COP 16/CMP6, the 16th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, opens today in Cancún.
As Gancho articulately notes, Calderón has showed a concern for the environment that far surpasses any other rightwing politician north, and possibly also south, of the border, and deserves credit for it, although, as today's editorial in El Universal points out, quite a few of the government's supposed accomplishments in matters of the environment, such as its ProÁrbol tree planting program, and its promotion of energy-saving light bulbs, are are far from unqualified successes.
Still: COP 16 is on in Cancún; may Calderón use the occasion for all it is worth.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Quote of the day: Onésimo Cepeda, of superman strength
Onésimo Cepeda, the discredited bishop of Ecapec who supposedly suffered a cardiac arrest or heart attack or whatever recently, in front of 3000 members of his congregation yesterday, holding mass:
(this is nothing for a man of Cepeda's caliber - a few days ago he was partying at a restaurant)
(this is nothing for a man of Cepeda's caliber - a few days ago he was partying at a restaurant)
"Know that your bishop really was sick, that he had a heart attack, that God saved me from it and still will not let me fall into the hands of injustice from it and still do not fall into the hands of injustice, but I hope to fall into the hands of justice and that you will still have a bishop for some time.The fact that the bishop has to reiterate and insist, during mass, to his congregation that he really, really had a heart attack... makes further comment unnecessary.
Why the Mexican left may lose Mexico City in 2012
A couple of weeks ago, a presentation was held in Mexico for a new party called "Partido de la Ciudad" in Mexico City, which ostensibly seek to present a new "leftwing" alternative to PRD. The party is founded by ex-PRD members René Arce - still a senator for the party - and Víctor Hugo Círigo, who until 2009 headed the Mexico City legislature. The party is not yet officially registered and not much exists beyond its name, but at is "premiere," if one may, in a meeting held Nov. 14, the party attracted ex Partido Socialdemócrata (PSD members such as Alberto Begné, Robles Maloof and Adrián Lajous, but also in front row, notably panistas such as the nefarious PAN Senator Federico Döring, as well as Minerva Hernández, now a senator for PAN after she unceremoniously dumped the party that had here elected, PRD, and former national PRD deputy Ruth Zavalea, who is now campaigning for the PRI in Guerrero.
PSD, for one, is now extinct as a national party, but some groupings exist on the state level. However, its former national leader, Jorge Carlos Díaz, just announced that the new Partido de la Ciudady would be formed only in the Federal District, and will have a "progressive" profile, above all in favor of legalization of "all drugs."
The idea that Mexico City needs another socially liberal "progressive" party to further this agenda in Mexico City is quite suspect. The party will obviously sap votes from the PRD, and may at best, should it be registered, get a few seats in the Mexico City legislature, but at worst, should it present its own candidate for Mexico City mayor, provoke a split in the left that may allow a PAN or even PRI candidate for winning the 2012 elections. The PRD in Mexico City is, with the exception of the more socially conservatives backing AMLO's faction, a highly liberal party, socially speaking, having successfully pushed gay and women rights, including gay marriage and abortion rights. Many also favor decriminalization or even legalization. What are the true motives behind this new party?
Also, yesterday it was reported that Izquierda Democrática Nacional (IDN), the heavily clientelist and "social-movement"-based faction of the PRD led by René Bejarano (he of the 2004 dollar-stuffing fame), announced it will launch its own candidate for Mexico City mayor 2012.
Current mayor Ebrard will need the backing of the clientelist structures in IDN to have his successor elected, as well as to back his 2012 bid, and this may all simply be some posturing part of the bargaining process - it will not come for free - yet could also possibly bye a step toward creating its own party based on IDN and Bejarano's own Movimiento Nacional por la Esperanza (MNE)
(Bejarano, notably, was expelled from the PRD and when I asked his wife Dolores Padierna a while back if he was involved in any PRD activities, she brushed it off. Padierna is nominally the head of IDN, but it is obvious that Bejarano pulls the threads. Of note, the IDN is pushing for Dolores Padierna to be a senatorial candidate for the PRD(!) - she is such a controversial, and unfit, choice that even AMLO in 2006 vetoed this.)
While the two groupings - the "Partido de la Ciudad" by the Cïrigo/Arce brothers, and the IDN/MNE by the Bejaranos - may have different motivations, they may well succeed in tearing the PRD and the left apart in Mexico City, and hand it to the opposition. It seems pertinent to ask: Is this also their goal?
PSD, for one, is now extinct as a national party, but some groupings exist on the state level. However, its former national leader, Jorge Carlos Díaz, just announced that the new Partido de la Ciudady would be formed only in the Federal District, and will have a "progressive" profile, above all in favor of legalization of "all drugs."
The idea that Mexico City needs another socially liberal "progressive" party to further this agenda in Mexico City is quite suspect. The party will obviously sap votes from the PRD, and may at best, should it be registered, get a few seats in the Mexico City legislature, but at worst, should it present its own candidate for Mexico City mayor, provoke a split in the left that may allow a PAN or even PRI candidate for winning the 2012 elections. The PRD in Mexico City is, with the exception of the more socially conservatives backing AMLO's faction, a highly liberal party, socially speaking, having successfully pushed gay and women rights, including gay marriage and abortion rights. Many also favor decriminalization or even legalization. What are the true motives behind this new party?
Also, yesterday it was reported that Izquierda Democrática Nacional (IDN), the heavily clientelist and "social-movement"-based faction of the PRD led by René Bejarano (he of the 2004 dollar-stuffing fame), announced it will launch its own candidate for Mexico City mayor 2012.
Current mayor Ebrard will need the backing of the clientelist structures in IDN to have his successor elected, as well as to back his 2012 bid, and this may all simply be some posturing part of the bargaining process - it will not come for free - yet could also possibly bye a step toward creating its own party based on IDN and Bejarano's own Movimiento Nacional por la Esperanza (MNE)
(Bejarano, notably, was expelled from the PRD and when I asked his wife Dolores Padierna a while back if he was involved in any PRD activities, she brushed it off. Padierna is nominally the head of IDN, but it is obvious that Bejarano pulls the threads. Of note, the IDN is pushing for Dolores Padierna to be a senatorial candidate for the PRD(!) - she is such a controversial, and unfit, choice that even AMLO in 2006 vetoed this.)
While the two groupings - the "Partido de la Ciudad" by the Cïrigo/Arce brothers, and the IDN/MNE by the Bejaranos - may have different motivations, they may well succeed in tearing the PRD and the left apart in Mexico City, and hand it to the opposition. It seems pertinent to ask: Is this also their goal?
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Only 44% think 2012 elections will be fair: El Universal
According to an El Universal poll, only 44 percent of Mexicans believe the 2012 elections will be clean. A majority of Mexicans, in other words, don't trust the IFE. While I can't find any more details on the poll itself, this number is disturbingly high. Whether to blame IFE itself, or people like AMLO who has toured the country constantly discrediting Mexico's institutions... that's another story.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Amalia´s "anomalies": Corruption and fraud charges against former Zacatecas governor Garcìa Medina
A "political persecution" and "witch hunt" - or the uncovering of massive corruption, embezzlement and overspending? Mere days after Miguel Alonso Reyes assumed the governorship of Zacatecas in September, his finance secretary informed Amalia García's government had left a debt of at least 2 billion pesos. Now, two months later, the state's financial control organ appears to have uncovered a range of financial irregularities in her 6-year Zacatecas administration, with more than 1.5 billion pesos "diverted" or simply lost. This includes: million-peso contracts that weren't properly tendered, falsified invoices, manipulated social programs, irregular personal loans, illegally contracted debt, and, to add, spending millions of dollars on hiring popular artists to perform, such as paying 17 million pesos to Plácido Domingo, 15 millones to Alejandro Sanz, and 9 million pesos to Juan Gabriel - this, in one of Mexico's poorest states. Amelia Garcìa in response accused the new Alonso Reyes government of engaging in a "witch hunt" and "political lynching," and mere incompetence in the revision of the accounts.
What will come of these accusations, if they are indeed true? Governor Miguel Alonso Reyes has certainly backed up the control organ's investigation, and already before the preliminary results - which so far only cover about 2 percent of the state's total budget - had been released, the former director of investigations of the state attorney general's office was detained for embezzlement, although Guillermo Huízar Carranza, the state comptroller, says the government is so far not accusing Garcìa directly of any wrongdoing. Moreover, as El Universal points out in an editorial, such "housecleanings" only seem to be done whenever there is a change of parties in the state government, more than hinting at a political tinge to the investigation. Certainly, many of the new functionaries, as well as the governor himself, are very close to Garcìa's predecessor, Ricardo Monreal Ávila, who while then technically of the same party - Monreal was a lifelong PRI member until he failed to get the gubernatorial nomination, and then joined the PRD (he dumped it for the PT later) - soon became a bitter enemy of the Garcìa administration.
Yet Garcìa hasn't herself exactly inspired confidence by appointing close members of the family to important posts. And while she appears knee-deep in serious corruption charges, she still took the time off for a final offensive at PRD Senator Tomás Torres Mercado, managing to have the Zacatecas senator expelled from the PRD for having backed the campaign of Alonso Reyes, a former PRD member himself. Whichever the nature of the recent investigations - a political witch hunt, revenge, or actually the uncovering of massive wrongdoing - this should really be the least of her concerns.
"The offensive that you and your government has started is without merit and is motivated by political reasons. To these accusation I and those who were my staff have decided to ive a timely response, yet it is clear that along with acting in bad faith, there is great inability to investigate with professionalism the information that was provided with the handover of the administration.Notably, though, there were no direct responses to the specific accusations. Moreover, further comments said in defense were hardly ingenious: Medina, in a PRD press conference, suggested the new government, was only trying to cover up its own incompetence and the growing violence in the state - a bit of a far stretch given that the Alonso Reyes only took over two months ago, when crime had long been on the rise. Her daughter, Senator Claudia Corichi, for her part meekly rejected accusations of her incompetence as head of the state DIF, because her position was merely "honorary."
What will come of these accusations, if they are indeed true? Governor Miguel Alonso Reyes has certainly backed up the control organ's investigation, and already before the preliminary results - which so far only cover about 2 percent of the state's total budget - had been released, the former director of investigations of the state attorney general's office was detained for embezzlement, although Guillermo Huízar Carranza, the state comptroller, says the government is so far not accusing Garcìa directly of any wrongdoing. Moreover, as El Universal points out in an editorial, such "housecleanings" only seem to be done whenever there is a change of parties in the state government, more than hinting at a political tinge to the investigation. Certainly, many of the new functionaries, as well as the governor himself, are very close to Garcìa's predecessor, Ricardo Monreal Ávila, who while then technically of the same party - Monreal was a lifelong PRI member until he failed to get the gubernatorial nomination, and then joined the PRD (he dumped it for the PT later) - soon became a bitter enemy of the Garcìa administration.
Yet Garcìa hasn't herself exactly inspired confidence by appointing close members of the family to important posts. And while she appears knee-deep in serious corruption charges, she still took the time off for a final offensive at PRD Senator Tomás Torres Mercado, managing to have the Zacatecas senator expelled from the PRD for having backed the campaign of Alonso Reyes, a former PRD member himself. Whichever the nature of the recent investigations - a political witch hunt, revenge, or actually the uncovering of massive wrongdoing - this should really be the least of her concerns.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Guerrero: Ruth Zavaleta joins the gubernatorial campaign of PRI's Manuel Añorve Baños
In some ways it´s quite a shocker, in others not: Ruth Zavaleta, former federal deputy of the PRD, has now started appearing in campaign events for Manuel Añorve Baños in Guerrero and declared she supports his candidacy for governor. Notably, Zavaleta was the former president of the Chamber of Deputies 2007-2008, and a federal deputy for the 2006-2009 period. While she officially resigned from the PRD in 2009, it is nonetheless quite a surprise to see that Zavaleta is backing PRI, the nemesis of her old party.
Yet Zavaleta is from Guerrero, and remains close to Governor Zeferino Torreblanca, who was elected as the PRD's candidate in 2005 yet frequently clashed with the party, and who in recent months have launched vicious attacks on the PRD when he failed to impose his favored candidate to succeed him. She has, in essence, simply followed his path.
The case of Zavaleta is yet another sad example of the excessive opportunism within Mexican parties, of which the PRD is hardly exempt: The past months have seen the resignation of Senator Minerva Hernández Ramos from the party to join PAN, and in Baja California Sur, Marcos Covarrubias was long a front runner for the gubernatorial nomination, yet when he failed to achieve it he as well joined PAN.
Yet Zavaleta was no opportunistic newcomer to the PRD: She was one of the original party founders of the PRD, and served as borough/delegation chief in Mexico City in Venustiano Carranza before she became a federal deputy. This in contrast to e.g. Zeferino Torreblanca, who never joined the party in the first place, and whose policies as governor resembled little of the PRD's agenda. That Zavaleta would now join the candidacy of a man who is about as far removed from a leftist agenda as possible, Manuel Añorve Baños, suggests that whatever political convictions she might once have harbored, they were easily discarded on the altar of expediency and opportunism.
Yet Zavaleta is from Guerrero, and remains close to Governor Zeferino Torreblanca, who was elected as the PRD's candidate in 2005 yet frequently clashed with the party, and who in recent months have launched vicious attacks on the PRD when he failed to impose his favored candidate to succeed him. She has, in essence, simply followed his path.
The case of Zavaleta is yet another sad example of the excessive opportunism within Mexican parties, of which the PRD is hardly exempt: The past months have seen the resignation of Senator Minerva Hernández Ramos from the party to join PAN, and in Baja California Sur, Marcos Covarrubias was long a front runner for the gubernatorial nomination, yet when he failed to achieve it he as well joined PAN.
Yet Zavaleta was no opportunistic newcomer to the PRD: She was one of the original party founders of the PRD, and served as borough/delegation chief in Mexico City in Venustiano Carranza before she became a federal deputy. This in contrast to e.g. Zeferino Torreblanca, who never joined the party in the first place, and whose policies as governor resembled little of the PRD's agenda. That Zavaleta would now join the candidacy of a man who is about as far removed from a leftist agenda as possible, Manuel Añorve Baños, suggests that whatever political convictions she might once have harbored, they were easily discarded on the altar of expediency and opportunism.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
What is AMLO really doing? Photos like this makes one wonder
Having gone to great pains to identify Enrique Peña with reviled former President Carlos Salinas, showing at every possible occasion a blown up poster of the two together, it was more than a bit ironic that merely days after having been designated his candidate, pictures of a Yeidckol Polevnsky with Peña Nieto from an event this Monday would hit newspapers today.
From La Jornada
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