator Gustavo Madero as PAN party president would signal continuity

Gustavo Madero, head of PAN's senate group, announced he would leave his current position in order to compete for the presidency of PAN, given that César Nava will not run for reeelection.

Madero is a very strong candidate for the position, and given his earlier support for the PAN-PRD alliances, his eventual party presidency will signal continuity.

PAN wisely chooses their presidency by a majority vote of its National Council, avoiding - as has happened on every single occasion - acrimonious and devastating mass elections by the party base membership, such as the case of the PRD.

On the subject of money laundering: When will the United States do its part?

Calderón's belated initiative to counter money laundering through limitations on cash limits is laudable, but again, the key may lie on the U.S. side, where most of the money is being made in the first place. 

As Martin Woods, formerly of Wachovia, put it: "“If you don’t see the correlation between the money laundering by banks and the 22,000 people killed in Mexico, you’re missing the point."
Woods is referrring to anks like Wachovia, for which he headed a anti-money-laundering unit 2006-2009, but quit in disgust when it became clear that his bosses didn't like what he found: That drug gangs were using the bank to funnel billions to Mexico. 

Why not indict the bastards? That's the tricky part: According to an excellent investigation by Bloomberg a few weeks back,

"No big U.S. bank... has ever been indicted for violating the Bank Secrecy Act or any other federal law. Instead, the Justice Department settles criminal charges by using deferred-prosecution agreements, in which a bank pays a fine and promises not to break the law again.‘No Capacity to Regulate’Large banks are protected from indictments by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory.Indicting a big bank could trigger a mad dash by investors to dump shares and cause panic in financial markets, says Jack Blum, a U.S. Senate investigator for 14 years and a consultant to international banks and brokerage firms on money laundering."

The United States, then, in addition to being responsible for much of the drug consumption that fuels Mexico's "drug war," and of putting in place very few obstacles to selling the assault rifles and guns used to kill Mexican police, civilians, and drug rivals, for fear out of financial panic blocks a full indictment of the criminal wrongdoings of big banks such as Wachovia, meekly asking them pay merely a small fine and to promise not to do it again...

It has often been noted that the key to win Mexico's "drug war" is found in the United States and its policies, and the absurd banking laws of the latter country only throws more fuel on that argument.

Calderón's money laundering initiative could be hugely important, but why now?

President Felipe Calderón's recent initiative to counter money laundering, which includes a ban on using cash for real estate transaction or  spending more than 100,000 pesos in other transactions, if passed, may be hugely important. Given the support of both governor Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI and Mexico City chief of government Marcelo Ebrard of the PRD, it does stand a great chance of being made into law by congress.

Yet I cannot help but wonder: Why on earth did it take Calderón more than three years to come up with this initiative? Anyone who has lived or visited Mexico will know that cash remains king; indeed, according to Washington Post, 3/4 of all commercial transactions are done with cash in Mexico, compared with only 20 percent in the United States. As such, as measures to counter money-smuggling from the United States to Mexico are of little value - the WP article expands on the  subject of money smuggling, and  reports that only about an estimated 1 percent of southbound cash is actually detected -  this may be one of the most important legislative initiatives taken in Calderón's "war on drugs."

Yet why so long in coming? Put differently, what interests have been blocking this fairly obvious initiative for such a long time? PRD senators Tomás Torres and Minerva Hernández, while supporting the initiative, pointedly noted that one similarly important money laundering initiate has long been in the works in the senate, but that PRI blocked it in the last minute. Why? One is entitled to one's own conclusions.

IFE confirms: No penalty for the president for breaching law

Despite the resolution by the TEPJF, Mexico's electoral tribunal, that president Calderón broke constitutional and electoral law by his "public announcements" ahead of this summer's state elections, the Federal Electoral Institute confirmed that the president will not face any sanction, for the simple fact that no such penalty is contemplated for what are defined as "electoral crimes" by the executive power. 


Expect a legislative push soon to change this legal absurdity. 


President of the PRD, Jesús Ortega, noted congress should reform the law to end this "guaranteed impunity." (For tis part, IFE itself, said council president Leonardo Valdés, has been pushing for an overhaul of this aspect of the law since 2008).
This sounds very reasonable. While the 2007 electoral law made it illegal to publish government propaganda ahead of electoral contests, leaving out any specific penalties only undermines the respect not for this particular electoral prohibition, but for law in general.

Picture of the day, front page on La Jornada: "So that Sandoval can see these"

Mexico City mayor Marcelo Ebrard, passing by a stand at a food industry fair, couldn't resist the temptation when he saw a pack of eggs: He lifted up the huevos (functionally equivalent to cojones), joking, "So that Sandoval can see them."

(Front page picture in La Jornada here)


The joke aside, it appears the church is backtracking somewhat from its very strident language and belligerent postures; church spokesman Hugo Valdemar, a sheep in a rabid wolf's clothing if there ever was one, recently declared Ebrard would not be expelled from the church. Ebrard had threatened, should this happen, to take his case to the Vatican. 


Even Juan Sandoval, cardinal of Guadalajara and a main protagonist in the church-Ebrard confrontation, has toned down his rhetoric. 


Sandoval has over the years many times been exposed as a coward: He barks loudly, but as soon as anyone stands up to him, this clerical equivalent of the schoolyard bully tends to back down. It could simply be that as a judge accepted the slander suit launched by Ebrard, Sandoval realizes that Ebrard is not intimidated.


Yet I am suspecting that what may be an attempt by the church to calm the rhetoric is also the product of having realized they may have stumbled into a trap set up by themselves, where the spat with the church, which has appeared extremely intolerant, may strike a chord with voters, most of who may remain catholic but also quite anti-clerical. The Ebrard-church confrontation, finally, has also helped raise Ebrard's international profile, as the international press has given the conflict much attention.  


He went into this battle swinging, and may well come out on top. 

Electoral tribunal: Calderón violated constitutional and electoral law.

The TEPJF,  Mexico's highest electoral court, declared that Calderón broke both constitutional and electoral law by publicizing the "achievements" of his government ahead of the recent state elections, in a period where no government publicity-propaganda is allowed. 

Even though former president Vicente Fox was criticized by the TEPJF, for blatantly interfering in the 2006 election through the same kind of acts president Felipe Calderón has apparently learned little from his predecessor. And, as in the case of Fox, he will not be sanctioned, as electoral law still does not stipulate any clear mechanism to punish public servants who engage in these actions. 

Clearly, much remains to be done with the COFIPE, or the federal law regulating elections, in a future electoral reform.