Search

Search this site:

Navigation

Mexican politics - fraud before the elections coming up

2005.04.05
Previous • Next

This is still not a fact… But it will soon be. We were so proud on July 2000 as we had finally beaten the eternal PRI and its perfect dictatorship. The hope, though, didn’t last long. Our shiny new president made the most hilarious bunch of promises about what would happen in the Government of the Change - And as soon as he assumed the power (December 1, 2000), he started breaking them one after another. I remember particularly talking with a good friend of mine who went to study for six months in Spain. It was March 2001. I was telling him of the stupidity of the new government, when the Zapatista representatives started a march through various states until reaching the country’s capital. My friend asked me how stupid could the Zapatistas be, by defying Mexico’s most popular person - Well, my friend did not feel this as he was away, but we had only seen three months of his rule, but his approval rate had descended over 20%. The Zapatista movement has been waiting on the government to act, to honor his word, since the last official cease-fire (1995, IIRC). The government (quoting ex-president Salinas) does not see them, does not hear them. Well, this shiny new president Fox promised that he’d solve the Zapatista conflict in 15 minutes - He did nothing. He did not talk to them, he did not listen to them… But he says that Chiapas is now again peaceful and prosper. Of course it is, but thanks to the EZLN, which is not your everyday killing and kidnapping guerrilla, but a real national reivindication movement. …But I will not talk more about the EZLN, as they are not the reason for me being angry. Fox’s government has showed us over four years of ineptitude, of broken promises, of going back to the corruption and power abuse levels of the Echeverría-López Portillo docena trágica, the dirtiest 12 years of our country’s politics (1970-1982) and the beginning of the continuous crisis we have faced since. Back in the day, the elections were seen as a simple joke. PRI politicians knew they could get whoever they wanted to power, they could remove anybody who fell from their grace, and did so with complete impunity. This changed radically in 1988, when the Frente Democrático Nacional (National Democratic Front) led by ex-PRI-member Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas challenged the most obvious fraud we had ever seen. After 1988, we had 12 years of slow but steady steps towards democracy - And we all thought that in 2000, when for the first time in over 70 years the PRI became opposition, we were already a democratic country. Our new government has, though, reinforced the almighty figure of the President, and has re-adopted the fraudulent techniques of the past, reaching a new level. By far, both Cárdenas and Mexico City’s major, Andrés Manuel López Obrador are not my favourite people to run the country. They both (as many other important people in their party) were very prominent figures in the PRI until the mid-1980s. They display many sick attitudes that I do not want to see in a president - But then again, every single politician in this country seems, as we say, to have been cut using the same mold. Since early 2001, when López Obrador started appearing ahead in basically every popularity poll, all sorts of discredit has been tried against him. But, once the holders of the power found they could not undermine his popularity, things started becoming dirtier: As this guy will be tough to beat in the elections, it’s much better not to allow them to run for president in 2006. A whole mess has been created around the very vague issue of Predio El Encino. It has been shown that the judge’s resolution has been honored. It has been shown that the limits of El Encino are not clear - they are not even important!. However, this week we will witness the desafuero (removal of the privileges given by law to an elected authority) that PRI+PAN have seeked for long months. I do hate the victim personality that López Obrador has built thanks to this, I hate the way he has been showing himself as the savior of legality, I hate to see he might be no better than anybody else… But I cannot stand still while the rulers once again remove a legitimate candidate from their way for something that irrelevant, while the real lawbreakers (the first examples that come to my mind are Morelos’ governor Sergio Estrada Cajigal has proven links to drug dealers and his state’s congress has requested his removal from office, or the tens of PRI leaders involved in the Pemexgate affair. It seems we are stuck in our nice little banana republic. It seems we still have to fight to get back to the point we were at a couple of years ago. NO AL GOBIERNO FASCISTA NO AL DESAFUERO NO A LA CANALLADA

Comments

inkatadoc 2005-04-05 12:07:02

A few pointers

Desafuero == Impeachment

The point you make around the encino affair is weak.

The nitty-gritty of the impeachment process leads to confusion, since it was built that way. Filled with legal loopholes, where anyone can do it’s bidding. Specially the President and it’s General Attorney

The heart of the matter is the use of "law" and "Legality" to get rid of someone you don’t like. There are hundreds, literally hundreds of cases scattered troughout history, Negro laws in the States, Race laws both in Germany and in South Africa, Social Disolution in México and many more in Latin América, just to name a few.

It’s the hardest thing to fight against, since the guys in power can always summon the "magic powers" of THE LAW and send gas-masked goons to take you in for as long as they want. There’s no one to help you while you get dragged trough the street, since you’re a "criminal" and if anyone dares, they’ll take them also.

There are but a few ways out of this. Either the responsible for all of this dies, OR you enter the resistance. In our country now, you can enter the armed, clandestine resistance or join the legal, civil, non-armed, and FAR more effective civil resistance.

But by no means can you sit this one out.

Best Inka

Categories