What's next for Ebrard: The UN and Socialist International

Marcelo Ebrard, who in December will step down after six largely highly successful years as Mexico City mayor, already has a new gig lined up: The United Nations' Global Network of Safer Cities program, a recognition of his tenure where he kept organized crime at bay. From the UN program's Web site:

The Safer Cities Programme was launched in 1996 to address urban violence by developing a prevention strategy at city level

The position is from 2012 to 2016. Yet he has already started a parallel job that will end two years later in 2018: His second attempt at winning the left's nomination for its presidential candidate in 2018, when Enrique Peña Nieto steps down. He will very likely need to wrest that from AMLO in what would be his third attempt.

Oh, and he will also be vice president of the Socialist International, another recognition of his work of making Mexico City also the most socially liberal (in laws, that is) city in Latin America. He follows after PRD founder Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who was also vice president of the SI, and who is now moreover an honorary vice president of the organization of left-leaning parties of the world.

Source:
Encarga la ONU comité a Ebrard. El Universal, Sept. 4, 2012
Nombran a Ebrard vicepresidente de la Internacional Socialista. Proceso Online, Aug. 31, 2012

AMLO's tweet

During the election campaign, AMLO vowed to retire from politics - to go to La Chingada, or his Chiapas ranch - should he not win the election. Months earlier, he also declared that 2012 would be his last election, "out of dignity." Yet despite Thursday's ruling from the TEPJF electoral court - unanimous, and moreover unappealable - he tweeted yesterday, 

Attentive warning: I'm going to retire when the country belongs to everyone, not the 30 potentates. When we realize the fine ideal of justice.

Few will likely remain surprised of this turn-about or lack of memory. AMLO will not retire, and he will do all he can to run in 2018 for a third bid. The battle is already on.

Mexico's new Senate head is embarrasing

Ernesto Cordero Arroyo has not held a single elective office in his life. No municipal presidency, mayorship, governorship, and no legislative office - not even as a state legislator, let alone federal deputy. He was nonetheless put on the first spot on the proportional representation list for the Senate, which guaranteed him a spot in Mexico's highest legislative chamber without having to campaign for his seat. It was clearly a pay-off from Calderón, who had promoted him as his successor for president, though that primary was in the end won by the hapless Josefina Vázquez Mota.

Yet to simply award an ultra-loyalist with zero legislative experience a senatorship is one thing; to make him head of the Senate(!) is another. Yes, amazingly enough, Cordero - who was one of the most arrogant, venomous, and politically tone-deaf members of Calderón's cabinet - will now preside the Senate the coming year,in addition to heading the PAN's senate group.

His inexperience and record of personal unsuitability bodes ill for legislative compromises. More immediately, his appointment is simply pathetic and embarrassing.

Source:
Se instala la 62 Legislatura en el Senado; Cordero rinde protesta. La Jornada, Aug. 30, 2012

PRI mayor leaves Acapulco in shambles

Manuel Añorve Baños was PRI mayor of Acapulco from 2009 until March 2012, when he stepped down to compete for a seat in the national Chamber of Deputies. He also competed unsuccessfully for the Guerrero governorship, and judging by his disastrous administration in the city of Acapulco, Guerrero residents can be quite happy that Añorve is not their leader.

The left won Acapulco in the July elections, but already now it has been revealed they will inherit a debt of at least 1.5 billion pesos. Worse still in the short run, already now 5,000 city employees are left without pay, as Añorve spent all the money set aside for them.

It's a strange world where an utterly incompetent mayor manages to be rewarded with a seat at the national congress, when his incompetence should instead have served to remove him from politics and public administration altogether. Yet within the PRI, he was in practice promoted.

Hopefully he will do less damage as a federal deputy for the PRI than as mayor of Acacpulco.

Source:
Acapulco: crisis de deuda mantiene sin salarios a 5 mil empleados municipales. La Jornada, Sept. 1, 2012.

Why athletes should perhaps not be made senators

I admit I know little about Ana Gabriela Guevara Espinoza, a retired Mexican athlete who was made a candidate for senator for the PT. She may have had some political experience, but a recent faux pax certainly suggests that she knows little of the functioning of politics - and that maybe making famous athlete into national politicians overnight may not always be such a bright idea in general:

When the senator-elect was to appear in the Senate for her swearing in, she was nowhere to be found: Instead, Guevara wandered around confused in San Lázaro, seat of the Chamber of Deputies. When someone alerted her to her mistaken location, she made a run for the exit and in the end apparently made it to the Senate.

Is an athlete who doesn't seem to know which of Mexico's two legislative chambers she belongs to really suited to be one of Mexico's 128 Senators? Could not even one of her staffers, advisers, friends, party comrades, anyone, find out about the procedure beforehand?

Truly embarrassing.

Source:
Focos rojos con Washington. El Universal, Aug. 31, 2012

Where in the world is Tomás Yarrington?

He is wanted not just in Mexico, but in 190 countries across the globe: The Mexican government has asked Interpol to arrest former PRI governor of Tamaulipas (1999-2005), Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, for his alleged involvement with the Gulf Cartel in the state.

No one has seen the fugitive governor since a Mexican judge yesterday issued the arrest warrant. Don't expect him to appear in person voluntarily to answer the charges. What I find even more interesting is if - or when - another likely next arrest warrant for another ex-PRI governor will be issued: Yarrington's successor, Eugenio Hernández Flores.

Source:
“Firme, indagatoria contra Yarrington”. El Universal, Aug. 30, 2012
Mexico judge orders arrest of ex-Governor Yarrington. BBC News, Aug. 29, 2012

Electoral court rejects annulling Mexico 2012 election

A commission of Mexico's TEPJF electoral court tasked with qualifying the 2012 presidential election announced that it proposes to reject as unfounded the complaints of Movimiento Progresista, the electoral coalition behind Andrés Manuel López Obrador's candidacy, where it demanded the annulment of the election, alleging overspending, undue media coverage,  custom-made fake polling, and other irregularities

Next, the TEPJF will actually vote on the recommendation tomorrow, and next the court will actually vote to ratify (and theoretically, to not) the PRI's victory, but in essence this all but ensures that Enrique Peña Nieto will sometime in the next few days be declared president-elect of Mexico.

Source:
Rechazan magistrados todas las quejas de la izquierda. La Jornada, Aug. 29, 2012
Desecha Trife impugnación. El Universal, Aug. 29, 2012