Enrique Peña Nieto: Hypocrisy 101

From at least January 2010, and up until the present: Peña Nieto attacks "lamentable and perverse" alliances between the PRD and PAN, due to the ignoring of their basic ideological differences: How can they ignore how ideology matters!

Yesterday: Peña Nieto now wants less ideology and more pragmatism: Referring to countries such as Brazil and Chile,

"They have had an ability to see the future with pragmatism, while Latin American countries have opted for or have wanted to look backwards or to find in ideologies the solutions to their problems."

If the PRD-PAN alliance in Mexico state, which Peña Nieto has done all in his power to block, are not the foremost example of putting electoral pragmatism to win a key goal- blocking a PRI win in the state - ahead of their own ideological differences - which obviously exist - then what is? 

Manlio Fabio Beltrones still in ring for the PRI 2012 nomination

Manlio Fabio Beltrones Rivera is one of PRI's most cunning cadres, and has far from given up his own presidential ambitions. The PRI Senator, denying that he is self-promoting his candidacy for the presidency, recently launched a video on youtube that is clearly promoting... well, his presidential candidacy. Beltrones denies it. You be the judge.

De-homofy thyself! Jalisco does it again: State sponsors "gay conversion" events

Raúl Vargas, local deputy for the PRD in Jalisco, is denouncing the state administration and secretary of state Fernando Guzmán Pérez Peláez for embezzlement. Why? Because the secretariat he heads is sponsoring the event Camino a la Castidad - yes indeed, the "Path Toward Chastity," which has as "motivational speakers" characters such as Paul Check of "Courage International" and Richard Cohen, an "ex-gay" and guru of "conversion therapy," which purports to convert gays through prayer and meditation. 


By sponsoring the event, the state government secretariat is not only embezzling tax payers' money, who given Jalisco's many social problems would most likely rather have their money spent on police, schools, and hospitals rather than this idiocy; it is also fomenting discrimination of gays and, of course, utterly violating the separation between church and state. Richard Cohen is a psychotic charlatan who is, among others, linked to the 2009 Anti-Homosexuality Bill of Uganda, or "Kill Gays bill" as it was quickly known. Now, the state government of Emilio González Márquez, is giving these hate mongers an additional platform - and  yet again making the state the laughingstock of Mexico. 


Poor Mexican gays, so far from god, and so close to Jalisco.

PAN nervous about losing Guanajuato

Prominent panistas are seeking to assure that there is no danger of a split in the PAN guanajuatense, following the firing of Gerardo Mosqueda Martínez from the state administration of Juan Manuel Oliva Ramírez. National party President César Nava, who is holding a very low profile these days and will step down in a few weeks as PAN leader, broke his recent silence by declaring simply that "In Guanajuato the heard of  horses is large, how great, this is not a problem at all." Yet it certainly is: Mosqueda Martínez is not even a PAN member, represents the most reactionary wing of the PAN, and is loathed by prominent panistas that include the head of the state party branch, who already declared he would not vote for him.

Even former President Vicente Fox, who hails from Guanajuato and governed the state 1995-199, at the opening of a local PAN headquarter in León called for unity, "because we cannot let go of the governorship nor of the  Presidency." The growing Guanajuato schism between PAN and the catholic extremists of El Yunque may tear the party apart, and not only in this state.

Alfredo del Mazo Maza, Peña Nieto's Doppelgänger

Milenio published an interview with Alfredo del Mazo Maza , mayor of Huixquilucan de Degollado in Mexico State since 2009, and before that secretary of tourism in Enrique Peña Nieto's government of Mexico State.


Alfredo del Mazo Maza has long been mentioned as Peña Nieto's anointed heir to succeed him as governor of Mexico State, and is many ways a carbon copy of the governor: He is young (35), relatively telegenic, and, most importantly, a third-generation del Mazo, the scion of a political dynasty: both his father and grandfather were governors of Mexico State. 


Regardless, the Milenio story doesn't exactly reveal any new information, and del Mazo engages in the usual platitudes of PRIspeak, though a few comments are telling:

"In the interview, Alfredo del Mazo Mazo practically has the same tone of voice as Peña Nieto, and even his hand movements are similar to those of the head of Mexico State:"

The team that trained Gelboy has trained him equally well: My money is on del Mazo Maza.

Two candidates register to contend for PAN's presidency: One point left out

Gustavo Madero and Cecilia Romero yesterday registered officially to contend for the PAN presidency. The former is a current national senator, and his appearance was a tour de force in that he arrived with a posse of more than 100 prominent supporters, including seventeen PAN senators, and the "moral leader" of the party, Luis H. Álvarez. The latter was until recently head of the INM, the national migration institute, until she was finally fired from her post due to incompetency and failure to curb corruption and abuses in her agency - accusations that harks back years, but was impossible to ignore following the murder of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas. Romero, however, rather than keeping a low profile is heading for an even bigger prize, the PAN presidency. Also of note: She is also a hardcore opponent of any state-level electoral alliance with the PRD.

Two points: 

1) What neither La Jornada nor Milenio mention in their coverage is that Romero is a close ally of the most ultra-right elements of PAN, and is moreover part of El Yunque, an extremist catholic secret society. 

2) The fact that Madero felt compelled to display such a show of force is to me an indication that her candidacy is taken seriously by the more moderate elements in PAN represented by Madero.

As is well known in particularly U.S. politics, displaying incompetence, ideological extremism, or utter stupidity was never a hindrance for postulating for public office; on the contrary, as can be well observed these days, it may even be a plus. The same goes for Cecilia Romero. 

A few points regarding the PRD's level of party institutionalization

Students of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), Mexico's only serious leftwing party, tend to coincide on a few things: The party is not "institutionalized," in political science jargon, in that it has not a strong and firm party organization, it does not speak with one relatively common and consistent voice, it does not have clear established and respected internal rules for creating programs, recruiting candidates, and party leaders, and is in general involved in much internal and external turmoil. My main point has long been that the party cannot make up its mind whether to be a partido-moviemiento, or a movement-party of the personalistic kind, or a regular, more traditional party type, and to try to explain why this is so. A visual image might help here: To "storm" the congress dais and block the streets, or to work for gradual reform in congress.

Another clear indicator of whether a party has achieved or is moving toward institutionalization is the relationship it has with its party founder(s): Does the party continue to appear a mere appendage of the founder(s)'s ideas, program, or, to be sure, presidential candidacy? Or, has the party transcended its first leaders in that it does not merely follow his dictates, but has an autonomous program and leadership independent of him ? (thus far, invariably "him" and not "her").

I do not argue that the PRD today is an institutionalized party; its vicious infighting over the candidacy of AMLO vs. Ebrard, which the Mexico State 2011 election is but a mere proxy for, is a telling point here.
But: I do want to make note of one thing. Both Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the PRD's founder and 3-times presidential candidate, and Andrés Manuel Lópes Obrador, his hijo político and 2006 presidential candidate, are both rejecting the PRD-PAN alliance in Mexico State. However, the party leadership, under Jésus Ortega, is still following their own line. Ortega dixit: "One will keep in mind these opinions, but the strategy is to continue with the alliances."

In other words, whatever one thinks of the wisdom of the PAN-PRD alliances, I think it is an extremely healthy sign that the PRD is clearly demonstrating that it is no longer blindly following the dictates of AMLO or Cárdenas. I can think of no other PRD leader who has demonstrated a greater degree of autonomy than Jésus Ortega. While merely one step in a (very) long and larger process of party institutionalization, for the PRD's development this is nonetheless quite a leap forward.