PRI enraged over Felipe Calderón's comments to New York Times

Senator Carolos Jiménez Macías

By Edward V. Byrne for The Yucatan Times
October 26, 2011

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Mexican president Felipe Calderón suggested in a September 28 interview with the New York Times that a PRI win next year would very likely carry with it a return to "the old days," when some PRI politicians quietly tolerated organized crime, or made informal pacts with drug traffickers, or simply looked the other way.  In a sidebar article published with the interview Calderón was also quoted as saying that the most probable PRI candidate in the 2012 election, Enrique Peña Nieto, would go soft on the drug cartels, and would be disposed to "crawl back into bed with them."

The widely reported comments set off a firestorm of controversy, especially within PRI. Mexican Senator Carolos Jiménez Macías, a PRI powerhouse who speaks for the party, has demanded that Calderón retract the statements and apologize for them.  Jiménez Macías also demanded that Calderón "get his hands entirely out" of the 2012 electoral process.

Calderón has not commented directly on the controversy, but his Secretary of Governmental Affairs did so today.  During a press conference Francisco Blake told reporters that the president had not been accurately quoted by the Times reporters.  Blake said that Calderón had not made his comments against PRI “as an institution,” but rather was referring to things which have already been publicly admitted by some former PRI leaders, most notably Sócrates Rizzo, an ex-mayor of Monterrey and ex-governor of Nuevo Leon state.

PRI leaders said late today that they are not satisfied with the response by Blake, and they plan to debate the matter tomorrow.

Note: Secretary Francisco Blake died tragically on November 11, 2011, when a helicopter carrying him and seven other government officials crashed in heavy fog. It was the second time Calderón has lost a cabinet officer who held this key post. His previous secretary of government was killed in a plane crash while landing in Mexico City three years earlier, almost to the day. Details here: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/11/calderon-top-cabinet-member-killed-in.html.

No deals with criminals, says PAN candidate Vázquez Mota

By Edward V. Byrne for The Yucatan Times
October 18, 2011

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Josefina Vázquez Mota leads the presidential preference polls among all current PAN (National Action Party) pre-candidates. At a campaign appearance today she emphasized that if elected, she'll never consider "any kind of amnesty for, or deal with, organized crime." Her remarks will no doubt continue to fan the flames on that issue. PRI politicians throughout Mexico remained on the offensive today, demanding that president Felipe Calderón retract and apologize for his recent comments during an interview with the New York Times. Calderón inferred that if PRI wins the presidency next year, there will be a return to "business as usual," with the drug cartels permitted to carry on their activities below the radar screen.

Vázquez Mota also said that Mexican armed forces will be withdrawn from their leadership role in the war against the drug cartels as soon as the government is confident that local law enforcement can handle the task.

More on the Vázquez Mota candidacy: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/10/josefina-vazquez-mota-likley-to-be-2012.html.

More shots traded between PAN and PRI

By Edward V. Byrne for The Yucatan Times
October 17, 2011

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The war of words continued today, as another PAN presidential candidate fired back at PRI leaders who have demanded a retraction and apology by Mexican president Felipe Calderón for comments he made to the New York Times during a September 28 interview, published last weekend.

Ernesto Cordero, a former secretary of Mexico's Hacienda (the country's tax collection and budget analysis agency), said that "it's PRI who owes an apology to all of Mexico." Cordero told a press conference today that there are public statements made by former PRI leaders who have openly acknowledged the party's connection to organized crime as long as 30 years ago, enabling it to become much stronger. He pointed to admissions by Sócrates Rizzo, a former PRI mayor of Monterrey and governor of Nuevo Leon in the 1990s, as well as statements by Miguel de la Madrid, Mexico's PRI president from 1982-1988. Neither man had any immediate comment in response." Those people even knew the drug routes," Cordero quoted Sócrates Rizzo as saying.

The PAN pre-candidate also noted that in many states which are controlled by PRI governments narcoviolence is severe, including Nuevo León, Coahuila, Nayarit, Veracruz and Quintana Roo.

Josefina Vázquez Mota most popular for 2012 PAN presidential candidacy

By Edward V. Byrne View Edward V. Byrne's profile
A political preference poll reported this evening by the Mexican network Milenio indicates that among PAN party members, or those who say they'll likely vote for the PAN candidate in next year's election, 50.8% think Vázquez Mota should be the party's standard bearer. In the general population of unaffiliated or undecided voters, or those not aligned with any political organization, 35.4% of respondents opined that she would be PAN's strongest candidate. And when compared with two other primary PAN contenders (both male), 44% of PAN supporters picked Vázquez Mota to lead the party into the 2012 elections.

If she gets her party's nod, Josefina would be Mexico's first female candidate for president. An economist by education, Vázquez Mota served as Secretary of Social Development from 2000-2006 under former president Vicente Fox. She served in the current administration of president Felipe Calderon from 2006-2009, as Secretary of Public Education.

Click here for previous posts on Josefina Vázquez Mota: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/10/mexicos-female-presidential-candidate.html; and: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/09/mexicos-first-female-presidential.html.

A MEXICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW GUIDE

A MEXICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW GUIDE:
BASIC LEGAL GUARANTEES OF ALL PERSONS

By Lic. Edward V. Byrne

The Angel of Independence in Distrito Federal, Mexico

Fundamental rights of free expression in Mexico’s Constitution include the following. Approximate counterparts or equivalents under the U.S. Constitution are so indicated:

Article 1, Constitution of Mexico [U.S. Constitution, no direct equivalent]

En los estados unidos mexicanos todas las personas gozaran de los derechos humanos reconocidos en esta constitución y en los tratados internacionales de los que el estado mexicano sea parte, así como de las garantías para su protección.

As normas relativas a los derechos humanos se interpretaran de conformidad con esta constitución y con los tratados internacionales de la materia favoreciendo en todo tiempo a las personas la protección más amplia . . .

In Mexico all persons shall enjoy the human rights and legal guarantees recognized by this Constitution and by international treaties to which Mexico is a party. “Human rights” shall be defined and interpreted in a manner consistent with other provisions of this constitution and with international treaties, and always to favor and promote the broadest protection thereof.

Former Mayor of Mérida Loses Bid for Quick Dismissal

A former mayor of Mérida, Cesar Bojorquez Zapata, has failed in his effort to derail a pending audit and investigation over accounting irregularities tied to his PAN (National Action Party) administration. The case involves 82 million pesos (about $7 million USD) which was either improperly spent or cannot otherwise be accounted for during the period from July – December 2008. Zapata and another ex-City official implicated in the audit tried to stop the inquiry earlier this year, but a Mexican federal judge has ruled against them, clearing the way for further proceedings.

Ex-Mayor of Merida, Cesar Bojorquez Zapata

Mexico`s 2012 Presidential Election: 364 Days and Counting

Mexico’s 2012 presidential election campaign was officially kicked off today when President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa thanked the “millions of Mexicans” who voted for him exactly five years ago, on July 2, 2006. The National Action Party (PAN) politician captured Los Pinos – Mexico’s “White House” – by a narrow margin of less than 300,000 votes that year. Calderón’s bitter rival in the hotly contested 2006 election was Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who still insists (as do some partisan newspapers) that he was cheated and is the “legitimate president of Mexico.” Obrador is expected to run again, but it won’t be against Calderón, who is barred by law from another term.

Via a personal Twitter account message, Calderón thanked voters who helped him overcome an “enormous disadvantage” and win the presidency in 2006. Just 11 years before on the same date, in July 2000, PAN won its first presidential election in more than 70 years, wrestling away executive power from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), once thought invincible in Mexican politics. The PAN candidate that year was former president Vicente Fox Quesada, who managed to break PRI’s seven decade strangle-hold. Fox and Calderón said yesterday that the elections of 2000 and 2006 had ushered in a “new era in Mexican politics.”

PAN currently has no strong contender for the 2012 elections – a fact recently acknowledged by Calderón – but a party standard-bearer will be formally selected by functionaries in November. Likely candidates as the election season gets under way include Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubón, the PRD governor of Mexico’s Federal District; Manlio Fabio Beltrones Rivera, the PRI President of Mexico’s Senate; and perhaps even the Yucatan’s PRI Governor Ivonne Ortega, who was quoted just this week as saying that Mexico is ready for its first woman president. But the darling of most presidential prognosticators is the PRI EDOMEX (State of Mexico) Governor Enrique Peña Nieto, who purportedly has had his sights set on the Mexican presidency since he was a child. With dashing good looks and a soap opera star wife who he married late last year in a wedding attended by Mexico’s elite, Peña Nieto is a sure crowd pleaser. The national press loves to follow him, if for no other reason than to capture the public’s apparent adulation.

Calderon, Obrador, Ebrad, Peña Nieto

Mexico’s major parties defy accurate characterization, although PAN is often labeled as representing center-right politics, PRI the center-left and PRD approaching the far left. Whatever the realities, Mexico’s next president will have a full plate the day he or she takes office. Calderón’s all out war on narcotics-traffickers – popular or unpopular depending on who one talks to – began in earnest in December 2006, just days after he took office. To date it has cost over 40,000 lives, including thousands of innocent citizens who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, many military and police personnel, and not a small number of local politicians, among them some 25 mayors.

The northern and central regions of Mexico in particular have been wracked by violence, and border communities such as Ciudad Juárez – rated as the most dangerous city in the world – have been left decimated and in some cases abandoned. Mexico-U.S. relations will also continue to figure importantly next year, as an increasing number of American state legislatures enact laws aimed directly at illegal immigration in default of a comprehensive response by Washington.

As the 2012 campaigns open, Mexico’s major political candidates will likely dramatically disagree on solutions, as will their counterparts north of the border. But in a country of some 110 million people facing enormous challenges on multiple fronts, PAN, PRI and PRD agree: something must be done, and very soon.

By Edward V. Byrne for The Yucatan Times
July 2, 2011

Governor Ortega for President?

Yucatan’s Governor Ivonne Ortega says that the time is ripe for Mexico – a country long associated with “machismo” and male–dominated politics – to elect a female president. Ortega, a member of one of the country’s three primary political parties, made her impromptu comments earlier this week during a press interview. Ortega belongs to the (PRI) Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for over 70 years until it was finally ousted from the presidency in the 2000 elections. But PRI still controls both the State government of the Yucatan and the City of Merida, and Ortega is a friend and a close political ally of Merida Mayor Angelica Araujo Lara.

“Mexico is ready to have a woman for president,” said Ortega. “Mexicans recognize that times have changed and that ability is far more important than gender,” she added. Ortega is the only female governor in any of the 32 Mexican states, but several cities have female mayors, including Aguascalientes, La Paz, Merida and Toluca. At least four Mexican women politicians have had presidential aspirations, although none advanced to the stage of actual candidacy. Mexico’s next national elections will be held in 2012, when the six year term of current National Action Party (PAN) President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa comes to an end. Some female politicians in both PAN and PRI have expressed interest in mounting a bid for the presidency. Mexico’s third major political force, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), is led by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who was narrowly defeated by Calderon in 2006 and who still claims he is the “legitimate president of Mexico.” PRD has no announced female presidential candidates, but it is widely believed that Obrador will run again.

Although Ortega gave no clue as to whether she’s interested in the presidency herself, an open letter published this week by a PAN activist criticizes the Governor’s PRI colleague across the street in City Hall, Mayor Angelica Araujo Lara, for claimed failures on every front during the Mayor’s first full year in office. With a heading of “Time’s up, Architect!” (Araujo Lara is an architect by profession), local PAN leader Magaly Cruz Nucamendi traced a history of alleged shortcomings by City government across the board. “We’ve had enough of crumbling roads and infrastructure, street lamps that don’t work, trash everywhere, decaying parks, street vendors on the rise, the City’s failure to pay its own suppliers and contractors on time and above all, the lack of transparency and accountability in public affairs,” wrote Nucamendi. “What happened to your promise of adding 35,000 jobs to the City’s economy, of wiping out extreme poverty, of reducing bus fees (for students)? What does the Shakira concert have to do with any of those issues?”

“Running a great City like Merida involves a lot more than just building things”, added Nucamendi, who predicted that the controversial planned underpass in north Merida, on which construction is imminent, would be the Mayor’s “political grave.” “Governing a City involves listening, planning, professionalism, transparency and the inclusion of many competing opinions in the decision-making process. We had doubts about your ability a year ago due to your inexperience in public administration and your lack of knowledge about municipal affairs,” she said, and above all, “due to your lack of commitment to citizens.” Araujo Lara resigned her seat in the Mexican House of Representatives, where she had represented the Yucatan as a PRI federal deputy, in order to run for Mayor as the hand-picked PRI candidate in 2010. “How did it serve us to have you as our legislator?,” asked Nucamendi in her letter.

By Edward V. Byrne for The Yucatan Times
July 11, 2011