Vázquez Mota, fit to govern?

I have been thoroughly disappointed with virtually every aspect of Vázquez Mota's campaign so far. Granted she has not much of a record to show to - her highest positions were relatively brief posts as secretary of social development and secretary of education, and despite having some credibility from having fought very publicly with SNTE teacher union despot Elba Esther Gordillo, has really very little to show for in her career. Can anyone point, for instance, to any relevant legislation pushed and passed when she was head of PAN's parliamentary group?


But I was at least expecting to see some future potential on the campaign trail, through her speeches, encounters, responses to criticism, and so forth.


Instead, she has managed to draw the ire of students and the university world, and revelations from here thesis work suggest an extreme anti-popular but also anti-intellectual bias, appearing closer to a Santorum and Palin than anyone else.
- It all began when she, in front of audience at the college ITAM giggled that she was "not perfect, because I studied at La Ibero," or the Universidad Iberoamericana.


Not likely to endear her to Ibero alumni. But then, her Ibero thesis has surfaced, where she in a classist rant refers to UNAM, Mexico's premier public university, as a "monster" - "it slowly converted into a political institution, a monster that harbor half a million students who unfortunately have no interest in their professional preparation."


And the kicker? Beyond the blatant generalization and depreciation of what is the best university in Mexico and its student mass, many who indeed come from lower class families and are first-generation students, the thesis in which she rants against UNAM was begun in 1983 and finished in 1998(!). Yes, unlike all those pesky students at UNAM who don't even study, Vázquez Mota only took fifteen years to finish her thesis masterpiece. 


Now, given the way education is structured in Mexico, it often happens that students finish their coursework but at a later point finish their thesis, though 15 years is quite a stretch - and particularly for someone who depreciate students at other universities for not being dedicated to studying.


But again the worst is yet to come in the fall out: She answered then in the most pathetic way possible: She is the victim - yes, a victim - of a "dirty war," where here commentaries are taken "out of context" with the purpose to "defame" her. Since when is holding someone accountable to earlier statements a "dirty war"?


Vázquez Mota then went to ITAM, the best private college in Mexico, and as it draws primarily from the upper layers of Mexican society one might have expected a friendly audience. To their credit, the students questioned seriously her record. The best comment yet from one of the students:

Many of the things you are saying are not true, because as Secretary of Public Education, of Social Development, twice a member of parliament, you did not pursue any of the reforms you are now talking about, why should we now believe that you are going to do so?

Why indeed should we?

Migrants money fund used for embellishment of cathedral

This is truly preposterous: Funds from Mexico's ministry of social development, destined to improve local communities through the "3-for-one" program where the government is supposed to match every peso of remittances sent from migrants in the US with three pesos, have been used to fix up a church instead, making it nice and pretty before the pope comes.

While the sum may not be huge - around 600 thousand pesos - this is not only blatantly illegal, but immoral: Migrants living in the United States sent a third of this hard-earned money, which was then matched by d by Federal and state money, expecting the amount to be used to improve their local communities through e.g. the paving of roads, electricity, and the building of schools. Instead the money was stolen to embellish a church.

I truly wish - in the figurative sense - that some heads will roll after this.

Hate crimes in Puebla

AMLO came out clearly against the horrid hate crimes in Puebla, where since 2005 at least 20 people have been murdered for their sexual orientation, most recently activist Agnes Torres Hernández, found dead this Saturday:

"Is very regrettable that this happens in Puebla and in the country. There should be no hate crimes, one must respect human rights, and act with tolerance."

Kudos to the only of Mexico's three presidential candidates manifesting his concern for these victims.

Boost for AMLO: de la Fuente would join cabinet

AMLO has earlier invited Juan Ramón de la Fuente to be his Education secretary in a future presidential cabinet; now, the popular former UNAM rector and former minister of health has accepted the offer.

I can only see this as a welcome boost to AMLO's campaign.

Gabriel Quadri, zero credibility

Gabriel Quadri, the presidential candidate for Elba Esther Gordillo's teacher party PANAL, is man who have completely exhausted whatever credibility he once held as a political journalist/environmentalist/activist etc:

While he earlier heaped praise upon the notorious Gordillo as an "admirable woman" and referred to her authoritarian union, led with iron hand by its "president-for-life" Gordillo since 1989, he now managed to claim that Gordillo has nothing to do with PANAL.

As anyone with a modicum of political knowledge would know - and Quadri certainly fits here - PANAL is a party created by and at the complete disposal of Gordillo, for sale for the highest bidder during both state and federal elections since its 2005 creation. It claims a "liberal" ideology, but is utterly devoid of any ideology or programmatic orientation.

(most recently a PANAL deputy, Héctor Alonso Granado, spewed anti-gay slurs in the state of Puebla, for which he was denounced to the state's human rights commission - so much for social liberalism)

Yet by openly proclaiming his adherence to these open "untruths," Quadri's credibility is not just undermined; it is really already, before the official election process has even started, gone out the door.

What will the "radicals" say? AMLO disowns own manifest

A rather surreal event on the campaign trail: AMLO's big manifest for his campaign is his Alternative Project for the Nation, which essentially functions as his campaign program though it is very broad and vague and essentially express desired goals rather than means how to achieve it. In any case, it is a much-touted program - it was launched in 2004, then updated and presented again just last year in a huge gathering at the National Auditorium. This was his personal manifest - it has nothing to do with the PRD and the left's own campaign platform, which is a considerably more detailed and concrete document.

Then this happens: AMLO was meeting with representatives from COPARMEX, or the powerful Mexican employers organization, in order to smooth things out (he's been meeting with business leaders at least since 2010, finally following the advice of the PRD, which asked him to do so in 2005). One of the businessmen complained against some of the criticism directed at them in the manifest.

AMLO's response: He said he didn't really write it, only the introduction (!). That is, he disowns the project he has been touting for the last seven years, saying someone else wrote it.

1) What does he really stand for, then?
2) What will his North Korea-praising "radical" allies of the Workers Party respond to this kowtowing to the business sectors?

Bartlett - he of the 1988 "fall of the system" - for Senate

PRD was founded on the back of the July 6, 1988 fraud. One man greatly responsible for the election outcome was Interior Secretary Manuel Bartlett, who then also doubled as head of the commission organizing the election (if there ever was a fitting fox-guarding-the-hen house analogy, that's the one). Now, however, in an irony of ironies - I really don't know how to express this - AMLO's Morena movement is putting forth Bartlett to head its senator formula from Puebla.

That's right. The man responsible for the 1988 fraud that soon gave birth to the PRD, will now run as its candidate.

Are there no limits to how opportunistic AMLO will be in order to draw in votes? One graphic from El Economista puts a humerous spin on it:

El Economista

It is not a wholly perfect joke, though: While Bartlett his here seen putting on a PRD banner, it is, as Senator Carlos Navarrete made it very clear, AMLO's Morena that is pushing Bartlett, not the PRD.

Navarrete also said he would not move a finger to help Bartlett. Nor would anyone with a modicum of dignity on the Mexican left.


More from El Universal.