40-year-anniversary of death of Mexico's greatest president: Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas calls for unity

In a commemoration of the the 40th anniversary for the death of his father, Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano called for the unity of left, democratic, and progressive forces. Flanked by Leonel Godoy, governor of the Cárdenas' home state Michoacán, and Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, the PRD founder declared:

"We are proposing the elaboration of a unifying proposal that contains the agreements of those who identify themselves as revolutionaries, democrats, and/or progressives... Let's put aside personal aspirations or aspirations of groups. Let us not complicate this task with electoral matters, for which time will come to make decisions."

Three quick comments, and a question:

1. As always, the issue is not so much who was there but who was not: AMLO.
2. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas denouncing personal ambitions? Boy, do you look black, teapot!
3. AMLO already proposed his "Alternative National Protect."
4. A unifying proposal  - who will be the unifying personality, ingeniero?

PRD takes Ley Peña to the Supreme Court.

The PRD yesterday presented their official case of complaint to the Mexican Supreme Court regarding the presumed unconstitutionality of "Ley Peña" or Enrique Peña Nieto's law, the hastily passed amendment to Mexico State's electoral law that directly seek to sabotage a broad multi-party alliance to compete against the PRI in next year's gubernatorial election. Most famously, the legislation prohibits parties from running a common candidate while maintaining separate legislative lists, and drastically reduces party funds and representation at the state electoral institute for electoral alliances.

PT and Convergencia also signed on to the complaint, though this should not be interpreted as if the parties had a change of heart regarding their opposition to joining an alliance that also includes the PAN. Rather, they are upset with the clauses where the parties, even if they end up only allying with with each other and the PRD, will equally lose funds as the coalition will "count as one" rather than assigning funds, media slots, etc to each individual party.

I am not sure how far they will come with this. The manner in which Peña Nieto rammed through the anti-alliance legislation was highly disrespectful of the democratic process and filled with irregularities. It exposed the Mexico State governor as an opportunistic Machiavellian who will do everything he can to have PRI successor elected to replace him, even if it means undermining democratic institutions and poisoning the political climate by riding roughshod over the opposition. Every step of the process was filled with irregularities, though whether they will "add up," of sorts, in order for the Supreme Court to declare the law unconstitutional, is a different matter. The fact that PAN didn't join them in doing so - at least not yet - may be a sign the PAN knows the case is far from waterproof legally speaking.

Regardless: Should the Supreme Court find the "Ley Peña" unconstitutional, and in time for it to affect the 2011 gubernatorial election, it will be a big blow against Peña Nieto.

Julio César Godoy Toscano is out of PRD. Guilty until proven innocent?

Godoy Toscano claimed he renounced from the PRD in order to avoid the party being a "scapegoat."  Yet it isclear the PRD leadership, first and foremost its national president Jesús Ortega, but also andresmanuelistas such as Alejandro Encinas, and, to be sure, Michoacán governor and half-brother of Godoy Toscano, Leonel Godoy, in unison demanded that the federal deputy leave the party, following the leak to the media of audio recordings where Godoy Toscano is apparently engaging in jovial conversation with a capo from the La Familia Michoacana gangster outfit.

How much the case has damaged the PRD is clearly far too early to tell, though I  take issue with the implications drawn from today's editorial in El Universal. Entited "The Naivety of the PRD," it argues,

"the PRD committed a very grave error in politics: To put their hands in the fire for a person whose incorruptibility was not guaranteed"

So because the PRD was not 100% sure of its innocence, it should not have backed Godoy's legal right to assume his seat as a federal deputy? This seems to me to turning the principle of presumption of innocence thoroughly on its head. Why on earth should the party not have backed the deputy until this point, when his corruptibility was far from guaranteed, not his incorruptibility? Following the release of the tapes, the PRD acted pretty swiftly to detach themselves from Godoy Toscano; to have done so earlier to me would have been to abdicate the very principle of presumption of innocence.

The "morally impossible" victory of the right: AMLO or Juárez?

Another note on AMLO: During his "Loyalty Tour," the PRD's 2006 presidential candidate  argued that "the triumph of reaction, as Juárez said, is morally impossible."

Like AMLO, I am also an admirer of Benito Juárez, and while I admit I am hardly an expert on this great Mexican president, I have never found the actual context where Juárez is supposed to have uttered this statement, which AMLO has repeated often in the past. And given AMLO's denunciation of institutions and refusal to accept near any loss, it is frankly more than a bit worrisome: Is also the electoral victory of the right deemed to be an impossibility?  That is, will AMLO reject say a PAN-PRD victory in 2011 using the same argument, that it is simply "morally impossible"?

Marcelo Ebrard: "Today is the beginning of the end of priísta governments in Mexico State"

La Jornada's front page exaggerated the issue a bit - "López Obrador and Ebrard collide over the State of Mexico" - though the appearance of both the current and the former head of Mexico City, both of whom are seeking their party's nomination for the 2012 presidential race, was certainly noteworthy.

In the first major appearance in what can only be regarded as the unofficial launch of his presidential campaign, in the Plaza de los Mártires, Ebrard  make a clear call for a common front to defeat the PRI in the upcomign gubernatorial elections in the state, and especially to avoid two candidates of the left, one backed by the PRD, and the other by AMLO: "All that divides [the left] will work in favor of Enrique Peña Nieto, adn all that unifies is will work in favor of the people." While he didn't mention PAN or AMLO by name, the references were quite obvious. Reportedly more than 25,000 people came out for the mass rally, which was also attended by key perredistas such as senators Carlos Navarrete, Graco Ramírez, and Héctor Bautista, the latter a likely PRD candidate for the governorship. Ebrard declared that "Today is the beginning of the end of priísta governments in Mexico State," and promised a government that would implement the the highly popular, and successful, social programs of his Mexico City administration, such as stipends to young adults, children, single mothers, people with disabilities, and senior citizens.

Luis Sánchez, head of PRD in Mexico State and a backer of a Ebrard and a PAN-PRD alliance, also said that the PRD will tomorrow head to the Supreme Court to formally launch a complaint against the recently passed "Ley Peña," which directly seeks to block a PAN-PRD alliance by forcing parties to also present common legislative lists.

AMLO also held meetings, as part of his Gira de lealtad or "Loyalty Tour" to protest the PRD's decision to allow electoral alliances with parties such as PAN, and continued to accuse the party of which he is still nominally a member of having made secret agreements with President Felipe Calderón. According to AMLO, the left - PRD, PT, and Convergencia - can defeat the PRI on their own, as AMLO admittedly did in Mexico State in 2006, though he neglected to add that while 2006 was a presidential election, the year before, PRD's  2005 gubernatorial candidate, which AMLO had handpicked and campaigned heavily for,  came in a disappointing third.

PRI bigshot suggests "truce" with the narcos

Manuel "El Meme" Garza is no insignificant name within the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The former mayor of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, has been secretary general several times of the PRI, the party in which he has spent more than half a century. He has remained an important operador político, a political fixer, until the present. It therefore is quite notable that Garza recently called for called for a truce, of sorts, with the drug lords, though he adds "in order to catch breath, and later give them a final kick." This disclaimer notwithstanding, it is still noteworthy that a PRI bigshot calls for negotiations with the drug gang. The bigger question, of course, is: How representative is he of the party in general?

AMLO: Ebrard has "every right to be in favor of alliance" - but it is "treason," mind you

It is getting harder for AMLO to maintain his very sharp rejection of a PAN-PRD in Mexico State and elsewhere, while not directly engaging in warfare with Mexico City Chief of Government Marcelo Ebrard. Recently, the wording has become increasingly, well,  acrobatic:

"The Chief of Government is entirely in his right to declare himself in favor of an alliance, but I already made my position clear, and that it is a treason to the principles of the Left."

How does one square that semantic circle? One the one hand it is legitimate to support the alliances, yet on the other it is treason?


On the subject of word gymnastics, there is more. In a rally in Ixtapan de la Sal, south in Mexico State, one of the attendees asked him the very fair question why an alliance was OK in Oaxaca, but not in Mexico State. (In Oaxaca, to recall, AMLO kept his mouth shut even though PAN was part of the opposition alliance behind Gabino Cué). His answer:

"The conditions were different. I disagreed; I made a tour of all municipalities, and in Oaxaca there was the reason of the governor, it was something special, so then here in Mexico State, less so. We won't be impressed here."

What is one to make of this? One the one hand, it was OK to go against Ruiz (then why not Peña Nieto?), as things were different there (how?), but he was still against it, for the record. 
AMLO's verbal gymnastics simply cannot cover up for the intrinsic contradictions of this and other stands:


* He want's Peña Nieto out, but will even launch his own candidate against a PAN-PRD alliance, which will clearly destroy any chances of the left, and AMLO, to win in Mexico State/
* He argues that PAN and PRI are all the same - yet why then would it be such a disaster should the PRI return to Los Pinos, if there aren't really any differences between them?


Don't expect these contradictions to be resolved any time soon.