It's about damn time. At last, the Chamber of deputies came to an agreement to appoint, with the required 2/3 majority, the last three IFE councilors ahead of 2012. None voted against; a handful of PT legislators abstained.
They are:
* Sergio García Ramírez, former attorney general, and judge at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
* María Marván Laborde, Ph.D from New School, now with the federal IFAI (institute for access to information and data protection)
* Lorenzo Córdova Vianello, Ph.D, law expert and researcher at UNAM.
This is excellent new, met with near unison approval from the various legislative leaders, as well as IFE president Leonardo Valdés. It's embarrassing, though, that it took the Chamber so long to get to this, and only under intense pressure from the federal electoral tribunal (TEPJF).
Friday, December 16, 2011
IFE squashes a horrid proposal from two of its councilors
Marco Antonio Baños and Alfredo Figueroa Mantuvo, IFE councilors both, proposed to IFE's general council that IFE should extend its authority to monitor opinion programs in the media to make sure the treatment of political candidates of the shows are "equitable."
Thankfully, IFE squashed the initiative, which strikes me as truly insane, and far beyond the mere practical details of deciding what is "equitable" treatment of candidtes: What on earth makes them think that IFE is entitled to decide what is "fair" treatment in the media? It is hard to think of a similar extreme and truly frightening attempt at overreach with authoritarian overtones.
While Marco Antonio Baños is known for his erratic behavior, I expected differently from Alfredo Figueroa, who I found to be a very reasonable man when I interviewed him for an hour a little while back.
Both are considered very close to the PRI, despite the nonsense of IFE councilors supposedly having no party sympathies. Yet for them to try to turn IFE into an organ exercising editorial control of political programs on television - I actually did hold that to be beneath them.
Thankfully, IFE squashed the initiative, which strikes me as truly insane, and far beyond the mere practical details of deciding what is "equitable" treatment of candidtes: What on earth makes them think that IFE is entitled to decide what is "fair" treatment in the media? It is hard to think of a similar extreme and truly frightening attempt at overreach with authoritarian overtones.
While Marco Antonio Baños is known for his erratic behavior, I expected differently from Alfredo Figueroa, who I found to be a very reasonable man when I interviewed him for an hour a little while back.
Both are considered very close to the PRI, despite the nonsense of IFE councilors supposedly having no party sympathies. Yet for them to try to turn IFE into an organ exercising editorial control of political programs on television - I actually did hold that to be beneath them.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Peña Nieto is not the lady of the house, we now know.
There is something truly pathetic about playing the victim when you screw up like Enrique Peña Nieto has done very publicly the past days. It is also a sign things aren't going your way. Why not at least try to laugh it off, and show that he is not just the scripted puppet incapable of independent thinking and improvisation that his opponents accuse him of being?
Yet Peña Nieto instead plays the victim, and even suggesting there might be more "inaccuracies" in the future.
Word.
He then preceded to not know the minimum wage in Mexico nor the price of a kilo of tortillas nor the price of a kilo of meat, responding that "I am not the lady of the house."
Yes, because only women buy tortillas and meat.
Yet Peña Nieto instead plays the victim, and even suggesting there might be more "inaccuracies" in the future.
Word.
He then preceded to not know the minimum wage in Mexico nor the price of a kilo of tortillas nor the price of a kilo of meat, responding that "I am not the lady of the house."
Yes, because only women buy tortillas and meat.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Quote of the day: Carlos Fuentes on Enrique Peña Nieto,
Fuentes dixit:
"This señor has the right not to read me. What he has not the right to be is president of Mexico due to his ignorance, this is what is serious. Not that he has not read a book of mine, but that he shows his ignorance. He is a very ignorant man."
The dead students in Guerrero
It seems prudent to withhold judgment on who is to blame for what happened in Guerrero two days ago. What is abundantly clear is that it should never have happened in the first place: Two students dead and more than a dozen wounded following a highway protest.
It was hardly the first time students from the Ayotzinapa teacher school in Guerrerohave been blocking the Autopista del Sol, the highway running from Mexico City to Acapulco, Guerrero. Yet it is the first time it turned deadly: "Someone" - state police, federal police, provocateurs - fired upon students and graduates of Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos who were demanding reuctions in tuition as well as guaranteed teaching jobs after graduation.
Dramatic videos have been released by the Guerrero state government, eager to put the blame on federal police, that also clearly seems to show the students torching a PEMEX gas station.
Yet the federal police have responded forcefully, claiming rather that the shots were fired by Guerrero state police in civilian clothing.
Governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero fired his attorney general, Alberto López Rosas, as it became clear that it contrary to his early claims, video recordings showed that the state police was fully armed. Aguirre also fired the secretary and sub secretary of public security, Ramón Almonte Borja and general Ramón Arreolaos respectively, to "facilitate the investigation."
Students who torch a gas station can hardly be expected to treated with kid gloves. I would never defend what appears to be, from the video images released, the beating and kicking of captured students, though it should also be pretty clear that if you block a highway and then torch a gas station with Molotov cocktails, the encounter with the police is not likely to be pretty.
But gunning down students - firing your guns at a civilian crowd that in no case appears to be a physical threat to the safety of the officers - is a criminal act for which the guilty parties, whoever they are, must be made to pay. This should never have had to come to this.
It was hardly the first time students from the Ayotzinapa teacher school in Guerrerohave been blocking the Autopista del Sol, the highway running from Mexico City to Acapulco, Guerrero. Yet it is the first time it turned deadly: "Someone" - state police, federal police, provocateurs - fired upon students and graduates of Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos who were demanding reuctions in tuition as well as guaranteed teaching jobs after graduation.
Dramatic videos have been released by the Guerrero state government, eager to put the blame on federal police, that also clearly seems to show the students torching a PEMEX gas station.
Yet the federal police have responded forcefully, claiming rather that the shots were fired by Guerrero state police in civilian clothing.
Governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero fired his attorney general, Alberto López Rosas, as it became clear that it contrary to his early claims, video recordings showed that the state police was fully armed. Aguirre also fired the secretary and sub secretary of public security, Ramón Almonte Borja and general Ramón Arreolaos respectively, to "facilitate the investigation."
Students who torch a gas station can hardly be expected to treated with kid gloves. I would never defend what appears to be, from the video images released, the beating and kicking of captured students, though it should also be pretty clear that if you block a highway and then torch a gas station with Molotov cocktails, the encounter with the police is not likely to be pretty.
But gunning down students - firing your guns at a civilian crowd that in no case appears to be a physical threat to the safety of the officers - is a criminal act for which the guilty parties, whoever they are, must be made to pay. This should never have had to come to this.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Leonel Cota, after a 360 turn, does another turn - back with AMLO
One of the more unprincipled and opportunist characters in Mexican politics, Leonel Cota Montaño, is now back in AMLO's fold, the former governor of Baja California Sur apparently seeking a seat at the federal Chamber of Deputies.
This is the same Cota who was once a member of a far left Trotskyist outfit, then joined PRI, then ditched it in 1999, then became pliant and handpicked PRD president 2005-08 under AMLO, then left the party, seeking candidacies with 1) The Green Party, 2) PANAL, and 3) back to.... PRI!
They all rejected him.
Even AMLO reproached him for this.
And now, appearing at the Movimiento Ciudadano's candidate registry as a re-re-re invented AMLO loyalist, attacking PRD under the leadership of interim president Acosta Naranjo and then Ortega, 2008-11, for having abandoned AMLO, and even accused the PRD of having taken advantage of AMLO in 2006.
Such brazen rewriting and distortion of very recent history must really assume that people truly have no memory.
This is the same Cota who was once a member of a far left Trotskyist outfit, then joined PRI, then ditched it in 1999, then became pliant and handpicked PRD president 2005-08 under AMLO, then left the party, seeking candidacies with 1) The Green Party, 2) PANAL, and 3) back to.... PRI!
They all rejected him.
Even AMLO reproached him for this.
And now, appearing at the Movimiento Ciudadano's candidate registry as a re-re-re invented AMLO loyalist, attacking PRD under the leadership of interim president Acosta Naranjo and then Ortega, 2008-11, for having abandoned AMLO, and even accused the PRD of having taken advantage of AMLO in 2006.
Such brazen rewriting and distortion of very recent history must really assume that people truly have no memory.
René Bejarano, he's like the wind
The powerful René Bejarano, head of various clienteles of pseudo-social movements and a long-time collaborator of AMLO, said he will keep a very low profile so as not "damage" the 2012 presidential candidate.
Rather, Bejarano says, he "will be like the wind, felt but not seen."
Many will remember Bejarano from the 2004 video scandals. He spent a time in jail while his wife Dolores Padierna became nominal head of his party faction within the PRD, the IDN.
The mafioso-like utterance aside, for the sake of AMLO's reputation, and to be sure, for that of the PRD, let's hope he sticks to his word.
Rather, Bejarano says, he "will be like the wind, felt but not seen."
Many will remember Bejarano from the 2004 video scandals. He spent a time in jail while his wife Dolores Padierna became nominal head of his party faction within the PRD, the IDN.
The mafioso-like utterance aside, for the sake of AMLO's reputation, and to be sure, for that of the PRD, let's hope he sticks to his word.
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