New book on Mexico's Left: The Paradox of the PRD

My book on the Mexican left is out, and is entitled, Mexico’s Left: The Paradox of the PRD. 

It can be obtained from Amazon.com or Lynne Rienner Publishers, and its introduction can be downloaded as a PDF here (one tip: Sign up for emails with new publications from the publisher, and you will receive a newsletter with a special discount offer).

From a reviewer:
"An important contribution.... Dag Mossige has conducted exceptionally thorough research on the PRD, and he carefully situates his analysis within the comparative literature. His book illuminates the key dilemmas facing both the left and Mexico's new democracy."—Kevin J. Middlebrook, University College London

I do hope to return to blogging some time in the future, though it should be noted it was not this book's publication that prevented me from doing so, but other issues.

I just came back from a longer visit to Michoacán, in my eyes Mexico's most beautiful and most diverse state, but where the current fight against the Caballeros Templarios is making life hellish for far too many people.

I am currently living in Norway, where I am involved in party politics and where I am doing all I can to ensure a continued social-democratic government after the Sept. 9 elections.

All the best,
Aguachile

Ass-kissing of the year award, 2012

Edith Mendoza Pino, PRI mayor of Tulum, Quintana Roo, held a lavish party a few months ago after stepping down involuntarily from office. The farewell party was quite fittingly at the public treasury's expense, in keeping with her modus operandi of skimming the municipal treasury. Worse still, it turned out that Mendoza as well had granted a lot of tax reprieves of her own volition to companies operating in Tulum - something that of course was absolutely not in her authority, and  illegal.

Upon her arrest on Dec 7, Mendoza's desperate groveling appeal for, apparently, some kind of presidential pardon is nearly epic:

My sin is to have backed (President Enrique) Peña Nieto, when (Governor Roberto Borge, also PRI) gave the order to not back the President of the Republic... only two municipalities were won in the state, and one of them was Tulum. I won, I won the election for Peña Nieto, and this was also one of my sins.

Please, please, please, señor presidente - really, I only did it for you!
Ass-kisser of the year, Edith Mendoza Pino!

(and a bonus attitude point: The ex-mayor refused to come out of her SUV when she was arrested, which prompted federal agents to confiscate and impound the vehicle with miss Edith inside it!)

Image: What the companies in Tulum actually paid in taxes compared what they owe, courtesy of self-professed sinner Mendoza:



Source:
Ex alcaldesa "perdonó" impuestos a empresas. El Universal, Dec. 12, 2012.
Encuentran en Tulum desorden por 49 mdp. El Universal, Dec. 11, 2012.
Detienen a ex alcaldesa de Tulum; enfrentará juicio.  El Universal, Dec. 8, 2012.

PAN membership cut in two

Ill-wishers of PAN will likely read it as a verdict of 12 generally mediocre years of PAN government, and they may well be right: It is hard to drum up much enthusiasm for the PAN in 2012, the year it came third in the presidential contest (last time was in 1988), and moreover handed the keys of Los Pinos back to the PRI: In its campaign of re-affiliation, PAN's membership looks like it will be cut in two, from around 1.8 million to less than 900.000. PAN essentially followed the PRD's move to not just renew its membership lists but really start out from scratch, where all party members had to reconfirm their intentions of being a member.

The main motivation for the initiative: The many disastrously dirty and fraudulent candidate selection processes taking place in the PAN ahead of the 2012 federal elections. PAN took long pride in its reputation as a party of "clean hands," which the past two sexenios have exposed as quite a joke. Its internal elections, moreover, given fraud in party rolls and last minute mass-affiliations of "swallows," who sign up just to leave the party when the election is over, even grew dirtier than those of its main rival on the left, the PRD. That says a lot of the PAN's fall.

Source:
PAN prevé perder 50% de militantes. El Universal, Dec. 9, 2012

Fox, no longer with PAN

Many in the PAN would like to kick Vicente Fox out of the party, above all given his increasingly public embrace of then-PRI candidate and now president Enrique Peña Nieto. Yet Fox might beat them to it: The former president (2000-6) said he won't renew his party membership, in protest over those who have "appropriated" the party - a not-too-veiled reference to ex-president Felipe Calderón.

Not that Fox was ever very close to the PAN - even though he was a federal deputy for the party already back in 1988 and won the presidency on the PAN label in 2000, he pretty much ignored the party when in government, an amazingly stupid approach given his infamous inability to get anything done as president.

That Fox will simply cease to be a member is also convenient for the party itself, as it will avoid the messy spectacle of a protracted expulsion process. Fox, for his part, will go down in history as the candidate who kicked the PRI out of national power, but then helped it get back in again in 2012. And not very much more.

Source:

Fox duda seguir en el PAN. El Universal, Nov. 26, 2012

PRD's Alejandro Encinas: Political cowerdice

Alejandro Encinas Rodríguez is co-founder of the PRD, and a very important person within the party. Over the past years he's threatened to leave the party a few times, all with regards to the internal dispute within the party over its resistance to Andrés Manuel López Obrador's attempt to make the PRD a completely servile party at his full service, its only purpose to exist being to bring AMLO to the Mexican presidency. Encinas was a very moderate center-left politician, who did a pretty good job holding a few different secretaries in Mexico City, and twice was interim mayor when AMLO was first impeached and when he then stepped down to pursue the presidency. But since then, Encinas has lost very much credibility as he appeared increasingly subordinated to whatever commands AMLO issued to him.

Now, with AMLO actively recruiting PRD members to join his new personal party Morena, Encinas is again in the spotlight as a possible defector from the PRD. Ex-party president Jesús Ortega, who won leadership of the party in 2008 against the AMLO-backed Encinas, called Encinas out recently: Either you go with Morena, or you stay in the PRD, but make up your mind.

Encinas' response is truly embarrassing: He will wait making he decision, and base it on whether Morena really manages to convert itself into a party (officially register with the federal electoral institute, that is). In other words, Encinas is taking no chances - he will enjoy the fat privileges of being a senator for the PRD, but is not loyal to the party and might leave it - but only if he is assured he has a new party ready for him. Say whatever you want about Martí Batres, a hard-left authoritarian unreconstructed stalinist who recently ditched the PRD, but did so in order to build AMLO's new Morena - as opposed to merely waiting for the new party to be ready - the table set, and then show up - like Encinas. This is nothing less than political cowardice.

Source:
Líderes perredistas descartan ir a Morena. El Universal, Nov. 27, 2012

Mario Vargas Llosa meets with new Mexico City mayor

Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa met yesterday with Miguel Mancera, where he pronounced that Mexico needs a "modern left."

Not only is Vargas Llosa hardly a man of the left himself - he's a classic liberal, in the Latin American sense of the word (nothing to do with the U.S. use of the term, and far more economically liberal than European liberals) - and lest we forget, just a few weeks ago, he snubbed Mexico's president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto when the latter was on a visit to Spain.

But to the incoming mayor of Mexico City, he did find the time.

Source:
Se necesita izquierda moderna: Vargas Llosa. El Universal, Nov. 26, 2012

Mexico GDP growth, 1988-2012

Let the graphic below from Reforma (h/t gerardoesquivel.blogspot.com) pronounce the verdict on 12 years of PAN rule:

AMLO's party is born

AMLO finally has his own party: Yesterday, his Morena movement held its constituent assembly to become a political party. 1676 delegates gathered to elected 204 of its 300 national councilors, and "voted" by a raising of the hands (!) AMLO to be president of the party council. So much for a democratic voto secreto y libre! Delegates also approved its statutes and declaration of principles of the new party.

They will next vote to choose a party president, which will be a meaningless position given that AMLO will in any case exercise full control of his own, custom-made, personalized, personalistic, patrimonial party. One likely candidate is the disgraced Martí Batres Guadarrama, who just one day earlier finally left the PRD. He will not be missed by any proponent of the PRD as a serious, modern, democratic left party: Batres represented its worst authoritarian hard-left nationalistic thugishness. His departure is the PRD's gain.

In the long run, so I believe, is AMLO's.

From Milenio.com

UPDATE: Batres it is.

Picture from Milenio.com

Source:
AMLO: con Morena, el reinicio. El Universal, Nov. 20, 2012
Deja Martí Batres al PRD por Morena. Milenio.com. Nov. 18, 2012


Eligen a Martí Batres presidente de Morena. Milenio.com. Nov. 20. 2012

OECD to Mexico: Kick teacher union from education secretariat

Gabriela Ramos,directors of the secretary general's office at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), had pretty choice words on Mexico's teacher union SNTE for Mexico's new incoming PRI government:

The union needs to to what obviously all unions do in the countries that have made progress in their education system: to ensure that teachers have the best working conditions, better training, and then leave to authorities the decisions on how to make assessments, performance awards, recruitment of teachers and principals, as well as allocation of positions

Amen. In Mexico, the SNTE and its notorious mafia-like president-for-life Elba Esther Gordillo is the proverbial fox guarding the hen house, taking for itself the liberty to do the tasks Ramos mentions, and doing them extremely poorly.

Will Enrique Peña Nieto do what Carlos Salinas did in 1989, namely to remove a vastly corrupt SNTE head,J oaquín Hernández Galicia, in order to gain some credibility as a reformer?

If so, let's hope the analogy will not be complete: The replacement for "La Quina" turned out to be...  Elba Esther Gordillo.

Source:
Sugiere la OCDE marginar a SNTE de directriz educativa. El Universal, Nov. 15, 2012.

AMLO's parody of a party to be launched Nov. 19-20

The Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional or Morena, the personal, customized, made-to-fit party of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and stuffed with his relatives, hardcore supporters, and a good bunch of opportunists, will be officially launched in a national assembly on Nov. 19-20.

This will be a parody of a party: It is a tool created solely for one purpose, which is for AMLO to run for a third time for the Mexican presidency. It has been created in an absolute hurry - in just a few weeks, scores of state and district "assemblies" have been held where local leaderships have been largely hand-picked by AMLO and his family.

Like the Green Party, the PT, the Convergencia/Mocimiento Ciudadano, PANAL, and other small franchise-parties, Morena is just an extended family enterprise, in this case of AMLO. It exists only for him and his interests - not, for example, to promote a legislative agenda, engage in reform of Mexico's laws, train future legislators, etc. No, this parody of a party has been cobbled, hurled together in an absolute hurry, and is held together only as long as AMLO has absolute control of it. Already many of its "assemblies" have degenerated into shouting matches and fights between different groups that claim to be the real and most loyal of AMLO's supporters.

A party that is held together only by loyalty to one man is very brittle, and is far more likely to descend into internal chaos than one held together by a lasting, common programmatic and ideological agenda. So far there is no indication that the new Morena, in its coming national assembly, will be anything but "AMLO's party," and it will rise, and fall, with him.

Source:
AMLO convoca a asamblea nacional. El Universal, Nov. 9, 2012

Calderón: "I relieved hunger." No, you didn't.

The delusions of grandeur of Felipe Calderón have grown ever greater the past years. Given that he is only weeks away from leaving office - he has already moved out of the Los Pinos presidential residence as a gesture to the incoming president, Enrique Peña Nieto (as opposed to, say, Vicente Fox, who moved the day before) - we were only right to expect some further messianic pronunciations in these days.

The most recent, just days ago, pronounced in the first person singular:  That he greatly relieved hunger on his watch. He further declared, in all modesty, that "I learned.. that the duty of any public servant is to serve." A breathtaking enlightenment!

As for his "I relieved hunger" claim, here's an excerpt from a coming book from yours truly:

Salvador Escobedo Zoletto, head of the successful poverty-alleviating Oportunidades program, confirmed that the number of poor in Mexico had increased from 42.6 to 47.4 million in the years 2006-2008, or almost 5 million during the first third of the Calderón sexenio. Disturbingly, the number of people who had moved into the “extreme poverty” category had risen from 13.8 to 18.2 million, and the program reported increases in malnourishment and anemia. The figures were particularly shocking as they did not even reflect the full impact of the economic crisis that began in 2009 and lasted almost through 2010. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean noted that in the region, only in Mexico and Honduras, which had experienced a coup in 2009, did poverty rise; elsewhere, market-economic growth coupled with expansive social programs had made life better for ever more people. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which Mexico joined in 1994, instead criticized the Calderón government for growing inequality, lack of investment in human capital, and few social benefits, which in Mexico made up only 7 percent of income after taxes, against an OECD average of 12 percent

Source:
Alivié el dolor del hambre: FCH. El Universal, Oct. 20, 2012.

“En dos años, 4 millones 800 mil pobres más, dice Oportunidades.” Milenio, March 2, 2011
“Cae pobreza en AL.” El Universal, Nov. 30, 2011
“Aumenta en México la desigualdad social.” El Universal, Dec. 6, 2011

October suprise in Mexico's labor reform

With apologies for the cliché of an "October surprise," as the latest developments with Mexico's labor reform have absolutely nothing to do with imminent elections, but what happened when the Senate voted over the reform was in any case quite stunning. I did suggest that we might see a surprise here as well, though I was far from certain the left and right would be able to pull it off, but they did.

In short, the reform sent by president Calderón to the Chamber of deputies had language stripped out of its text that required transparency and democracy in Mexico's unions - notoriously authoritarian, corrupt, and often highly unfriendly to the average worker they claim to represent.

Yet the senate managed quite a feat: Every single one of its 128 senators appeared to vote (a rarity in itself) over reinserting this language, and return the legislation to the Chamber. Here, senators of the ideologically opposed PAN and PRD managed to amass the votes needed, with surprising allies (above all the sole senator of PANAL, the daughter of teacher union boss Elba Esther Gordillo, but also, on some sections, the usually pliant pro-PRI "Green party).

Yet here's the trick: By changing the legislation, rather than voting "yes" or "no," the senators arguably transformed the originally fast-track initiative ("preferred initiative") to merely an ordinary piece of legislation.
(they also seem to have inserted some new lines on collection bargaining, which should pretty much seal the change in character)

Already PRI leader in the Chamber Manlio Fabio Beltrones said there is therefore "no hurry" to pass the reform, again seemingly doing what the PRI has been accused of for years: Dragging its feet over any significant reform, acting as a highly irresponsible opposition party. Yet here is a golden opportunity for president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto to distance himself from the hardliners in his party, and push for the reform to be passed in the Chamber - and demonstrate that he is, as he claims, a true reformer, even when it hurts the clienteles of his own party. The fact that the weathercocks of the PVEM, always eager to suck up to power, broke with the PRI suggests something of this order may be in the works.

The next days should tell.

Source:
Ya no hay prisa para sacar reforma laboral, dice Manlio. El Universal, Oct. 26, 2012
PRI y PVEM titubearon; Panal optó por democracia. El Universal, Oct. 27, 2012

The Labor reform fight: Surprise in store next week?

The Mexican senate will vote on the labor reform next week, and the battle is truly heating up. Despite a persistent drive from the PRI to have the legislation passed just as it is - and as it was passed in the Chamber of Deputies three weeks ago- things may take a very surprising turn in the end.

My own views on the legislation are, in very general terms, that a reform is badly needed, and the original proposal from Calderón had both good and bad parts, yet unfortunately the Chamber essentially voted to remove many of the good parts - democracy and transparency within Mexico's notoriously corrupt and authoritarian PRI-linked (as well, yet to a far lesser extent, PRD-linked ones) unions - while making it far too easy to fire workers, pay starvation wages, and outsource. Yes, one may well argue that in certain instances businesses should be freer to hire and fire, and that this may be a genuine impediment to formalizing jobs. But if one does this without putting any credible social safety net in place in return, it is obvious that the reform will be too slanted towards business interests, and not the workers who, lest we forget, also create the wealth. Even so, the left will not be able to block these parts, but it should work with PAN to pass some other key pieces on union democracy.

The hope is above all that the left will  now act in unison, and avoid the embarrassing spectacle in the Chamber:

On Sept. 29, when the legislation came to a vote, despite having vowed not to undertake any "radical" actions such as storming the congress podium, a group of legislators linked to Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) still resorted to this thug tactic. A few thoughts on this:

* Using physical force to block legislation is about as undemocratic as it gets, and worthy more of blackshirt storm troopers than any political organization that purports to be left wing. No matter how much one opposes  a particular legislation, as a democratically elected legislator you simply don't use violence to stop it. This is not a case of legitimate "civil disobedience" against some authoritarian, colonial power or what not - this is using violence to promote your means when you fail to do so through the democratic channels. In this case, PRD deputies Karen Quiroga and Lourdes Amaya, linked to the "radical" IDN faction in the PRD, violently ripped the microphone from the president of the congressional mesa directiva, and was backed by a handful of other PRD, PT and MC deputies who tried to storm or "take" the congressional dais.

One the one hand, such behavior undermines the image of the Mexican left and presents it as radical, quarrelsome, thuggish, and outright anti-democratic. Even more important, in my view, is that it sets a frightening precedent that would legitimize any force - from the extreme right, for instance - to seek to block i.e. progressive legislation on the grounds that it would against the "will of the people." If the left can openly and violently defy elected democracy by thug actions, why should not the far right, or any other force, feel they have every bit as much right to do so? There is a time for "civil disobedience," yet this is absolutely not it. Love or hate the legislation, it was legitimately voted upon and passed. If you don't accept this, you don't accept democracy.

And the kicker: According to some counts, had the left actually remained united and voted as a block, it could have prevented the entire legislation from being passed in the first place! After protesting, rather than remaining for the vote - which is what these legislators are actually paid to do, that is, to vote - dozens of them simply abandoned the chamber. In addition to lackluster democratic credentials, it illustrates an utter lack of political responsibility.

Jesús Ortega, leader of the social-democratic majority faction in Mexico's largest party on the left, the PRD, noted in an op-ed,

Our "ultra leftists," who "take" tribunes, flee the debate, and who shout instead of responding with arguments, in reality despise the fight in parliament and the electoral path. They feverishly seek to be parliamentarians and when they become so instead of fighting in the battle of ideas - and fighting to win the votes - they withdraw from these, promoting precisely an extremism that, in light of the facts, is tragically useless.

Amen.

They weren't the only to blame, though:
* A handful of PAN deputies as well voted for the legislation in the plenary, even though it came as a "preferred initiative" from president Felipe Calderón, of the PAN.
* A deputy from the "radical" PT, Adolfo Orive, voted in commission against Art. 357, which included union democracy. His vote was decisive in removing this from the final text that was voted upon. Despite disingenuously claiming to have actually voted in favor - the brazenness is simply stunning - the "radical left" legislators in practice ran the errand of PRI, which virulently opposes democracy in the unions.   Afew days later he just happened to be promoted to head the sought-after commission of competitiveness, which he is utterly unqualified for. It reeks of a pay-off.
* The PRD in general backs union democracy, and also wants the government to stop funding unions, instead relying solely on membership dues. This is a Mexican twist that of course stems from the PRI's union advantage, product of its 70 years in power. The PRD also wants to reinstate language removed that regulate work conditions for miners, and prison penalty for owners that neglect worker safety.

(Interestingly, some unions, above all in the PRI-linked CTM, are already calling on the PRI's president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto to block the reform)

Yet then something interesting happened. Despite the many "leaks" in the increasingly pro-PRI Milenio that the senate would simply pass the legislation as it stands - without union democracy and transparency - a few important panistas suggested that PAN would seek to reinstate this language. Finally, PAN president Gustavo Madero confirmed this. The left has also suggested it will try to vote as a block this time. Both PAN and PRD have publicly accused the PRI of exerting enormous pressure on them to not change a comma of the legislation. If united both internally and in unison with the PAN, they have a chance of blocking the legislation, in order to halt it, reinsert the union democracy language (both PAN and the left backs this), and send it back to the Chamber, where, if united they could pass it. This would, however, require an enormous amount of discipline, and, as seen earlier, coherence. I remain cautiously optimistic that they may defy the pessimistic predictions that, come next week, they will fail again.

Source:
PRD lamenta que “tribus” de izquierda abandonaran pleno. El Universal, Sept. 30
Jesús Ortega: El extremismo: Enfermedad senil de la izquierda. Excélsiór, Oct. 2, 2012
AN insiste en incluir democracia sindical. El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012.
Alista PRD más de 150 reservas. El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012.
Proponen a Adolfo Orive para presidir Competitividad. La Jornada, Oct. 11, 2012
Chocan partidos en Senado por sindicatos.  El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012.
Denuncia PAN presión de PRI para no tocar reforma. El Universal, Oct. 10, 2012.
PRI presiona para no mover ley laboral: PRD. El Universal, Oct. 11, 2012.
Pide CTM a EPN frenar la reforma laboral. El Universal, Oct. 12, 2012.
Hay acuerdo en Senado para cambiar ley laboral. El Universal, Oct. 18, 2012
PRI y PAN chocan por ley laboral. El Universal, Oct. 17, 2012

Calderón, visiting professor at Harvard

According to a political gossip column in El Universal, soon-to-be ex president Felipe Calderón's next residence - the subject of much speculation these days - will indeed be outside of Mexico, specifically in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He will give lectures as visiting professor at Harvard.

He holds himself a master's degree in public administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, from as recently as 2000.

If Calderón will indeed end up teaching at Harvard, one can safely assume that this will also entailing beefing up campus security.

Source:
Bajo Reserva. El Universal, Oct. 20, 2012

Calderon "blind" to torture, new Amnesty report

Amnesty International's new report on Mexico is tough reading for Mexico's president. In criticizing his administration's human rights policy, the report concludes,

The government of Felipe Calderón has prioritised public security and combating organize crime, but this has in effect resulted in turning a blind eye to widespread human right violations.

In particular, the human rights group criticizes the Calderón administration's passivity toward "endemic" torture carried out by security forces against detainees, which has increased drastically the past years.

See the press release here, and the report, in pdf form, here,

Source:
Known abusers, but victims ignored: Torture and ill-treatment in Mexico. Amnesty International, 2012

AMLO on violence

AMLO on violence:

I respect highly those who argue that only through armed force can one achieve the changes the country needs, but I do not share this. 

He also rejected to sit down for any talks with president-elect  Enrique Peña Nieto, and advised others to reject dialogue as well.

Noted.

Source:
AMLO rechaza vía armada para cambio. El Universal, Oct. 9, 2012

In Zapata's land, the left's first governor

It may be a small state - it is only beat by Tlaxcala in being Mexico's smallest, and less than 2 million reside there - but for the left, winning the state of Morelos was very important for many reasons beyond the obvious. There is for sure the historical backdrop: Morelos was the land of the great Emiliano Zapata, who launched his agrarian revolutionary movement from the state and died there after a 1919 ambush.

With the left's victory in Morelos, it also won a state it has never held before. The state had already seen alternation in power - PAN ran it from 2000 until recently, in two generally terrible administrations. It is now the left's turn to show it can do better.

A few days ago, Graco Ramírez Garrido Abreu, a veteran on the left and a PRD founder in 1989, finally assumed as governor. While he was at one point the man who recruited AMLO to the PRD - AMLO only ditched the PRI when he failed to become its Tabasco governor candidate - the relationship between "Graco," as he is often referred to, and AMLO is quite abysmal, especially since AMLO's hysterical mobilizations against an imagined privatization of PEMEX in 2008.

With Graco's call for dialogue with Mexico's soon-to-be president, Enrique Peña Nieto - repeated in his inauguration speech - it was hardly a surprise that AMLO did not show up. PRD founder Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas did.

First on his agenda seems to be to carry out what he often brought up during the campaign: A purge of the state's police forces, many of whom are generally regarded to be turning a blind eye, to say the least, to the drug "cartels" * in the state. Next, to "certify" a new force, which he promises to do by the end of 2012.

(Another point: The left governs Mexico City, Morelos, nearby Guerrero, Oaxaca, and finally Tabasco (AMLO loyalist  Arturo Núñez). The geographic concentration is notable in itself , but for governance and inter-state cooperation it may also be a boon. Expect some major pronunciations here soon).


Source:
Graco Ramírez plantea diálogo con Peña Nieto. El Universal, Oct. 2, 2012
Certificar policías este año, ofrece Graco. El Universal, Oct. 10, 2012

* I am happy to note The Economist's style change to put "cartels" in quotation marks. As the news publication duly notes, the murderous drug gangs are hardly price-fixing cartels, but bloody competitors. I think that's a pretty good compromise between keeping a flawed term that is nevertheless in very common use, yet still noting its incorrect usage.

PAN, now with code of ethics

This is just too funny: Barely a few weeks before the PAN will leave the federal government, beat by the old ruling party it ousted in 2000, the rightwing party has suddenly pronounced a new ethics code that aims to set up the "complete autonomy" of the party vis-a-vis the federal government.

According to the document,

The structures of governance should not be confused with the party structures. The permanent temptation of reproducing the model of the party of the state should be rejected institutionally. 

Yes, it is a hell lot easier to discover that one's party should be autonomous of the government - and not merely reproducing the vices of the PRI, where the party and the state were most often inseparable - just as you are about to leave.

It would ring a lot less hollow if the PAN - which copied so many of PRI's nefarious practices and in the end almost fully corrupted its once-vaunted party organization - would have attempted any such move during any one of the twelve years it actually held national power.

Source:
Panistas se imponen código de ética. El Universal, Oct. 7, 2012

Mexico 2006 ballots finally to be destroyed

With the final decision of IFE, Mexico's institute responsible for organizing elections, to destroy what remains of the ballots used in Mexico's contentious 2006 election, that saga seems to be coming to an end.

IFE's general council also agreed to destroy the 2012 ballots.

A couple of years after the fraudulent 1988 election, PRI and PAN conspired, following a deal with Carlos Salinas and Diego Fernández de Cevallos, Diego, to have the ballots burned so as to remove forever any possibility of finally knowing the extent of the fraud that brought Salinas to power.

Yet one should be very careful with any analogies to 2006 here. In 1988, all opposition candidates claimed that fraud had taken place, and much evidence surfaced to back the claim. After July 2, 2006, AMLO was the sole candidate to claim fraud took place - as he claimed in 2012 as well. Yet not one single investigation has uncovered the slightest evidence that AMLO won more votes than Calderón, or that any massive fraurd took place where ballots were altered in any systematic way favoring the PAN candidate.

It is understandable that this is still a touchy issue for many, especially those individuals and organizations who have repeatedly sought access to the 2006 ballots. Yet IFE has pretty good reasons for wanting them burned. The institute is, for sure, required by law to dispose of electoral material after the final verdict has been passed on an election, but other motives are quite mundane: Money. It has so far cost the institute more than half a billion pesos to store them, and half a billion pesos more for the army to store them.

And the clincher: Despite the billion pesos spent, much of the ballots are already so rotten and decayed that they are useless in any case.

But the larger point should not be forgotten: Even if much of the ballots were not already destroyed, there is no reason to think that any full recount would alter the result in any significant way.
It seems to me that it is therefore time to let go.

Source:
Acuerda el IFE eliminar boletas. El Universal, Oct. 4, 2012

PAN party may slash membership in half

Mexico's rightwing party the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), is doing exactly what its left counterpart the PRD undertook last year: A purge of its party rolls, long outdated and bloated, and prone to manipulation. It's about time.

The party's devastating internal fights over national candidacies ahead of the July 1, 2012 federal election exposed a party that is only a shadow of its former self: Massive corruption, vote-buying, coercion, and a rash of truly indigestible candidates, whose incompetence and corruption should ban then from even serving as ticket takers at the local movie theater, let alone national lawmakers.

While he turned a blind eye to much of this, in order to at least try to curb the practices of clientelism and vote-buying, PAN leader Gustavo Madero, is launching a campaign where members will have to reaffirm their membership, and where the burden thus falls on the individual member to do so: Prove that you exist and that you are an active member so that we know you're real -and the burden of proof falls on the member, who will have to appear in person with party and voter credentials at their local office, or else.

Jan. 6, 2012, the party will publish its "updated" membership rolls. Madero suggested its membership rolls may well be cut in half. It will be very interesting to see what states these "ghost members" will particularly appear in. My money is on Veracruz and Nuevo León in particular

Source:
Inicia PAN depuración de padrón de afiliados. El Universal, Oct. 1, 2012
AN puede reducir 50% su padrón. El Universal, Oct. 2, 2012