Gay rights in Mexico: How far it has come

Call it blatant politicking if you may, but the picture below is in any regard quite a measure on how far (parts of) Mexico has come on gay rights. Contrast it with 1994, when then-PRI lackey in Veracruz, Miguel Angel Yunes, sent a squad of drag queens to "embarrass" the left's presidential candidate,  Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, to make him appear as backed by gay activists. It made the national news.

Here is Miguel Mancera, the PRD's candidate to be mayor in Mexico City, posing with activists from the LGTB community:

El Universal

Times have changed, and not all for the bad.

Source:  Mancera busca ampliar la lucha contra el sida. El Universal, May 18, 2012.

Gordillo's PANAL party under investigation by IFE

Mexico's federal electoral institute is carrying an investigation of Partido Nueva Alianza (PANAL), the teachers union-based party controlled completely by  Elba Esther Gordillo, due to "unusual movements" in its bank account. 

PANAL's new president Luis Castro Obregón seems to fit the party like hand in glove.  He denied that the audit has anything to do with recent hurling of accusations of corruption between Gordillo and Miguel Angel Yunes, though refused to offer any more comments on the matter. 

Then, asked if he knew the name of Ricardo Viso Veligson, a man who has endorsed 18 cheques to the party for over 7 million pesos,  he simply refused to confirm or deny anything.

At least the former party president Jorge Kahwagi Macari - he of the 5,500-square meter house, a mini-horse collection,  and a 10-million dollar yacht  - was somewhat entertaining in his eccentricity, by way of comparison. 

The Gordillo scandal, part one: Calderón responds - and blames Fox!

The scandal has been brewing for a few days now, ever since Elba Esther Gordillo, leader of the SNTE teacher union, confirmed some days ago what most suspected, namely that a dirty PRI-style horsetrading took place in 2006 between Gordillo and PAN, where Gordillo used her personal party PANAL to back Calderón and very likely ensure his victory in a tight race, in exchange for political positions.

As a great Associated Press rundown puts it, quoting  José Antonio Crespo - the story is getting international attention - "Political analyst José Antonio Crespo said the allegations show that the old way of doing politics in Mexico hasn't changed even with ouster of the PRI."

Calderón kept silent of the issue, until now, when he claimed that no, he didn't really negotiate any thing, he merely respected an agreement made between Gordillo and outgoing president Vicente Fox.

Do you believe El Señor Presidente on this one?
Nor do I. And I can't wait to hear Fox's response to these allegations.

TEPJF rejects Veracruz election complaints, despite dirty phone talk

The Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF) on Tuesday finally rejected the official complaints lodged by PAN against the July 4 gubernatorial elections in Veracruz, as well as a separate complaint by PRD-Convergencia, and thus finally validated the victory of PRI's Javier Duarte de Ochoa. The opposition parties had protested against alleged infractions such as the theft of electoral ballots, illegal diffusion of a poll, promotion of electoral propaganda outside of the allotted time period, and failure to transmit a debate between the main candidates. Yet perhaps gravest were the charges that outgoing governor had used public resources to promote Duarte and other PRI candidates. Ahead of the elections, tapes were released by PAN where Governor Fidel Herrera seemingly ordered the state apparatus to work for PRI's victory. Herrera notably responded by rejecting the tapes' authenticity, yet at the same time accusing PAN and the PGR, the attorney general's office, of illegal wiretapping. 


Yet TEPJF rejected all the arguments, including those based on the tapes, as the electoral court found this apparent strong evidence to be "inadmissible" as it had been obtained illegally. 


Moreover, in an echo of 2006, the court did accept the argument from PAN's Miguel Angel Yunes that the Veracruz electoral authorities had refused to accept various complaints from the candidate, such as dirty campaigns that linked Yunes to corruption and pederasty- yes, no joke! - yet the TEPJF concluded there was no evidence that this filthy "swift-boating" was linked to the ruling PRI. 


It is the law, and Miguel Angel Yunes is not exactly a saint when it comes to electoral transgressions himself, yet it pains me to see that Herrera got off completely scot free with his one, handing this important state to PRI ahead of the 2012 presidential election.