CSIS Mexico election analysis by George Grayson below par

One may forgive a couple of the inaccuracies in the most recent publication from the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) on Mexico, "Hemisphere Focus: Mexico's 2011 Gubernatorial Elections and their Impact on Drug Policy," such as naming PRD's Alejandro Encinas a "Senator" (he is a national deputy) and Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo the party's "leader in the Chamber of Deputies" - that is actually Encinas' job.

Yet where author George Grayson  - a senior scholar on Mexico, yet one who has grown ever more stridently nationalistic, ideological, and contemptuous of the object of his study throughout the years  - truly confounds me is his assertion that in Guerrero, which is holding gubernatorial elections this Sunday,

"The outcome will be a win-win situation for the PRI and Enrique Peña Nieto, who has ties to both top contenders."

Come again? Yes, while it is true Peña Nieto has ties to Aguirre, this is one of the most fought-over elections in recent history, and the Mexico State governor has invested a ton of time and resources behind the Añorve candidacy. A loss for Añorve would be an absolutely brutal blow to both PRI and Peña Nieto, in my opinion.  I really don't get how Grayson (a man whose own biographical entry refers to him as "Mr. Mexico," and who has done "more than 1,000 research trips" to Mexico) can see it otherwise, and certainly not as a "win-win" situtation.

Oaxaca to plant 30 million trees. Gabino Cué delivers.

Via The Mexico Institute, here's finally some English-language of Oaxaca's progressive governor Gabino Cué, published in the Miami Herald:

"There were no computers," he recalled. "We found that the staff payroll didn't match who actually was working. ... The bank statements were out of balance. The state automotive fleet was in terrible shape."On his way out the door, outgoing PRI Gov. Ulises Ruiz installed dozens of loyalists in state jobs with union protection even though they had no jobs to perform, Cue said. Ruiz also offered gifts to key allies, among them the head of the state electoral commission, for unexplained "services rendered."

On the topic of Cué, whose government so far has seem notably intent on delivering on his campaign promises, the governor launched the state's Comité Estatal de Prevención y Combate de Incendios Forestales, or committee to prevent and fight forest fires, and declared that Oaxaca would plant 10 million trees in 2011 - Cué attributed the low figure to unexpected adminsitrative difficulties (see above) - yet that a notable 30 million trees would be planted in 2012. Change to believe in? Hopefully these news will be picked up in English-language media; the state-level initiatives to combat deforestation remains an untold tale (and something I hope to work on the coming fall).

Don Samuel Ruíz, continued

Another excellent obituary of Don Samuel Ruíz Garcia, entitled, "The Inconvenient Bishop," by Salvador García Soto of El Universal:

"Inconvenient to the Mexican Catholic curia, with whom he disagreed in order to lead a life not full of luxury or excess, like most bishops, but by opting for the disadvantaged and not the rich and powerful, to which almost all the Catholic leader are so inclineds. Also uncomfortable to the Vatican and the Roman curia, who tried and was about to remove him from the diocese of San Cristobal in 1993, when Girolamo Prigione, in his crusade against the "rebel or social" bishops, " he poisoned the hierarchies of Roma, who opened a trial and accused him of "excessive politicization."

As the Vatican rushes to lavish praise on  Samuel Ruíz, let's not forget that the upper clergy, in particular in Mexico, absolutely loathed him. What a badge of honor

Guerrero elections: PAN candidate declines in favor of Ángel Aguirre Rivero,

Some notable news from Guerrero: PAN gubernatorial candidate Marcos Efrén Parra announced that he would decline in favor of the left coalition candidate Ángel Aguirre Rivero, who most polls have ahead PRI-candidate Manuel Añorve Baños. I am not sure that this is an automatic gain for Aguirre - polls had Aguirre at the exact same percentage, 51 percent to 43, even if Parra would decline. But clearly, for Aguirre and the PRD-PT-Convergencia coalition, this is welcome news.
And I don't think it was merely a "personal decision" of Parra - even though his action was ostensibly due to Aguirre's incorporation of several of his proposals - a migrants institute, and a bank for women - into his platform.

Don Samuel Ruíz: The "miracle" is that he lived to die of natural causes at 86

Don Samuel Ruíz: A wonderful and thoughtful obituary, of sorts, by Laura Carlsen of the CIP Americas Program, that also touches on a most uncomfortable truth, given the onslaught of popes John Paul II and Benedixt XVI on liberation theology and the progressive gains of the Vatican II, of which Samuel Ruíz was a participant: With the most honorable exception of Raul Vera, bishop of Saltillo, Coahuila, how many of the progressive catholics remain in the upper echelons of the church? To me it seems sadly to be very few, given its rightward turn the past two decades or so.

The first "shocker" of 2011: Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas does not rule out 2012 bid

It's been argued before: Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, three-time presidential candidate and founder of the PRD, will never bury his ambitions of making himself or his son president of Mexico. He is currently achieving quite a bit of publicity in relation with promoting his new book (which will be reviewed when I get to the other 17 books ahead of it in the stack), and let it be known that he does not rule out a fourth presidential bid. By all means: He is in every right to do so. It is also in every PRD members right to point out, "Thanks, but you had your chance, you had a second chance, you had a third chance, ya basta."

Cárdenas also ended up on the front page of El Universal a few days back with a scathing critique of PRD, which he claimed "not even a miracle could unify" - not even a possible party presidency of his son Lázaro - and he offered a range of critiques of the party's (lack of) organization, its many internal fights, and so on.

While many of the critiques are quite right on target, it begs the question: Why now? Why now, ahead of an ultra-important election for the PRD in Guerrero, with others to come, and as the PRD in Mexico state is making at least some small steps toward reconciliation with the likely Alejandro Encinas candidacy - why did he find it fruitful to launch a full barrage of criticism against the party at this juncture? Many key perredistas as well were clearly unhappy with this onslaught, such as Jesús Zambrano, who retorted that "from above one doesn't always see that clearly how the PRD looks inside," while secretary general Hortensia Aragón suggested he come and take a look at the very real process of organization taking place in the party, which Cárdenas is so dismissive of.  His charge that not even "saints" could unify the PRD, given his still important clout in the party, may even take the form of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

(El Univeral, in this regard, offered a most laudable editorial on the importance of a strong and unified PRD in Mexico)

Cárdenas at the very least seems to be coming to terms that the PRD, as has long been argued, is divided principally in two main blocks or poles, a topic as well of recent scholarly attention.

Yet as always, the criticism seems to me to be chiefly motitaved by his complaint that, in his words, "no one in the PRD listens to my criticism." One the one hand, CC has always rejected that he acted as a caudillo within the party, demanding the final word even if he no longer had official leadership positions, and that he was the party's "moral leader." Yet on the other, when all is said and done, he still expects the party to take his opinions as gospel.

"New" PAN-PRD alliance: Hidalgo

While PAN and PRD allied for the 2010 gubernatorial election in Hidalgo, which their candidate Xóchitl Gálvez are still fighting in court, what is notable about their new alliance is that in 2011 there are no gubernatorial elections in the state, though the heads of 84 municipalities will be elected. Yesterday it was reported that the Hidalgo branch of PAN had unanimously voted in favor of an alliance with PRD in this election as well - as far as I gather, the first time such an alliance has come into being when what is at stake is only municipal elections, and not gubernatorial elections.