Sunday, July 3, 2011
Nayarit elections: Can PRI be beat?
Here's a nice graphic from Milenio regarding the Nayarit elections. What is being elected: Governor, 30 local deputies, and 20 municipal heads. The 2011 results should be out later today at the home page of the Nayarit Electoral Insittute, IEEN.
Narcopolitics: The case of Hidalgo
In yesterday's El Universal, former gubernatorial candidate Xóchitl Gálvez revealed that the narcos offered to support her campaign with 50 million pesos, an offered she refused, but didn't report out of fear for her family.
Today Hidalgo is having another election - this time for head of the state's 84 municipalities - and Los Zetas are arguably backing candidates in particularly the Huasteca region, a Zeta stronghold.
Thanks to a 2009 electoral reform that aimed at streamlining the state elections - elections for governors at the same time as municipal elections - the new municipal heads will serve five and a half years.
Quite a prize.
Today Hidalgo is having another election - this time for head of the state's 84 municipalities - and Los Zetas are arguably backing candidates in particularly the Huasteca region, a Zeta stronghold.
Thanks to a 2009 electoral reform that aimed at streamlining the state elections - elections for governors at the same time as municipal elections - the new municipal heads will serve five and a half years.
Quite a prize.
The cost of every single vote in Mexico State? About 60 dollars
This is a quite stunning fact: According to Coparmex, a rough estimated cost of each vote in Mexico State today - including organizing the elections, party funding, etc - will be a whopping $60 - U.S. dollars, that is.
Total cost of the election: 3.6 billion Mexican pesos.
That's about a 100 percent increase from the last elections in 2005. And irony of ironies: The electoral code was modified in 2008 with the explicit purpose of reducing the cost of elections.
Keep in mind that this figure does not include any extra-official - illegal - resources spent on the election. The PRD and PAN have accused and denounced PRI of showering state money on their candidate, and surpassing any legal spending limit.
Total cost of the election: 3.6 billion Mexican pesos.
That's about a 100 percent increase from the last elections in 2005. And irony of ironies: The electoral code was modified in 2008 with the explicit purpose of reducing the cost of elections.
Keep in mind that this figure does not include any extra-official - illegal - resources spent on the election. The PRD and PAN have accused and denounced PRI of showering state money on their candidate, and surpassing any legal spending limit.
Electoral Tribunal orders Ministry of Interior to sanction Hugo Valdemar
Mexico's electoral tribunal, Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF), ordered Mexico's interior ministry to stop dragging its feet and to sanction the Mexican Archdiocese and its venal spokesperson Hugo Valdemar, for violating Mexican law by calling on Mexicans note to vote for the PRD.
The case has been thrown back and forth between IFE and the Ministry, so one should perhaps not hold one's breath for a decision any time soon, but the TEPJF order is nonetheless a direct one.
Of note as well: TEPJF ruled as well that the responsible is not merely Valdemar, but also the Archdiocese, given that he has uttered his many anti-PRD opinions on church ground, and as a representative of the church.
The case has been thrown back and forth between IFE and the Ministry, so one should perhaps not hold one's breath for a decision any time soon, but the TEPJF order is nonetheless a direct one.
Of note as well: TEPJF ruled as well that the responsible is not merely Valdemar, but also the Archdiocese, given that he has uttered his many anti-PRD opinions on church ground, and as a representative of the church.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Judge Édgar Elías Azar defends decision to ratify Héctor Palomares
The head of Mexico City's highest electoral tribunal TSJDF, Édgar Elías Azar, went strongly on the offensive defending not only Judge Héctor Palomares Medina, who got so severely discredited in the documentary Presunto Culpable / Presumed Guilty, and he also attacked the movie itself as "an edited move, mutilated, manipulated; this movie does not correspond with reality."
Flanked by his fellow TSJDF judges, Elías said this was the last time he'll ever speak on that topic - "ask all you want, but starting torday... the case is closed."
And:
"Judges are not alone, and the judiciary is not subject to any pressures of any kind."
He seems right on both counts.
From the movie makers: "We almost can't believe it," Presumed Guilty director Roberto Hernandez told Radio Formula. "We think it's a very bad decision."
Flanked by his fellow TSJDF judges, Elías said this was the last time he'll ever speak on that topic - "ask all you want, but starting torday... the case is closed."
And:
"Judges are not alone, and the judiciary is not subject to any pressures of any kind."
He seems right on both counts.
From the movie makers: "We almost can't believe it," Presumed Guilty director Roberto Hernandez told Radio Formula. "We think it's a very bad decision."
PANAL's leadership succession, worthy of North Korea - or Cuba
Absolutely pathetic: Elba Esther Gordillo installs her former personal secretary Luis Castro Obregón as new head of PANAL, and makes her daughter Mónica Arriola Gordillo the party's new secretary general.
And for good measure: Party delegates could vote for any new leadership option they liked, as long as it was the Obregón-Arriola list, as it was the only option available.
The Partido Nueva Alianza has today, according to its outgoing leader Jorge Kahwagi Macari, 64 local deputies, 407 councilors and 34 mayors.
Not bad for a party founded by and for Gordillo's teacher union.
And for good measure: Party delegates could vote for any new leadership option they liked, as long as it was the Obregón-Arriola list, as it was the only option available.
The Partido Nueva Alianza has today, according to its outgoing leader Jorge Kahwagi Macari, 64 local deputies, 407 councilors and 34 mayors.
Not bad for a party founded by and for Gordillo's teacher union.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Mexico City: Legislature tweaks law to block caudillista parties in Mexico City
The Mexico City legislature, Asamblea Legislativa del Distrito Federal (ALDF), approved yesterday a change in its electoral code that, if not deemed unconstitutional, is of great importance to the political scene in Mexico City.
Earlier, the ALDF passed a law stipulating that a new party would require a membership of 2 percent of the official voting list in every delegation in order to be able to register as a new party; the Supreme Court found this to be too restrictive, and rejected it.
Now, rather, according to the revised law passed, any new party will need 1.8 percent support of those listed on the official voter registry, spread over 30 of the 40 electoral districts in the Federal District. This is hardly too restrictive, and hopefully the Supreme Court will not overturn this as well.
Why does it matter? Why keep any limitations at all on the formation of new parties? While cynics might point exclusively to the interests of existing parties, who would not want new competitors, there is a very valid reason to avoid a rush of new parties: Within some delegations in Mexico City, old-style caudillos, using tons of clientelistic resources, have built up their own power bases, which given the population of Mexico City is enough to create new and highly personalistic mini-party. These are likely to be all about political opportunism and nothing about any programmatic content, offering "their" voters to the highest bidder.
By requiring that you need a certain level of support beyond the possible fiefdom of, say, Iztapalapa, the ALDF took an important step towards not only limiting political fragmentation, but also toward limiting the formation of highly clientelist electoral groupings rallying essentially behind one strongman-woman's personalistic agenda.
René Arce will not have, it seems, the personal party he dreamed of.
Earlier, the ALDF passed a law stipulating that a new party would require a membership of 2 percent of the official voting list in every delegation in order to be able to register as a new party; the Supreme Court found this to be too restrictive, and rejected it.
Now, rather, according to the revised law passed, any new party will need 1.8 percent support of those listed on the official voter registry, spread over 30 of the 40 electoral districts in the Federal District. This is hardly too restrictive, and hopefully the Supreme Court will not overturn this as well.
Why does it matter? Why keep any limitations at all on the formation of new parties? While cynics might point exclusively to the interests of existing parties, who would not want new competitors, there is a very valid reason to avoid a rush of new parties: Within some delegations in Mexico City, old-style caudillos, using tons of clientelistic resources, have built up their own power bases, which given the population of Mexico City is enough to create new and highly personalistic mini-party. These are likely to be all about political opportunism and nothing about any programmatic content, offering "their" voters to the highest bidder.
By requiring that you need a certain level of support beyond the possible fiefdom of, say, Iztapalapa, the ALDF took an important step towards not only limiting political fragmentation, but also toward limiting the formation of highly clientelist electoral groupings rallying essentially behind one strongman-woman's personalistic agenda.
René Arce will not have, it seems, the personal party he dreamed of.
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