Bajo Reserva says that, a couple of years ago, Hillary Clinton responded to the possibility of a Peña Nieto presidency with not entirely friendly, "Over my dead body". I'm not sure what she may know that the rest of us don't, but that's an odd reaction, if it's true. First of all, it shows very little appreciation for the historical ineptitude of the US when trying to influence Latin American elections. Second, it shows little appreciation for the context, since Peña Nieto has been the favorite for 2012 since well before Clinton was deployed to Foggy Bottom. And lastly, it's especially odd because I can't why he would provoke such a harsh reaction from an American diplomat. I am no fan of Peña Nieto's, but he is not outside the mainstream of the Mexican political elite, nor does he represent a wing of it that is especially hostile to the US or its interests. In any event, it said she is warming to the idea of a Peña Nieto presidency, as well she should, given its likelihood.
The same column offered some details of Lula's recent visit to Mexico, in which he called for a Pemex-Petrobras partnership and scolded the PRD. Bajo Reserva, which referred to him as the "legendary Brazilian ex-president", said that Lula postponed meetings with Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and Marcelo Ebrard to hang out with Peña Nieto and Humberto Moreira for a while longer.
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5 comments:
"Scolded the PRI" should be "scolded the PRD."
yeah thanks whoops. I had a lot of typos in this one.
I'm not surprised by Lula's comments. His party's ideology may be superficially closer to PRD (or at least some factions of that circular firing squad of a party), but Brazil as a nation has always had expansionist ambitions, going back to the days of Dom Pedro. Especially during Lula's tenure, the Brazilian government was actively assisting Brazilian companies in attempting to gain control of resources in other countries — soy production in Paraguay, gas wells in Bolivia, etc.
I don't know what set Ms. Clinton off (or when she said this about Peña Nieto), but that's not so surprising either. While I tend to think Peña Nieto is sort of the Mexican version of Rick Perry, it's symptomatic of this U.S. administration that they would seek to arbitrate who is, and is not, a "suitable" Mexican presidential candidate. That's not unique to the Obama Administration, by any means, just more overt. The U.S. has been interfering in Mexican internal politics since Joel Roberts Poinsett was here in the 1820s. The latest Wikileaks certainly suggest the U.S. had a hand in the 2006 presidential election.
Had a hand in the election? IE they helped swing it? I've not seen anything that suggests that, not remotely to be honest, but maybe you've seen something I haven't.
Es un complot! Here I had a nice, relatively reasoned (ok, for me, reasoned) response... and then a power surge wiped it out. Dang.
Not "had a hand" in the sense of actually stuffing ballot boxes, but from the inordinate interest in the outcome and process suggested by the Wikileaks documents (since when does the U.S. Mission to the Vatican report on Mexican political processes?), remarks during the election by Tony Garza, the sudden appearance of various U.S. political operatives (Dick Morris among others) and inexplicable events like the Bellagio Casino security tapes of Gustavo Ponce which were supposedly FBI evidence in an unrelated U.S. court case showing up in Federico Döring's possession (and shown on Brozo's TV show) it's a little unreasonable NOT to see the U.S. government "having a hand" in the Mexican elections.
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