Deadline passes, five millions did not renew IFE credentials

Long lines formed the past days outside IFE centers due to a Jan. 15 deadline to renew voter credentials  for those whose cards ended in 2003. Unless they did so, they will not be able to vote in the 2012 election.

There is some cause to worry here: Around 5 million people registered did not do so, a very big chunk of the electorate. IFE, which refused to extend the deadline (citing, correctly, previously agreed law), insisted that "60 percent" of these have left the country, and a further "25 percent" are deceased. Even if true, that would still leave 600,000 or so unable to vote in 2012.

Peña Nieto as Putin?

Here's a column by Jorge Zepada in English for the Financial Times that is well worth the read:

The result of the 2012 elections will push one way or the other. If the PRI wins with such a big margin that it ends up controlling Congress, the temptation for Peña Nieto to become a Mexican Putin will be immense. The public’s yearning for a crack-down on organised crime will only encourage him further. The deterioration of the security situation in Mexico is a tailor-made alibi for an authoritarian government and a big win would look like a blank cheque sent directly from the people.

Read the column here.

(I am currently working on his excellent edited volume "Los Suspirantes 2012," on the 2012 candidates - more on that book later).

Mexico vs. Brazil, perceptions and reality

Jorge Castañeda has a quite thoughtful comparison on Mexico and Brazil in Reforma that is well worth the read (Reforma is subscriber only, but the article is also available here.)

Another Mario Marín ex-functionary arrested in Puebla

Authorities in Puebla arrested Alfredo Arango García, who was secretary of health in the terrible 2005-11 administration of child rapist-protector and misogynist Mario Marín Torres, on corruption charges.

Will Marín ever share the same fate? I keep on dreaming.

Javier Sicilia won't run for congress, despite offer

Javier Sicilia and Julián Le Baron, prominent social activists, won't run for the Mexican congress in 2012, despite being offered candidacies by the left's Movimiento Progresista.

Too bad - it would have allowed them a much bigger forum and wider audience for their anti-violence message.

Mexico's rank of "economic freedom": 54/179

The conservative Heritage Foundation is out with a new ranking of "economic freedom." Mexico scores 54 out of 179; the "top" Latin American country is, not unexpectedly, Chile, on 8th place - two places ahead of the United States.

No. 1 is Hong Kong.

Take the report for what it is worth, from a far-right outfit: Among the indicators are "Labor Freedom," which does not refer to the ease and freedom of forming and joining unions and their rights, but rather, from the business point of view, freedom from unions.

PEMEX workers for Peña Nieto

Hardly a surprise given its forever-PRI ties, the union of PEMEX workers (STPRM) declared its "total backing" of PRI presidential candidate  Enrique Peña Nieto. Will they engage, like they did in 2000, in another blatantly illegal funding of the PRI presidency?

Notably, in the audience was union leader Carlos Romero Deschamp and Ricardo Aldana Prieto, two of the main protagonists of "Pemexgate," where it was discovered in 20002 that  the state-owned petroleum company siphoned off half a billion pesos to the PRI's 2000 campaign, and was fined a billion pesos for it.

Romero, for his part, lost his "political rights in a corruption conviction after the scandal that barred him from holding political office until last year.

Yet here he is again in the public limelight, with Peña Nieto, who despite claiming to represent a "New PRI" again and again l(literally) throws himself in the arms of its most retrograde parts.

From Milenio