Mistakes from the PAN

I think the PAN did the best they could with a rather difficult hand in selecting their presidential candidate, but in two lesser races, they've made very disappointing selections: eager to prove that the reactionary Christian right remains robust and influential, they passed over José Ángel Córdova the internationally renowned health minister, selecting instead Miguel Márquez Márquez by a margin of 25 points. This led to speculation that the PRI would snap Córdova up as their candidate, which would have been a sharp move on their part, though it appears as though he will now work on Vázquez Mota's campaign.

And, they selected Zeferino Torreblanca, the ex-perredista governor of Guerrero as their candidate for the mayoralty in Acapulco. Torreblanca left office disliked by virtually everyone outside of his immediate family (and rumor has it many of them were on the fence), and was I believe selected as the most distrusted governor in the nation by a poll in 2007 or so. It is understandable that the PAN wants a presence in states where it has one, but Torreblanca is not the kind of presence the party should want.

Peña Nieto's Doings

Peña Nieto today promised to gradually pull the army off the streets should he become president. That gives more wiggle room than a [too lazy to think of a metaphor in which a lot of wiggle room is implied], but I believe it's further than he has gone on that issue in the past. Also, doesn't Peña Nieto looked old here?:
Gray hairs!! Perhaps this is why: in the past three months, according to Ipsos, Peña Nieto's poll numbers have dropped by 18 points. And with Vázquez Mota in the race, he has a lead of just 12 points. As a lesser known figure, Vázquez Mota could well eat into that figure as she introduces herself to the public. Although she also needs to avoid gaffes and make a good impression, something that is certainly not a given. See here, for instance, for more information on that score.

Learning from Jalisco

New piece:

The nuances of the relationships among the other gangs operating in Jalisco are similarly unclear. The Resistance has been described as allied to the Zetas and to the Familia Michoacana, though other reports have depicted them as enemies of both these groups. This interplay among the Jalisco gangs demonstrates that, contrary to the widespread belief that all smaller groups are subsidiaries to one of the larger networks, the low-level gangs have been able to carve out an autonomous toehold.

The local gangs operating in Jalisco and elsewhere also demonstrate that the model of the transnational group, controlling every step of production and transportation, is less and less relevant to today's Mexico. Many of the gangs in Jalisco have no known connections to Colombia, nor do they control valuable plazas in the border region, nor do they have retail partners in the US. These groups, and others like them in Acapulco and elsewhere, either buy into another gang's smuggling network in order to ship drugs northward, or they extract their profits from the local population, whether through extortion, kidnapping, car-jacking, or retail drug sales.

Marisol Valles in Gatopardo

Evidently, the 20-year-old was merely seeking a position as a secretary last year, and was shoehorned into becoming the chief of police in violent Práxedis G. Guerrero, Chihuahua. And now the single mother is a refugee, run out of town by the gangsters in control.

Also, the magazine has a nice long profile of these guys.

On the New Juárez Cartel

This one is a couple of days old now. Highlights:

Such a reorganization of fading older groups into new networks is common in Mexico, and has often led to the further spread of violence. After the death and arrest of all but one of its foremost leaders, the formerly vaunted Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO), for instance, disintegrated into the South Pacific Cartel, the Mano con Ojos, and various other largely regional gangs sprinkled around the country. While these groups have nowhere near the influence that the original group did, they have sparked fighting in Mexico State, Guerrero, Morelos, and other Mexican states.

In other cases, the impact of this reorganization is not so severe. In Michoacan, for example, the rebranding of the Familia Michoacana as the Caballeros Templarios has sparked a comparatively mild increase in violence. Overall, however, the constant process of destruction and regeneration has been a force for greater levels of bloodshed spread across a larger expanse of the nation.

Finally!

I can't overemphasize how much I agree with this statement from Alejandro Poiré, and while I am glad to have heard it, my only quibble is that I don't remember any Calderón official having made such a point in the past five years:

Late to the Party

Congrats to Josefina Vázquez Mota for winning the PAN primary and to Mexico for having a female candidate from a major party. They beat the gringos to it!

Cordero's nearly 40 percent was a far better showing than I would have guessed a month ago, so it wasn't the perfunctory washout that I had expected, but the PAN's failure to determine a candidate until now still seems like quite a lost opportunity. Peña Nieto has gift-wrapped a number of opportunities to paint him as, by turns, out of touch, unintelligent, immoral, and condescending. Throughout that time, Vázquez Mota's primary concern has been Cordero. If Peña Nieto has shaken the cobwebs off and runs a relatively gaffe-free campaign from here on --clearly, a significant "if"-- then the PAN's best moment to make up ground will have been wasted.

Here's some commentary from Cecilia Soto (who also ran for president for a smaller party in 1994), Ricardo Raphael, and Leo Zuckermann.

The Three Tamaulipas Governors

I have a new piece about the past three governors of Tamaulipas and the investigation into their links to criminal groups:

The governors are suspected of having links to groups like the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas. As online publication Reporte Indigo reports, a document from the special organized crime unit of Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, dated January 13, refers to an investigation into these alleged ties. Among the specific crimes that the governors are accused of committing are money laundering and accepting illegal payments. As part of the investigation, federal agencies were instructed to record every instance in which any of the governors or 46 of their family members and political associates left the country.

While investigations into such high-profile officials are rare, the suspicions about Tamaulipas politicians being linked to criminal groups are not. The state government has long been accused of protecting the Gulf Cartel and fostering the rise of the Zetas over the past decade. In 2009, renowned journalist Carlos Loret de Mola said the state was “without a doubt” the most dangerous in Mexico in terms of “the social decomposition and the penetration of drug traffickers in all of the structures.”

Tamaulipas is significantly less violent than many other states also linked to drug trafficking, which is probably linked to the fact that the total infiltration of its institutions makes it more stable. However, the region has grown more bloody with the 2010 split between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. In the most notorious act of violence in Tamaulipas' recent history, a candidate for governor, Rodolfo Torre Cantu, was murdered less than two weeks before the 2010 election.

Peña Nieto's Imperfect Candidacy

New piece here:

Sin embargo, es indudable que esto representa otra mancha en la imagen de un candidato que parecía impecable y invencible hace unos meses. No es justo, pero es la realidad. Y aunque no nos diga mucho sobre la capacidad de Peña Nieto como ejecutivo, este escándalo a medias sí nos brinda otra lección política: las campañas presidenciales son completamente diferentes a cualquier otro desafío político. Las investigaciones en el pasado de los candidatos son más a fondo; la atención diaria es más abrumadora; las preguntas de la prensa son más y más detalladas; el estrés es más constante. Antes de que pase por todo eso, es casi imposible ver de lejos quien está a la altura de las exigencias. Algunos aspirantes que parecen ideales antes de arrancar el proceso no lo son.

Peña Nieto (junto con su equipo) ha hecho un trabajo de maravilla en aprovechar a los medios durante los últimos seis años y pico. Siendo un personaje altamente conocido, atractivo, experimentado, y no panista, parecía el hombre ideal para las circunstancias actuales. Pero entre los Tuits de su hija, su falta de conocimiento sobre el precio de tortillas o el salario mínimo, la alianza fracturada con Panal, sus vínculos con Humberto Moreira, y varias vergüenzas más, ahora queda claro que un candidato ideal no es.

On Joaquín Villalobos' Nexos Piece: Hope's Turn

Alejandro Hope has a response to Joaquín Villalobos' sprawling and in many ways curious defense of Calderón's crime policy here. The conclusion:

No existe contradicción entre construir el Estado y lo que Joaquín llama “administrar el crimen”. Esa tarea la hacen todos los Estados modernos del mundo. No implica entrar en componendas con los delincuentes. Significa que el Estado, en situación de fuerza pero con plena conciencia de sus limitaciones, ponga rayas, fije prioridades y disuada las peores conductas, aun si eso implica tolerar temporalmente otras. No hay nada particularmente conservador en esa visión y nada eminentemente progresista en sugerir que no hay más ruta que el combate a ultranza, sin referencia a costos y vidas humanas.

My own contribution to antivillalobismo can be found here.

There Are No Scandals in Peña Nieto's World

As with all the past missteps, the revelation that he had a child out of wedlock has had little effect on the support for Enrique Peña Nieto. Sixty-nine percent of those who were aware of the charges basically dismissed their relevance to the presidential race, according to a new BGC poll. That may change once people are paying more attention to the race, and perhaps the most striking thing is that people were largely unaware of the infidelity story. In this case, the widespread dismissal is also logically correct and shows admirable maturity, even if it strikes me as unusual, child of the Clinton years that I am. But when you start comparing Peña Nieto's merits and advantages to his scandals and drawbacks, it's hard not to wonder if a crash is around the corner.

Pobre Giovani

Another transfer window comes and goes, and Giovani stays locked onto Tottenham's bench. Since his breakout performance in the 2010 World Cup, he's had two semesters of absolute irrelevance in London with another on the way, and a single half-season at Racing in which he was the team's most important player and a huge reason they weren't relegated. Harry Redknapp is a fun character and he's doing a good job with the Spurs, but he is screwing dos Santos out of quality years, and he's going to wind up losing him for nothing in the long run.

Also, you know who could have used Gio? Barça, which is wracked by injuries, is lacking in depth (relative to Real anyway), and often shows a surprising lack of attacking spark from the midfield depth when Iniesta is out.

The PRI's Missteps

Jorge Fernández Menéndez talks about how a collection of personal problems have turned into a political nightmare for the PRI.

On Veracruz

New piece here. Highlights:

While both government sources and outside analysts have trumpeted the Zetas as the most powerful and dangerous band in Mexico, the ability of a little-known group, even one with the backing of a larger organization, to move into the Zetas’ turf and fight for control of the region demonstrates that all gangs have become vulnerable to the prevailing chaos.

The spike in killing in Veracruz also exemplifies the fact that the parts of Mexico with the most significant recent rises in violence are not the border towns notorious for wanton killings, such as Juarez or Tijuana. Indeed, the violence has decreased in each of those border cities and in other regions that have long been closely tied to the drug trade. In recent months, however, it is in coastal states like Michoacan, Guerrero, and Jalisco, as well as staging-area cities just a few hours from the border like Monterrey and Torreon, where the most significant increases have been witnessed.

On Meth's Growing Importance to the Mexican Drug Trade

Sorta new piece here. Highlights:

The location of the clandestine laboratories suggests that the Mexican production of synthetic drugs is dominated by the same group that has long towered over the industry as a whole: the Sinaloa Cartel. The organization led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has long been the strongest criminal group along the Pacific coast region, as well as one of the most innovative in producing and smuggling drugs. It’s also noteworthy that the regions under the control of their biggest enemies, the Zetas, have comparatively little synthetic drug production.

This state of affairs seems unlikely to last. The Sinaloa Cartel has more experience at the production levels of the supply chain than many rival organizations, but the relative simplicity of synthetic drug production suggests that other gangs will inevitably eat into their market share. Furthermore, because there is no inherent geographic benefit to one region or another for producing synthetic drugs -- unlike marijuana and poppy, which are ideally suited to the remote mountain ranges of western Mexico -- a long-term shift toward synthetic drugs could eat into the natural advantages that the Sinaloa-based traffickers enjoy.

While there are a great deal of factors driving the violence in Mexico, it also seems logical that the greater amount of money at stake with synthetic production could encourage more bloodshed. Indeed, it is unlikely to be a coincidence that the rise in synthetic production has occurred alongside the notorious spike in Mexican violence. Insofar as the shift toward synthetic drugs is permanent, it will likely make the recent wave of violence more difficult to rein in.

Also, the always essential Alejandro Hope has a new piece (translated into English) here.

On Monopolies

Jesús Ortega here. I'm a fan of his, and of any attempt to knock down monopolies, but I think his take is a little too tied to the ideological breakdown in Mexico regarding monopolies, ie (in simplified form) Pemex/CFE not so bad for the left, Televisa/TV Azteca not so bad for the right.

Also, he says Pemex is not, strictly speaking, a monopoly, because other companies are involved in extraction and other secondary industry activities. That's, in the kindest take, needless hair-splitting; moreover, there are no retail gas merchants in the nation outside of Pemex.

2011? A Penny for a Last-Second Copy Edit.

Current History's annual Latin America issue is out:

On Castañeda's New Book

Here's a review of Mañana Forever. Short version: lots of good diagnoses regarding what ails Mexico, but the critique of national character over top of it fell short.

The PRI's Mistake

Leo Zuckermann says the gang blew it in Mexico City with Beatriz Paredes, pointing to a recent phone poll by El Universal putting her 13 points down to Miguel Mancera. Her once-impressive showing in previous local polls seems to have stemmed more than anything from her advantage and name recognition, and perhaps better fundamentals from the PRI several months ago.

Sunday Reading

For that hour between the end of the Barça-Málaga tie and the opening game of the NFL, here's a long piece from Gatopardo about Jorge Hank Rhon. Early paragraphs:

Dos años antes de morir, su padre le escribió una carta que Jorge Hank lee todas las noches. En ella le dice lo orgulloso que se siente de él, al verlo convertido en todo un padre de familia y en empresario de éxito, y le habla de la gran satisfacción de poder servir a los demás desde la función pública. Sin embargo, el profesor muere sin ver que su hijo tome un día la decisión de dedicarse a la política. Hasta hace menos de un año, Jorge Hank Rhon no hacía vida pública y afirmaba que él nunca se dedicaría a la política. Nunca pasó por una brigada juvenil priista ni coqueteó con alguna candidatura, pues él siempre dijo sentirse más feliz entre sus animales que entre la gente.

¿Cómo ha sucedido esa transformación? ¿Cómo ha operado el milagro? Entre las múltiples carreras políticas que el profesor Carlos Hank González apadrinó, destaca la de Roberto Madrazo Pintado, quien quedó huérfano en 1969, cuando la avioneta en la que viajaba su padre, el ex líder nacional priista Carlos Madrazo, se desplomó extrañamente en Nuevo León. Hank González adopta al huérfano adolescente y encauza su carrera, primero en el Departamento del Distrito Federal y después apoyándolo para una diputación a los veinticuatro años de edad. Más tarde le da todo su respaldo para convertirse en gobernador de Tabasco e intenta impulsarlo sin éxito como candidato presidencial en 1999. En 2004, Roberto Madrazo es presidente nacional del PRI, y es él quien le pide como un favor personal a su compadre y amigo Jorge Hank Rhon que acepte la candidatura a la presidencia municipal de Tijuana. Vicente Fox le ha arrebatado al pri la presidencia y su influencia está aún vigente. Baja California pertenece al partido del presidente. Sin embargo, una de las enseñanzas de su padre, repetida hasta el final de sus días, es que un verdadero priista es un soldado de su partido que debe estar listo para entrar en batalla cuando se lo piden, aun cuando todos los factores estén en contra.

Celebrating the Polling Industry

Here's last week's column from Macario Schettino, noting that two decades ago, there was no polling industry to speak of in Mexico. Among other more important things, this would have severely limited the ability to write about elections with some degree of precision, which would have sucked for op-ed columnists. Or maybe the alternative: they could write about whatever they wished without any regard for objective perceptions of electoral reality, in which case it would have been a bad deal for the readers. Anyway, the current existence of so many top-flight pollsters in Mexico is another of the illustrations of how far the nation has come in two decades.

Also, today Schettino notes the unusually wide swings in opinion regarding the economic prospects for 2012.

Wayne Weighs In

Rooney was also left indignant by Pepe's behavior. Incidentally, that lack of a Real-Man Utd matchup following Ronaldo's exit is quite a disappointment. Maybe next year.

How about a Win, Barça?

Update: Thank you, that was just what I was looking for. Pepe's performance was apropos of the Hanson brothers. Between the artillery captain's approach to tackling (which is standard), the element of diving (which was novel!), and the blatantly premeditated hand-stomp on Messi, it was simply insane.