Entries categorized as ‘AMLO’

Southern Exposure

18 November 2009 · 1 Comment

The Woodrow Wilson Institute for International Scholars Mexico site picked up an article from El Universal that has captured what I think is one of Mexico’s greatest challenges… facing north when it should be looking south:

Mexico was once boasted as a leader in Latin America, but is now an observer of the development of other nations. Academics and specialists confirm that the country has found itself stuck in several areas stymieing its competitiveness.

The majority agree: the country wasted its potential, never looked south to reassert itself as a leader, and squandered the advantage of oil resources and neglected science.

(Original article in El Universal 16-November 2009)

I’ve talked before about the disadvantages of Mexico’s too-close ties to the United States economy, which has worked to discourage trade with the rest of Latin America and other parts of the world. At the same time, despite my continual carping on the lack of attention the United States pays to Latin America, Mexico does receive attention… just not the kind that allows for creative and independent policy-making.

Narrow concerns with “stability”, coupled with the unfortunate co-incidence of the timing of the last presidential campaign during the United State’s own bout with extremist political and economic attitudes probably did have more to do with with the questionable outcome of that election than it should. Not that a López Obradór administration would have necessarily have been more successful than the Calderón administration, but AMLO was more interested in pan-Latin initiatives, and his program was more focused on the basics — like educational and agricultural reform — than the incumbent is.

Secondly, Mexico’s willingness to fight the United State’s “war on drugs” — or rather, the Calderón administration’s willingness to use the “mano duro” against “instability” (which includes not just the narcotics exporters, but political and social dissent as well). Basic judicial reforms, as well as social programs which would have ameliorated the need for so much dissent (as well as the need to make a living working in the narcotics industry) have been put on the back burner.

Third, while the PAN people are not incompetent per se, they are ideologically bound to the wrong issues. This wouldn’t have been a problem had the U.S. economic house of cards stood up a few more years, but it didn’t. While the United States could make some mild reforms thanks to an election at the right time, Mexico is stuck with the same mindset when it comes to economic responses as the Bush Administration in the U.S. I thought it a good sign when Augustín Carstens was appointed Secretary of the Treasury, although — today — an orthodox World Bank type is exactly wrong.

And, of course, shit happens. Mexico isn’t “exotic” — or exciting enough to rate the pres that Brazil does right now. And, our stability may be working against us. People like Felipe Calderón are kind of dull… even AMLO, or Beatriz Parades just don’t have the star appeal of other Latin American politicos like Bolivia’s Evo Morales or Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, And, outside the “drug war” and quasi-crises like the flu epidemic, there hasn’t been any “change to believe in” that really captures one’s attention since the Oaxaca protests.

While it looks, on the surface, that nothing is going on… there are signs that something will give. The cynical dismemberment of Luz y Fuero del Centro (and the union) hasn’t quite sunk in yet, nor has the Calderón administration’s coddling of the corrupt union boss, Esther Elba Gordilla… nor the seeming lack of ideas from the administration on how to respond to the economic situation. There will be national elections in 2012… and although it appears for now that the likely winner is a Carlos Salinas protege, nothing is ever for certain in Mexico. As Porfirio Dias said, just before everything changed, “Nothing changes in Mexico… until it changes.”

Categories: 2006 Elections · AMLO · Agriculture · Agustín Carstens · Alternative Presidency · Americas (outside U.S. and Mexico) · Bolivia · Brazil · Crime and Punishment · Drugs · Economy & Business · Ecuador · Education and educators · Ester Elba Gordillo · Evo Morales · Felipe Calderón · George W. Bush · Gringo(landia) · Human Rights · Mexican History 1921+ · Oaxaca en luche (2006) · PAN · Politica (Mexicana) · Rafael Correa · Trade agreements and issues · World Bank

The Revolution will be twittered

24 October 2009 · 1 Comment

For the last several months, Mexico has been discussing new taxes. The original proposal from the Calderón Administration, for a two percent increase in the sales tax, spun as a beneficial to the poor, was widely derided. There were the usual bombastic speeches by the politicians, the outraged editorials in the media and a few street demonstrations… but it was clear the proposal was doomed in Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the Mexican Congress) where the President’s party, the conservative PAN, lacks the votes to pass any bills without support from one of the main opposition parties.

Some tax bill had to be passed, and – several compromises and alternatives later, one did make it through the Chamber last Wednesday, just after five P.M. The bill only raises the sales tax one percent, and exempts food and medicine, but to make up the difference in revenue, includes several other taxes, including a three percent tax on telecommunications and internet connections.

By six PM, la revolución online — led bya vanguard “movimiento twittero” — had an organized resistance underway. Mexicans, even the most avant-garde cybergeek, tend to assess their present though the lens of their history. With the centennial celebration of the 1910 Revolution gearing up, it’s natural los twitteros and their allies have looked to that Revolution for guidance.

In 1908, Porfiro Diaz, who had been elected president every four years since 1884 with only token opposition and was dictator in all but name, made the mistake of mentioning to a foreign reporter that he might consider retiring in 1910. Diaz had no intention of actually giving up power, but Francisco I. Madero, a wealthy landowner and eccentric, took it upon himself to publish and distribute La sucesión presidencial en 1910 — in effect, going outside the traditional media to launch what would, indeed, be a revolution.

José Merino, a doctoral candidate, sometime newspaper and TV journalist and founder or director of several web-based sites, writes in “El Defe”:

Madero launched a revolution with a book in a country where 72.3 percent of adults were illiterate.

Why can’t we initiate a change in the relationship between the people and their legislators over a three percent tax on internet use in a country where only twenty-five percent are regular users?

…

Within a day, without blocking streets or resorting to mass media (print and electronic), Twitter and Facebook users had generated so much noise that the Senate — the revenue bill is now in the upper house — held hearings on the issue today.

And, in less than twenty-four hours created two sites dealing with the topic: internetnecesario.org that summarizes the Twitter activity on the issue and the marvellous internetnecesario.info — showing that creative people, despite the ridicule of the “mainstream media”, can synthesize the relevant information clearly and .. for lack of a better word… beautiful manner.

The Senate Science and Technology Committee heard from internet industry executives, academics and the users… in the hearing room, and several thousand more who participated in the first ever interactive hearing in Mexican legislative history. An estimated five thousand twitters were received opposing the tax increase.

The Committee President, Francisco Javier Castellón Fonseca said the anti-tax movement’s spontaneity demonstrated the ability of the internet and social network to bring together thousands of people for consultations.

About the unprecedented structure of the hearing, Castellón was quoted as saying “This meeting was designed for sending messages on the network, mainly in Twitter, on the prevailing situation in the discussion of the Revenue Act, especially as it applies to telecommunications excise taxes.”

The Senator needs to learn to limit his statements to 140 characters, but it’s a start. His party, the leftist PRD (Revolutionary Democratic Party) is apparently ready to join “la revolucíon online”. Livestreaming Internet Necesario protests are being posted on Noticieros SPD , a website originally set up in support former PRD Presidential candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador’s “alternative presidency”, but has become an alternative media source for several progressive and leftist causes.

Moviemento Internet Necesario — so far — has been limiting their action to killing the communications excise tax. But, as José Merino noted, Mexicans have the among the slowest broadband access speeds, and highest access rates in the world. La revolución online may spread well beyond the narrow concerns of the twenty-five percent of Mexicans who use the internet, much as Madero’s revolution — concerned only with the specifics of presidential succession — spread when the instigator failed to recognize the thirst for radical social change.

The Movement is already starting to go viral, showing up on Global Voices. Today, the internet tax… tomorrow, free WiFi. Geeks of the world unite… you have nothing to lose but your web-links!

Categories: AMLO · Economy & Business · Felipe Calderón · Francisco I. Madero · Internet Necesario · La Raza (Mexican cultures and peoples) · Media · Mexican History 1910-20 (Revolution) · PRD · Politica (Mexicana) · Real Mexico

Banamex sale back on?

21 October 2009 · Leave a Comment

Jornada (my translation):

The Supreme Court of Justice (SCJN) could force the U.S. bank Citigroup to sell its profitable and highly regarded Mexican subsidiary Banamex, according to today’s (19 October 2009) Financial Times [registration required].

The case before the court is of vital importance because Banamex is estimated by the Financial Times and others to be worth at least 20 billion U.S. dollars, and accounts for 15 percent of Citibank’s net profits.

At issue before the court is a challenge to a finding by Secretarío de Hacienda (Treasury Secretary) Augustín Carstens, that the laws forbidding foreign GOVERNMENTS to have a major stake in Mexican banks “does not cover emergencies derived from the global crisis.” Well, no… the law was written back in the early 1990s when Mexican banks had collapsed in part BECAUSE the government had followed the same policies that the United States pursued, but was able to continue for another several years, heedless of the warning signs from the south.

Although Carstens claimed — on his own authority — in March 2009 that “government aid” (even when the government in question did become a major shareholder of the institution) was different than direct ownership, the Administration sent to Congress a bill that would regularize the Banamex exemption, but would force Citibank to offer 25 percent of the Banamex shares on the Mexican stock exchange IF the United States government was still a shareholder of the parent company after three years. And an additional 25 percent in six years. Of course, there were no guarantees that those purchasing Banamex stock would be Mexicans.

Mex Files was not the only one to question the logic of the ruling. Inca Kola News predicted “this story will create open season on a Felipe Calderon (allegedly) selling out la patria to the gringos. Lopez Obrador and company will milk this one for all it’s worth; and it’s worth a lot.” The Inca was ALMOST right.

It was seen as selling out la patria to the gringos… but then again, everything the Calderón Administration has done, is doing, or ever will do, is selling out la patria to the gringos, per “Lopez Obrador and company”.

But, Lopez Obrador, et. al. are only one (although a major) political force in what is still a largely leftist and nationalist country — the “leftiest” of the bunch, but that bunch includes about 2/3rds of the electorate. The PRI — usually described as “centerist” by foreign papers, simply to suggest it isn’t quite as lefty as the better known Lopez Obrador groups — has surged in recent by-elections, in good part because the former ruling party has consciously set out to reclaim the leftist and nationalist vote.

Now in the legislative majority, it’s no surprise that the PRI, with the backing of the parties to the left brought the case to the Supreme Court.

Guillermo Ortiz, governor of the Bank of Mexico, (and Secretary of the Treasury during the financial crisis of 1994 which led to the strict Mexican banking regulations) has suggested that ALL foreign-owned banks should be listed on the stock exchange, not just the one that in theory will be 25% listed in 2012, “if present trends continue”.

It’s not just the lefties that are rooting for a forced sale of Banamex in this instance. The Financial Times says “some influential bankers” (from Mexico or elsewhere isn’t clear) claim a partial sale (via stock listings) would also benefit Citibank, which claims it is focusing on repaying the U.S. taxpayers who bailed it out.

My own quasi-lefty take is that a forced sale has a possible secondary positive effect. If you look at Latin American economies, the ones with the best growth (Brazil, Ecuador, and — surprisingly enough — Bolivia) are those that have broken out of the mindset that sees the United States as the only possible market for their goods and services. Those economies still in the dumper — Mexico and Peru — are those that still follow the discredited “neo-liberal” line and have seen the United States as their main (and often only) foreign market. Breaking the most visible symbol of U.S. financial dominance (even though the banks are mostly controlled by Spanish and British companies) — especially if there were a Brazilian or Mexican-Brazilian corporate buyer (as mentioned last time there were rumors of a Banamex sale), it might convince Mexican business to look south for their financing, or… like those successful (and mostly leftist-led) other Latin countries, begin focusing on internal markets and diversified trade (Asia, Europe, the rest of the Americas).

The irony is that the economic cliche was that when the United States got a cold, Mexico got pneumonia. But, this very severe cold was caused by poor U.S. banking oversight, and Mexican banks are in good shape. But, dependence on the United States for export sales, and for financing are have left Mexico seriously weakened and isolating itself from the vector of its infections might not be such a bad move.

Categories: AMLO · Agustín Carstens · Americas (outside U.S. and Mexico) · Banking · Bolivia · Brazil · Economy & Business · Ecuador · Ernesto Zedillo · Felipe Calderón · Guillermo Ortiz · Mexican History 1921+ · PRI · Peru

They came to bury, César

19 October 2009 · 3 Comments

Given the wide-spread rejection of a two percent rise in IVA (the value added tax), PAN President César Nava has been whistling past the rapidly filling graveyard of dead Calderón Administration proposals when he said yesterday that

We have not yet received a formal proposal, nor received a final and formal refusal to the our proposed “two percent anti-poverty contribution” and are waiting for PRI to define their position and give us their final approval.

Nava’s comments (my translation) were posted on El Universal’s website shortly before 10 PM (Mexico City time). Just after 11 PM, the same paper published a statement from the Secretaría de Hacienda (Treasury Department) reading (again my translation, both from Spanish and trying to tone down the bureaucratic bullshit):

After reviewing various proposals, there is no viablity to any government submitted plan to combat widespread poverty through a two percent tax rise, that the PRI will accept.

Any alternatives? Some trouble-maker running around in rural Oaxaca is hinting at one, noting there are four hundred companies in Mexico that each have a net profit of at least five billion pesos a year, but collectively paid only paid 80 billion in taxes, when “under a normal system, they should have paid 800 billion. Tax evasion on this magnitude is a privilege reserved for the wealthy in Mexico.

As with other Calderón Administration “take it or leave it” proposals, the two-percent tax hike (weirdly, and, perhaps Orwellianly (if that’s a real word), described as an anti-poverty tax, has led the opposition to says “no thanks”. With Calderón’s party in a minority (and rejected more and more, as in Sunday’s PRI sweep in Coahuila state and municipal elections), and the PRI both needing the leftist parties to pass legislation as well as needing to brand itself as a true alternative to PAN (and not, as the left likes to sneer, just part of a larger PRIAN neo-liberal front that still follows the conservative Washington tune), radical solutions like higher corporate taxes and a “normal system” are likely to get a second look.

Categories: AMLO · Bureaucracy · César Nava · Economy & Business · Felipe Calderón · PAN · PRI · Politica (Mexicana)

The little devils in the details

17 October 2009 · Leave a Comment

Sean Goforth, Foreign Policy Association Mexico Blog has been uncovering interesting material this week. It’s the second time I’ve found something for the MexFiles on his site in as many days.

He has been something of a cheerleader for the Calderón Administration, but the surprise takeover of Luz y Fureza de Cento (LyFC) has him asking WTF…

… Mexico is in the midst of its worst recession since the “lost decade” of the 1980s, and, unlike Brazil, it isn’t clear the end of the recession is at hand. No matter the size of the severance package, such a move is brashly pro-cyclical. The government should mark time, or even hire more workers to help address Mexico’s unemployment. Inefficiency should be targeted once the economy is growing again. Keynesianism is enjoying a revival elsewhere, why not in Mexico?

This blog has been largely supportive of Calderón. Recent news warrants serious circumspection. Laying off state employees in times of recession requires gumption or lunacy. Or maybe this is just a move of sage politics. Having lost Congress to the PRI in July’s election, Calderón’s can now spread the blame if recovery is delayed or tepid. Mr. Calderón is right to pursue economic modernization, but does he have to do so right now?

The same mind set that sacrifices working class jobs rather than look at efficiencies at the top is at work in the renewed attack on “diablitos”.

In an unsigned editorial in the weekend edition of The [Mexico City] News quotes Augustín Carstens (who might take references to bloated management structures personally) as claiming:

…stolen electricity amounts approximately to $25 billion a year.

He said that now, without the Union of Mexican Electricians to protect the vendors, new management company the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will make it an objective to “eliminate irregularities” and bring increased income to the financially-strapped company.

The most common method of stealing electricity is making a direct connection, popularly known in Spanish slang as “diablitos,” a word that literally translates as little devils.

… Just walk down any Mexico City street where street vendors peddle their wares and you’ll notice hundreds of wires connected to the nearest electricity pole and all the sales people listening to blaring radios or televisions, light bulbs lit up all night ..and all of it for free.

Left unsaid, of course, is that diablitos are everywhere, not just in Mexico City, and not so much “protected” by LFyC employees as “protected” by everyone, While a lot of consumers have diablitos (a friend of mine lived in room built on top of a house in an ejido that, surrounded by wealthy colonias, supplemented their income by building irregular “all electric” apartments on the roofs of houses and rented them to a motley crew of slightly irregular foreign teachers, though how much electricity was stolen from the rich to power a couple crock pots and TVs was nowhere near enough for the folks down the hill to even care about), most are powering micro-businesses (taco stands, little puestos in informal markets, and the like) that are marginal businesses at best, but do create employment. They also create those great heroes of conservativism, the ownership class. You know, people that invest in their communities and their families, want their kids to grow up educated, and have a stake in safe streets. People with middle-class values.

It was, ironically enough, the “dangerous populist” Andres Manuel Lopez Obradór who tackled the diablito problem — or at least put a dent in it — during his tenure as Jefe de Gobierno in the Federal District. Responding to complaints both from LyFC and from tourism-related business owners about the aesthetics and safety of those irregular connections, his administration killed two birds with one stone: they replaced the jerry-built newsstands that dotted the Zona Histórica with kiosks that answered the aesthetic demands, and included power connections, lights and, a METER. The kiosks have a bank of all weather outlets, and the news vendors could work out payment arrangement with their neighbors (or through their unions) to tap into the safer source.

“Stolen” electricity is a sort of government subsidy, and that’s not exactly the best way to foster enterprise, which may be what conservatives really want: a free market for those that already have the capital to invest; limited consumer choice; and — perhaps most important of all — workers with no alternative source of income).

And, of course, those small merchants don’t generally vote PAN. Higher priced power to the people.

Categories: AMLO · Augustín Carstens · Ciudad de México · Economy & Business · Felipe Calderón · Informal economy · La Raza (Mexican cultures and peoples) · Organized Labor (Sindicatos) · Politica (Mexicana)

Power surges

14 October 2009 · 2 Comments

When the President went on television Sunday night to justify the takeover and forced merger of Luz y Fuerza de Centro, he spoke of it as a necessary cost-cutting measure. True enough, the company was hemorrhaging money at an alarming rate, and some sort of restructuring was inevitable.

However, no one for a second believed that… not even members of the President’s own party. Those who applauded the move — like influential journalist Carlos Loret de Mola — saw both the timing (on a Friday night, at the start of a three-day weekend in the Federal District, after the all important World Cup playoff game between Mexico and El Salvador) and the police-strike method, as meant to be even an unfriendly merger, but a strike against the company union, SME.

Of course, the bloated payroll figures that have been floated around (“on average, the electrical worker receives blah, blah, blah” are — like all averages — highly misleading. The company had a hugely bloated, and ridiculously compensated, management. As it is, liquidating those supposedly overpaid workers will require a buyout of their jobs at somewhere between thirty and thirty-three months salary.

The same day the buyouts of the “bloated” salaries was announced, by the way, the León Guanajuanto city government decided to pay out 19 million pesos to former elected and appointed officials from the previous administration. Managers had a way of taking care of their own.

Of course, with LyFC the company management were often SME members, which makes the “corruption” and “overpayment” stories somewhat valid, as well as boosting the “average” figures. But, having become the center of the rationale (as opposed to Felipe Calderón’s interest in privatizing the company during his time as Secretary of Energy during the Fox Adminstration, in whole or in part) as opposed to SME’s support for opposition parties ) there are questions being raised about other, “corrupt and inefficient” unions less hostile to the present adminstration. Like Esther Elba’s Teachers’ Union, among others.

Not surprisingly, Ana María Salazar, in her Mexico Today news briefs, notes ” PAN said that closing down Luz y Fuerza was not a measure aimed at attacking unionized workers but rather because it was so inoperative… PAN leader ruled out similar measures against the PEMEX or Teachers union, the SNTE.

At least PAN’s former president, Manuel Espino Barrientos, is out of the closet on this… he says “all unions are corrupt”… but then, that’s a article of faith for his wing of the party.

Pablo Trejo Pérez, a PRD Delegate from working class Itzacalco, writing in a (badly translated) editorial in The [Mexico City] sees a “privatization” issue (and a union one) that hasn’t been much discussed. The fiber-optics sytem owned by LyFC:

Behind the government’s onslaught against [LyFC] lies the dispute of what to do with a 1,100-kilometer long fiber optic network that belongs to the liquidated company. We are talking about a system that makes the transmission of voice and data over any domestic power line or low-voltage source possible, which made the company a major competitor with two more economically powerful companies: Televisa and Telmex.

The arguments the government has cited as reasons to liquidate the [LyFC] are meaningless and should be cause for reflection because the federal government has just declared war on electrical workers.

After three years in office, Calderón should understand that the strength of a government lies not in the strength of its police or armed forces’ ability to enforce authoritarian rule, but rather in the government’s moral authority. A strong state is maintained not by the use of force, but with social consensus that comes from legitimacy.

One possible protest suggested by an SME spouse involves getting people to turn on their lights, radios, televisions, space heaters, air conditioners, etc…. and try to cause a surge. Power to the people takes a whole new meaning in this fight.

Categories: AMLO · Economy & Business · Ester Elba Gordillo · Felipe Calderón · Organized Labor (Sindicatos) · PAN · Politica (Mexicana)

Today we have to correct those things that don’t work in the country

12 October 2009 · Leave a Comment

(One update at end)

… or so said Don Felipe, justifying the dissolution of Luz y Fuero de Centro, the Mexico City metropolitan electric company (the rest of the country is served by CFE, Comisión Federal de Electricidad.

While I’m waiting for the snarky responses from those that are going to list other government entities that “don’t work in the country”, I was struck by Calderón’s calling attention to the amount of money lost by LyFC compared to other government programs… which would indicate a management, not a labor problem.

If I heard right, the workers — whom, if we take Calderón at his word, are losing their jobs because of poor management — are going to receive assistance finding jobs with “small enterprises”. How that jives with his statement that there were no plans to privatize the national power company makes me wonder if he doesn’t, as the union claim, simply want to break contracts, and destroy the union movement… something his party has always stood for (and, until recently, the other parties wouldn’t).

Electrical workers' protest (photo: El Universal)

Electrical workers' protest (photo: David Jamarillo, El Universal)

While privatization may be technically off the table, I wouldn’t be surprised to see introduction of a PEMEX type “reform” that allows for outside contractors to bid on subsidiary services, and which will pit the laid off 15,000 union workers who took to the streets in protest Sunday.

At the same time, there are legal questions. For starters, a union contract with one employer is still valid when another owner takes over the business… in this case, when CFE takes over LyFC. Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME) is not going down without a fight, with other unions and several political leaders (notably AMLO) arguing the Calderón Administration’s end game is the destruction of the independent union movement… something well in line with both PAN’s more recent “neo-liberal” policies that assume a public utility should turn a profit (something alien to political traditions that hold the utilities to be a public service, not a business) and its historic roots in anti-labor movements (including fascism).

Photo: Alberto Lopez, El Universal

Ironically, CFE is raising its electrical rates, which have led to protests by business groups, manufacturers, consumers and tourist operations throughout the country. Protests, like this one by Tehuana women, are becoming more common.

Laura Carlsen, as usual, provides excellent background and overview:

The decree follows a union conflict that the government fueled and then took advantage of to eliminate the company and its union. The union elections last June were contested by the losing group amid rumors that the federal government was actively fomenting division. In a warning sign, on Oct. 5 the Secretary of Labor, Javier Lozano, rejected registration of the new union leadership without waiting for a decision from the Labor Tribunal…

…The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME, by its Spanish initials) is among the most active and independent unions in a country that has been dominated by government-affiliated unions. Its membership has led the many battles for defense of labor rights and standard of living in the country. SME leader, Martin Esparza, declared the Calderon takeover “unconstitutional” and has vowed to fight against the liquidation of the company and of the union contract. In a joint interview on MSVRadio, he spoke alongside the defeated union candidate, Alejandro Munoz, in which both declared common cause to fight against the administration’s union-busting move.

Categories: AMLO · Economy & Business · Felipe Calderón · Human Rights · Manifestaciones · Oaxaca · Organized Labor (Sindicatos) · PAN · Politica (Mexicana) · Provincia · Real Mexico

Lights are on, nobody home

11 October 2009 · Leave a Comment

HOLY SHIT!

At approximately 10:30 pm Saturday evening more then 1000 federal police took over diferent installations of the Compañia de Luz y Fuerza del Centro which provided electricity for the central region of Mexico. At midnight the government issued a presidential decree announcing the disspearance of this company and its functions will be taken over by the CFE, the Federal Electric Company

(via Ana María Salazar, posted at 2:11 Mexico City time this morning)

There has been a barrage of news items over the last few weeks, suggesting the union representing Luz y Fuerza workers was hopelessly corrupt. Less reported in the national press has been that union’s continued intransigence toward what they still regard as a “de facto” presidency (as opposed to the “legitimate presidency” of AMLO), and their opposition to Administration noises about deregulating and/or denationalizing the electric companies. As of Friday, there were still discussions about recognizing the union elections.

Cronica de Hoy says this was a cost-savings move. LyFC has been losing money, and one major overhead has been retiree pensions. Paying employee liquidations (a cash payment based on salary and years of service to which Mexican employees are entitled) might also mean canceling future retiree benefits: presently pensions run the company pays about twice its yearly payroll .

Jornada’s first posts note that there was no immediate violence during the “requisa”, but Milenio, which had fuller coverage, indicates that violence is expected, and notes that the Union has scheduled an emergency meeting for today.

El Universal’s 0307 AM posting quotes Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas official Martín Esparza as calling the action an “offense against all Mexican workers” and also reports that an informational strike will begin at 9 AM tomorrow. U.S. and Canadian electrical workers’ unions have expressed solidarity, but it remains to be seen what happens next.

Stay tuned… assuming I have electricity (my electric company here always was CFE (also state owned), but there’s no guarantee their workers won’t walk off the job.

Notimex photo

The timing (late on Saturday night, after beating El Salvador in the World Cup hexogonal elimination round– putting the whole country into a party mood) with a Monday holiday) was obviously planned to minimize media attention and mute reaction by the union (and anti-administration sympathizers). Ironically, I only caught the story because I had gone clubbing, and — unrelated I think — the power went out!

Categories: AMLO · Alternative Presidency · Bureaucracy · Felipe Calderón · Organized Labor (Sindicatos) · Politica (Mexicana)

You know, this could be the start of a beautiful relationship

16 August 2009 · Leave a Comment

Reuters:

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico and Brazil should negotiate a free trade agreement to boost commercial ties, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said on Saturday.

Calderon, who is in Brazil for a state visit, is a staunch supporter of free trade and has argued that opening up trade is the easiest way for poor nations to develop their economies.

“Today we should understand that the opportunity for Mexico and Brazil is a greater integration of commercial ties,” Calderon said in a speech in Sao Paulo, Mexican media reported.

Mexico’s economy has been slammed by the recession in the United States, its biggest trading partner. Gross domestic product is expected to contract by at least 6.5 percent this year, putting Mexico on track for its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Mexico currently sends about 80 percent of its exports to its neighbor to the north.

…

I don’t believe there’s any more “free trade” than there is a free lunch, but I’ve said several times over the last three years that one of the biggest problems with the Mexican economy was that it was too tied to the United States… and that NAFTA was, inadvertently or otherwise, a one way street (leading to the poorhouse, for the independent Mexican farmer who didn’t want to go into the marijuana trade).

The other point (and one I’d need to check) is that this is about the 30th of the 50 points in the Lopez Obrador “50-point plan” for the Mexican economy that the Calderon Administration said they’d never consider… but now do.

Categories: AMLO · Americas (outside U.S. and Mexico) · Brazil · Economy & Business · Felipe Calderón · Trade agreements and issues

Authorities in Mexico say they’ve solved teen’s slaying — again

19 July 2009 · Leave a Comment

One added link — in italics

The headline the Los Angeles Times chose to run on Ken Ellingwood’s article on the confusion surrounding the capture of a second set of suspects in the Fernando Marti kidnapping and murder case sums up the absurdity of the situation.

Of course, there is nothing funny about it when a 14-year old boy is kidnapped and murdered, but when the boy’s father, millionare sportsware manufacturer Alejandro Marti became the face of an astro-turfed anti-crime movement (fomented by endless advertising on Televisa and pushed by PAN as a way of showing support for the Calderon Administration’s anti-crime initiatives) there was always something dubious about the case.

Federal District prosecutors claimed the people they arrested — including FEDERAL police officers — were the culprits, although they admitted they did not know who exactly murdered the boy. Those arrested were supposedly from a gang called “La Flor” which, under the leadership of former federal agent Sergio Ortiz, scoped out the pricier health clubs to identify potential victims.

However… this week, FEDERAL police claimed that they have arrested members of a second kidnapping gang, led by Abel Silva Petriciolet (who is still at large) and that two members of the gang confessed to murdering Marti.

The Petricolet gang is said to have been under investigation for a number of years, and to have murdered at least kidnapping victims… 14 year old Marti and a 16 year old boy among them. While the District Prosecutor insists his gangsters (La Flor) are the right guys, he has been gentlemanly enough to share… suggesting that perhaps the target of the Federal Prosecutor’s target– the Petricolet gang — “might” somehow be related to his case. But, the District Prosecutor claims he’s never heard of the Petricolet gang before now.

I’ve known Mexican prosecutors, and in high-profile crimes (especially where there is an incentive to resolve it quickly) it’s very likely that someone will be “persuaded” to confess to the deed rather quickly. Which will make for splashy headlines… the long delays as the prosecutor fails to develop a case less well noted, and the culprit’s eventual release hardly noted at all. Given the political presure to find someone, at first I assumed that the “La Flor” gang might not be the right people (much as after the Morelia bombings last year, the gangsters of the month, the Zetas, we were assured were the culprits, and the first shady characters pulled in at a roadblock “confessed” to their involvement in the attack).

But, this case always was odd. Not just that only wealthy, conservative crime victims were chosen as “spokespersons” for the big anti-crime rallies, but that as the local Mexico City prosecutor’s investigation began pointing towards involvement by Federal police officials, the Administration’s concerns for public security and safety switched to rooting out “corruption” among opposition party figures.

Somebody was bound to notice. Ganchoblog has a range of reactions, all dubious of the latest arrests. Of course, the hardly fair and balance Blogotitlan (its who raison d’etre is to propandize for the “Legitimate Presidency of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador), raises the questions less politely than some, but as legitimately as any:

When the Federal District Prosecutor began unraveling the case of Fernando Marti (under pressure from Alejandro Marti, who famously said, “if you can’t resolve the crime, then resign”) strands within the investigation nearly led to the Federal Secretary of Public Security, a line of investigation immediately halted by Felipe Calderon.

Today, the Federal Prosecutor hauls out another “culprit” in the kidnapping and murder of young Marti… this one confessing to the crime, but with no corroborating evidence being presented.

Did two gangs kidnap and kill the same person, unbeknowst to each other? Either the District Prosecutor, or the Secretary of Public Security is lying.

A “citizen’s watchdog” group (paid for by Calderon’s administration) has demanded answers … from the District Prosecutor, not from the Secretary of Public Security, who has offered no corroborating evidence beyond the “confessions”, undoubted obtained by the technical means usually employed by Mexican police.

It can’t be that the Federal Secretary wants to protect their own “persons of confidence” (some accused by the District Prosecutor with at least partial culpability in the crime) from investigation — or, at the very least claiming a “triumph” for the discredited Calderón — while seeking to rehabilitate valued accomplices in their criminal activities.

The worst thing about all this is that the Federal Secretary admits to having shadowed the gang his office claims is responsible for these crimes since 2005: time enough for them to commit several misdeeds with no attempt to halt them. Inefficiency or complicity?

In the recently relevant words of Ricky Ricardo the Federal Secretary has some ’splain’ to do.

Categories: AMLO · Alternative Presidency · Ciudad de México · Crime and Punishment · Felipe Calderón · Human Rights · Legal system · Media · Policia · Politica (Mexicana) · Spin doctors

If he limps like a lame duck…

16 July 2009 · 1 Comment

The [Mexico City] News still has the crappiest retrieval system I know of (and no copyright information appears on the on-line edition that I can find), so — while I’m including a link — I’ve also pasted Ricardo Castillo’s article on the election and its effect on the parties at the end of this post.

While noting that both the PRD and PAN (both of which did poorly in the 5 July elections) are seriously discussing reorganization, two startling facts come out.

First, though less important for the immediate future, is that the PRD meeting this weekend is looking at healing the rift between the various “tribes” within the leftist party, as well as rebuilding the coalition with the two smaller parties of the left. While neither Cuauhtemoc Cardenas (whose 1988 run for the presidency — and is probable victory in that race, though Carlos Salinas de Goutari “won” — on a coalition of leftist and reformist tickets led to the party’s founding) nor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (whose coattails gave the party it’s greatest strength when he also may have won the presidency in 2006) attended, neither did the present party chair, Jesus Ortega.

Ortega — whose “chuco” faction, won in a bitter intra-party squabble, is seen by many to have been a divisive figure in what is an already fragmented coalition of interests. Carlos Narvatte, the PRD Senate leader, is calling for unity, and opening the party to all factions.

More important were the PAN meetings, also this previous weekend. Party Chair German Martinez — a personal choice of Felipe Calderon — was unceremoniously sacked even before the last votes were counted. Calderon himself is in trouble. PAN”s Senate leader, Gustavo Madero, told the press that — within the Party — “President Calderón has only one vote, he is just like everyone else here. We can no longer speak about the president’s candidate.

Calderon, remember, was not President Vicente Fox’s choice for his successor, forcing a bruising primary on the party, and in some ways, forcing the “pragmatic wing” (the pro-business wing of Fox) to the sidelines in party control. Which the party faithful now see as a strategic error.

Quacks in the system

With Calderon being pushed aside by his own party, he will be the first “lame duck” president we’ve had. Fox and Zedillo both had to deal with opposition legislatures, but Zedillo, who had been pushing to separate his party (PRI) from the government, faced a divided opposition in the legislature — split between the left and the right — which meant he could find middle ground from either side for any given administration proposal. And, while Fox’s PAN was in a slight minority the last three years of his “sexenial” (six-year term), he could count on support from the “dinasauro” wing of PRI which was hungry for the trappings of relevance. Fox could also count on the support of Esther Elba Gordilla, who — after the party stripped her of her central committee seat, and then purged her — still maintained some pull through the small Nueva Alliaza party.

Nueva Allianza will have a few seats within the new legislature, but, their short history is that of surviving by allying themselves to the “powers that be”. There may be no upside for them in working with PAN in the next legislature, and they’ll be more likely to try to swing PRI legislation to the right. PRD is likely to work with its two “junior partners” and regain its role as a leftist bloc that can swing legislation. But — with PRI in a majority by itself (and a plurality with the Greens), this will be the first time in Mexican history that the President cannot command the legislature since Madero’s short 1911-1913 Presidency.

Madero’s Presidency ended with a coup (U.S. sponsored, as everyone should know), but there was support for replacing him even before the coup, in part because he lost control of the legislature. I don’t see anything quite that dramatic in the next few years (despite those who claim that because the War of Indepence started in 1810, and the Revolution in 1910, there has to be a violent upheaval in 2010. A series of two does not mean a series of three).

lame duck_t Calderon’s programs are probably dead however. The “War on Drugs” is losing more support every day, and — bolstered by the Human Rights Watch Report on military abuses in that “war” the PRI (and PRD) both have sufficient political rationale for drastically reducing the military operations, and — being nationalist parties — are less likely to be swayed by U.S. interests. Besides which, revenge is sweet, and many in both parties were incensed at the accusations that they were more “corrupted” than the presidential party.

The economy has not gotten better, and the leftist proposals look better all the time. Kiss selling off PEMEX good-bye, and say hello to more domestic spending programs at the expense of “free-trade” orthodoxies. PRI chair, Beatriz Paredes, has been trying to pull the party back to its left-wing traditions, though there is some concern that Carlos Salinas (and his “neo-liberal” backers) still have too much power in the party. While some of the PRI may back Calderon on economic issues, that isn’t a sure bet.

It would be a logistics nightmare if Calderon were to resign because of the need for a interim president to serve until the 2010 Elections, at which time an “Internal President” would be elected to a two year term, and there is no guarantee that any president appointed by the legislature would be from the same party as the sitting president. The only time there has been an internal and interim presidency (and it got messy, when the internal president then quit before the end of his short term, forcing the legislature to select another interim president), the legislature and the presidency were firmly in the control of Plutarcho Elias Calles, with a single party dominating the country.

And, of course, anyone serving as president — even for a day — would be ineligible to ever hold the office again.

The chances of a Lopez Obrador presidency — even for a couple of months? Nil. The chance for massive policy change? Very, very high.

(The News article after the “jump”)

(more…)

Categories: 2006 Elections · AMLO · Alternative Presidency · Beatriz Paredes · Carlos Salinas · Cuauhtémoc Cardenas · Ernesto Zedillo · Ester Elba Gordillo · FAP (PRD-PT-Convergencia) · Felipe Calderón · Francisco I. Madero · Human Rights · Juan Camilo Moreño · Mexican History 1910-20 (Revolution) · Mexican History 1921+ · Military · Minor parties · PAN · PRD · PRI · Plutarco Elías Calles · Politica (Mexicana)

Does Sarah Palin know AMLO?

15 July 2009 · 4 Comments

One advantage of not watching U.S. television is I get my U.S. news from internet broadcasts, and can skip the clips that really don’t interest me at all. My interest in the Sarah Palin saga… the Governor of Alaska who — having shot up from nowhere to national prominence — then suddenly quit hasn’t been all that overwhelming. Everyone assumes Palin’s political career is toast, though she keeps hinting that something else is going on. Maybe if she was a Mexican politico I’d kind of believe that.

The PRD, which runs the Federal District the way the bigger parties run their respective strong-holds (crushing all opposition, internal and external) broke after the close 2006 election over whether to continue support for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s campaign to overturn the dubious Calderon victory, or whether to compromise and accept the PANista’s narrow win as legitimate.

The party only managed to hold together by working out a compromise whereby Lopez Obrador backers ran on two smaller parties (PT, the Workers’ Party [theoreticaly Maoist and Che-guevarist] and Convergenica [social democratic]) in the Federal District.

Clara Brugata, a Lopez Obradorista, was forced off the PRD ballot in Itzapalapa, despite overwhelming support in the party primary. So, Lopez Obrador, and his backers, supported the PT candidate, who suprised the experts, and won the seat, big-time. El Debate de Sinaloa (my translation) wrote an editorial that explains what happened next… and what might be the result down the road.

With an informed, vigilant citizenship demanding transparency that by the political parties and the electoral authorities, it will no longer be easy to make deals behind closed doors, nor to treat the people capriously, after what happened in Iztapalapa, following the election of “Juanito”.

The triumph of Rafael Acosta Ángeles, (Juanito), the Workers’ Party candidate in Delegación Iztapalapa, over the PRD, PAN and PRI, began when the Federal Electoral Tribunal forced Clara Burgada off the ballot, touching off a citizen’s revolt. It ends with Acosta’s election, and his resignation in favor of Burada, to fulfill a political commitment to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

“Juanito” was the instrument of the citizen’s rebellion, having run with the intention of resigning in favor of Brugada… and obtaining fame and popularity no one could have predicted in the process.

“Juanito” already gained fame and political glory, not only from those who cast their ballots for him, but from citizens generally, as a result of special circumstances that will allow him to consider being a candidate for Jefe de Gobierno of the Federal District three years hence, and – perhaps – for President of Mexico in another nine.

The strangest part of this political phenomenon in the Federal District, is that Clara Brugada, who was replaced as the candidate for Iztapalapa by Silvia Olivas Fregoso, will win her seat as Jefa de Delegación without having participated in the elections.

Finally, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who pushed Brugada’s candidacy, and – when she was removed from the PRD ticket by the Electoral Tribunal – denounced the party, is the biggest winner of all in Iztapalapa, assuming “Juanito” fulfills the political pact that he has so far honored, and said will not be broken.

I’ve always said you can’t count the guy out, and — while I don’t think he’ll be a candidate for President in 2012, I don’t think AMLO, nor his 30-35 percent of the voter’s support, ever really disappeared. It may be significant that the editorial was not from a Mexico City newspaper, but a provincial one. Being out of the media spotlight may have worked to AMLO’s advantage, letting him rebuild his organization without drawing attacks from his avowed enemies, the television networks and corporate media, while working with grassroots organizations in rural areas, and in working class communities like Iztapalapa.

I don’t see a Lopez-obradorista being able to capture a third of the vote in the near future, but — given the poor showing by PRD nationally, PRD may be more amiable to a coalition with the smaller leftist parties, and — given the leftward slant of PRI chair Beatriz Paredes, whose party will have enough seats to not need a coalition with PAN, the left may be driving more of the legislative agenda for the next three years.

Categories: 2006 Elections · AMLO · Ciudad de México · FAP (PRD-PT-Convergencia) · Iztapalapa · Minor parties · PRD · Politica (Mexicana)