Monday, May 31, 2010

Greg Polling

An Excélsior poll shows that most of the populace thinks that Gregorio Sánchez is guilty, which wasn't the case a decade ago with Mario Villanueva. It makes you wonder whether the difference is explained by greater cynicism on the part of the public, Villanueva's relative popularity, or the latter doing a better job in refuting the case.

Leo Zuckermann argued rather convincingly last week that the shame is that, after the Michoacán debacle from last year, it's hard for an outsider to know what to believe:
The other problem is that the PGR during this term has detained officials that supposedly had links to organized crime and that, months later, were exonerated. That's what happened with mayors and former officials in the government of Michoacán that last May, just ahead of the federal elections, were detained by the PGR for alleged links with the Michoacán Family.

They were politicians from every party, but above all from the PRD because Michoacán is a majority perredista entity. The accused never even got an apology. I don't know if they were guilty or not. The fact is that they were liberated because the PGR couldn't prove their case.

It is, absolutely, a shameful moment for the Federal Public Ministry. An act that makes us doubt the present accusations against a candidate for governor from the left in Quintana Roo, Gregorio Sánchez.

That has to be balanced by the fact that this isn't the first time that they've tried to unfairly get Sánchez out of an electoral contest. The PRI political apparatus approved in 2008 a local constitutional reform to avoid his participation. They increased the number of years a non-native resident needed to be governor. This year the Supreme Court declared the reform unconstitutional.

Nevertheless, Sánchez finds himself very far back in the pre-electoral polls that have been published. It would seem that his adversaries don't have the objective tools to drive him from the race. Much less would the federal government be afraid that Greg (as he is colloquially known) could win and acquire a constitutional fuero, which would greatly complicate his judicial process.

In summary, there is evidence that makes us think that the accusation that Sánchez is involved in drug-trafficking, and there is evidence that make us doubt that. What a mess.

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