Mexican church's "Narco donations" and ties to drug lords causes friction and calls for investigations

The issue of narcolimosnas or donations from the drug gangs to the church, as well as the church's ties to the narcos more generally, is causing increasing friction within the Mexican Catholic Church. It has long been an open secret - or no secret at all - that the church has happily accepted massive donations from organized crime to fund its programs, maintain its buildings, or, in the extreme case of Hidalgo, erecting temples in their honor: There, it was recently revealed that Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano, head of the vicious Los Zetas mafia, had practically financed the building of the chapel El Tezontle, in Pachuca.

Monseñor Diego Monroy Ponce, rector of the Basílica de Guadalupe, rejects that any donations to the basilica came from the narcos, but called upon Archbishop of Durango Héctor González to reveal whatever he might know regarding the whereabouts of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, Mexico's most famous drug lord.

Senator Carlos Navarrete of the PRD, recently called upon the Attorney General (PGR) to investigate the Mexican Catholic Church for its ties to the drug lords, as did PRI's Jesús Murillo Karam, who demanded the church reveal what it knows. From the ruling PAN? Not a peep.

As long as PAN remains in power, don't expect the PGR to lift a finger against the church no matter its offenses: illegal interference in politics, libel, protecting pederasts, promoting hate crimes, and now, colluding with the narco criminals.

Baja California Sur, continued: PAN's faustian bargain J

The state branch of Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) in Baja California Sur, backed by national PAN leader César Nava, likely thought it had made an absolute bargain when it took in and made Marcos Covarrubias its candidate for governor. Covarrubias was until recently with the PRD, yet dumped the party when he failed to become its nominee for the upcoming gubernatorial elections - an all-too-common story throughout Mexico. Covarrubias also brought scores of his supporters with him.


Yet the PAN loyalists are not amused. The party had already chosen the businessman José Germán Castro as its candidate, yet he was quickly set aside, with other PAN candidates, to make room for Covarrubias  and some other high-profile candidates. Now a PAN rebellion in the state seems likely, adding on to the massive infighting within the PRD in Baja California Sur, which has held the state since 1999.
The likelihood that PRI will retake Baja California Sur is increasing day by day.

A warning tale against an "AMLO candidate" in Mexico State: Juanito

El Universal has a story in today's print edition on Rafael Ponfilio Acosta Ángeles, far better known as Juanito, who now know wants to - drumroll - run for mayor of Mexico City. Given that AMLO has vowed to present his "own" candidate in the upcoming Mexico State elections, the  charade of Juanito, who was AMLO's candidate in Iztapalapa last year, is briefly worth considering. 


To recall, when AMLO's favored candidate Carla Brugada failed to win the PRD's nomination to be the party's candidate for borough chief in the Mexican delegation of Iztapalapa, AMLO engineered the candidacy of Juanito to run on as an AMLO-backed candidate against the official PRD candidate, and called upon the local PRD voters to cast their vote for Juanito, who ran on the label of the Partido del Trabajo (PT) against the PRD candidate. While splitting the vote of the left, the gamble paid off, as Juanito came in first, the PT winning its first-ever delegation in Mexico City, and costing the PRD local representation as well as federal party funding. If there ever was a case of betrayal and "treason," accusations that AMLO like to hurl at the current PRD leadership, it was AMLO's betrayal of the PRD Iztapalapa. In the process he also demonstrated his modus operandi when it comes to respecting outcomes unfavorable to him. 


While Juanito won, after heavy campaigning by AMLO, the case became a huge embarrassment to the left and to AMLO in particular, as Juanito didn't stick to his part of the bargain: He was to step down and allow for Brugada to assume as head of Iztapalapa. Months of wrangling, protests, and disturbances followed, until Juanito, who displayed clear signs of medical schizophrenia, eventually relented, then stood firm, then relented again, then refused to step down... etc etc. 


Juanito today walks the streets of Mexico City, accusing both AMLO and Marcelo Ebrard, and the PRD as well as the PT, of being "traitors." 


AMLO's choice of Juanito as a candidate to short-curcuit PRD's candidate selection in 2009 should stand as a warning, for several reasons. It again demonstrated that AMLO will respect other actors and parties as long as they bend to his will. But even more so, the Juanito debacle displayed a remarkable lack of judgment on part of AMLO and his willingness to engage in complete scorched-earth tactics even against the party that had backed him thick and thin after 2006, having incurred millions of dollars in fines for following his edicts to shut down Mexico City. While the gamble eventually did paid off - Brugada did assume as delegation chief in the end - who is to say that whomever AMLO convinces to run as "his" candidate, will not equally turn his back on AMLO? 


And Juanito? He now rents an apartment in the Roma district and has become a die hard... priísta!

The tale of Baja California Sur: All hell is loose as politics come full circle with governor candidates

Baja California Sur will elect its new governor on Feb. 6 next year, and the processes of choosing candidates for the various parties has been extremely tumultuous and provoked a range of schisms within PRD, which governs the state. The intense internal battle within the left on a national scale has contributed directly to the party's turmoil in this state election. which for the PRD has as much with 2012 as it has to do with Baja California Sur. 


The deadline to register electoral coalitions expired this weekend, and the final make-up of electoral coalitions and their candidates is notable: Sudcalifornia para Todos (PRD y PT), with Luis Armando Díaz as its candidate; Unidos por Baja California Sur (PRI-PVEM), with Ricardo Barroso Agramont, and Alianza es Contigo (PAN and Partido Renovación Sudcaliforniana [PRS, a local party), with Marcos Covarrubias Villaseñor. 


Notably, Convergencia in the end did not join the PRD and PT but will presnet its own candidate. The lack of a common candidate among the three parties on the surface appear to make no sense; in other places, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has much influence over PT and Convergencia, has forbidden the parties to join with PRD if the PRD also want to include PAN, yet this was not the case in Baja California Sur. Yet as both national PRD President Jésus Ortega and Secretary General Hortensia Aragón complained, the election is really about who will control the left ahead of 2012. Again, AMLO will rather see the PRD lose than have it elect a candidate identified with his opponents within the party, yet here he didn't even have the excuse of a PAN alliance to provoke the break-up of the left. 


Politics has really come full circle in Baja California Sur. A quick look at the PRD's internal turmoils is quite instructive here. The state went to the PRD after Leonel Cota Montaño, a prominent PRI politician, failed to clinch his party's nomination for governor and jumped on board with the PRD. After Cota stepped down to later become AMLO's hand-picked national head of the PRD, the PRD kept the state with the election of  Narciso Agúndez Montaño as governor in 2011. Make a note of his second last name. 


When it came to electing PRD's new candidate for governor as well as for key cities and municipal districts, all hell broke loose. Due to much infighting between the supporters of Agúndez Montaño's former interior secretary and favored successor, Armando Díaz, and Marcos Covarrubias, the PRD's National Political Commission, a sort of an overseeing council of elders that is of recent origin and includes representatives of all the major factions in PRD, decided to cancel plans to decide candidates by polls, and the PRD's state council was charged with designating candidates. When they not surprisingly failed to come to an agreement, the party branch leader
Adrián Chávez Ruiz asked the CPN to designate candidates, which drew loud protests from Covarrubias who threatened to leave the party. Notably, Leonel Cota Montaño, despite being governor 1999-2005, wanted to now become mayor of tourist paradise and money cow municipality of Los Cabos, yet when it became clear that he would not be designated candidate, the PRD's former national president loudly ditched the party 


The PRD's CPN finally designated Luis Armando Díaz as candidate, and in a move that admittedly smacks of nepotism further placed Narciso Agúndez Montaño, brother of the governor, as candidate for Los Cabos, and former senator Ricardo Gerardo Higuera for La Paz. 

Yet the story hardly ends there. Even though Ortega controls the party's national executive committee and not the CPN, Cota loudly accused Ortega of "treason" and criticized the state government for promoting Armando Díaz as its candidate, declaring the worst that could happen to the state would be a candidate of continuity with the style of Narciso Agúndez. Irony of ironies: It was exactly Cota Montaño, with AMLO's blessing,  who imposed Agúndez Montaño, his cousin, as the left's gubernatorial candidate in 2004. 


More: Cota Montaño left the PRD to join none other than the Green Party (PVEM), which is truly Mexico's most cynical and opportunistic party. As local PRD deputy Víctor Castro noted, the PVEM is not only rightwing, but also an ally of PRI, the supposed arch enemy. Even AMLO expressed his displeasure with Cota's choice of new partner. 
Then, Cota announced that he would be candidate for mayor of La Paz rather on the party label of Convergencia - a party with very little presence in the state, but which would now see an influx of the supporters of Cota. As Milenio observed, this PRD rupture was fully sanctioned and supported by Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Cota's sister, to add, is currently mayor of La Paz.


And there is even more: Marcos Covarrubias, former mayor of Comondú. who had loudly attacked his own party for treason and inconsistency and what not when it cancelled the poll, resigned from the PRD to join... the PAN! The party announced last weekend that it had successfully recruited Covarrubias as its candidate. Many other key PRD members are reported to have left the party. PRI, for its part, with the PVEM declared its candidate to be Ricardo Barroso Agramont, the leader of the party's state branch


It is hard to decide who deserves the price for blatant opportunism in Baja California Sur, a place where politics appears to have come full circle. While the current governor may succeed in imposing his former interior secretary as the next governor, Armando Díaz has had to fend off accusations of ties to the narcos, propelled by hardcore anti-PRD commentators such as Ricardo Alemán, who openly accuses Díaz of being a narco. The PRD, in turn, responded that the party is convinced Díaz has no narco ties, and asked the federal attorney general, PGR, to make public whether he is under any kind of investigation. 


As for the race, due to PAN's and AMLO's maneuvers, my bets are on the PRI, though it remains wide open, and as recent events serve to demonstrate, in la política sudcaliforniana, nothing is remotely certain. 

War against women continues to the end of pedophile-protector Mario Marín's government

In the months following the infamous decision of Puebla's state congress in March 2009 to change the state constitution to in order to make abortion a stated criminal, the state attorney general/prosecutor's office in Puebla has so far launched investigations of at least 30 women. Local PRI deputy Rocío García Olmedo, who fought against the law, warned that the state could become "another Guanajuato."


The women range in age from 12 to 37, and one should also note that the Puebla government has fought against contraceptives in the name of family values, while openly persecuting women who have for different reasons carried out abortions. 

To recall, this "reform" was signed into law by outgoing Governor Mario Marín, who gained national and even international noteriority when journalist Lydia Cacho exposed him as a protector of pedophiles in the infamous "Gober precioso" scandal where Cacho had exposed networks of pedophiles that involved Puebla businessmen close to Marín.

As for Marín, the governor was most recently involved in yet another scandal when it was revealed in June this year that he as mayor of Puebla had abused his position to obtain sex from a minor  - who was no more than 17 when the relationship ended, and quite likely qualifies as statutory rape, in addition to the blatant abuse of his office for sexual favors. 

This protector of "family values" has so far avoided prison, though notably he failed to impose a designated successor as governor in the past July elections, where the PRD and PAN in a coalition managed to wrest Puebla from the PRI after 81 years of monopoly of power, undoubtedly much due to the behavior of its infamous governor. 

Money-laundering investigation of Bishop Onésimo Cépeda Silva of Ecatepec reopened

Irony of ironies. I can think of no institution that is capable of beating the Catholic Church in hypocrisy, and the discrepancy between church doctrine and its actions is for political observers a gift that just keeps on giving. The most recent case is that of the Bishop of Ecatepec, Onésimo Cépeda Silva.


Just a few days ago, the Archdiocese of Mexico condemned, though it didn't name, governors, police forces, military officers, business sectors, and even "some religious environments" for having ties to the narcos and organized crime.


It is well known that Cardenal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez of Guadalajara has been under federal investigation for money laundering for the narcos and illicit enrichment, though he was exonerated; Jorge Carpizo, former attorney general of Mexico, bitterly complained that the case was blocked for political reasons - and Carpizo even took the case directly to the Vatican, so far with no luck. 


Now, a federal judge has reopened the case against Bishop Onésimo Cépeda, one of the church's most sinister and reactionary characters, and businessman Jaime Matute for a $130-million dollar (!) fraud, where Batute in collusion with Cépeda allegedly falsely acquired ownership titles of a range of highly valuable paintings, many of which in addition may be considered part of Mexico's national patrimony.  


Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone, as the verse goes. This case may not be related directly to the narcos, but the charges of engaging in organized crime are very grave. 
Should Cépeda be convicted - unlikely given his connections to powers-that-be, including Mexico State Governor Enrique Peña Nieto - the church may think twice before it starts hurling stones in a glass house. Though given the story of the Mexican Church in Mexico, I don't find that too likely either. 

Coahuila Governor Humberto Moreira's fifth informe: PRI coronation

While regarded by many as the beginning of his campaign for the PRI's national presidency, the occasion of Coahuila governor Humberto Moreira Valdés's  fifth informe or report to the state congress smacked more of a coronation of Moreira as the new leader of PRI, which has been his stated goal for a while. 

It bears notice that the event, attended by thousands of supporters, drew even more PRI bigshots than Enrique Peña Nieto's informe just a few weeks back: A whopping 22 or so governors and governors-elect attended. Notably, as opposed to Enrique Peña Nieto, Moreira also is justified in boasting of significant social progress in the state during his governorship, which began in 2005. While Coahuila was certainly among Mexico's wealthiest states to begin with, but the state has succeeded in attracting 7.6 billion dollars in investment in the past five years, while notably improving health access and primary school drop-out rates. 

Moreira's most likely competitor for the PRI presidency was Emilio Gamboa Patrón, head of the PRI-affiliated Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares (CNOP), yet Gamboa's calls for a "single and unity candidate" strongly suggests he has thrown in the towel. 

I've noted the past weeks that in-page internet political ads touting the achievements of Coahuila has popped up in quite a few Web pages, such as Proceso and La Jornada, clearly suggesting that Moreira's ambitions do not stop at being head of PRI. Withouth naming names, Moreira has on numerous occasions denounced the practice of using the party presidency as a trampoline to become federal deputy, senator, and of course candidate for national president (Roberto Madrazo), and he has openly pushed for changes to party rules that would ban candidates for doing so. 


This should certainly not be taken to mean that Moreira does not harbor ambitions of his own for the presidency, though it would have to wait until 2018, when he will still be in his early fifties.  As a likely part of this plan, one can expect him to try to have his brother elected as Coahuila governor in 2011, though an interim governor will most likely step in for Moreira when he officially launches his all-but-decided campaign to head the PRI. Moreira has carefully groomed his brother to succeed him, though having an interim governor for a year would at least prevent Moreira from directly handing over the governorship to his brother, and somewhat blunt the obvious charges of nepotism. 

PAN and PRD will most likely run together in a coalition against Moreira's brother in 2011, but as things stand today, appear to have little chance against the Moreira machine, which may well turn into the Moreira dynasty.