So This Is Huge News

Some Peje-leaning polls showed a significant drop in the support for Peña Nieto over the past couple of weeks, but to be honest I didn't put too much stock into them. A Reforma poll, however, is something quite a bit different. There may be some noise here, but the election seems to be in play.

Being Bearish on Brazil

Here's a response of mine to that new Foreign Affairs piece that throws dirt on the notion that Brazil's success will disappear with high commodities prices. Highlights:

Sin embargo, atribuir todo el éxito reciente de Brasil a los precios de las materias primas es un error. Entre sus exportaciones más importantes, hay varios que no son materias primas, como los autos, el equipo de transporte, y el calzado. Embraer se ha convertido en una compañía aeronáutica de nivel mundial, peleando por contratos del Pentágono. Brasil también es un líder en la producción de etanol, una fuente de energía cada vez más importante.

También se equivoca en su análisis de la Bolsa Familia. Sharma escribe como si fuera una simple redistribución de dinero, si por el simple hecho de ser pobres, las familias inscritas reciben su pago financiado con los impuestos de los trabajadores y empresas productivas. Pero la gran mayoría de los padres de familia reciben sus pagos con la condición de que sus hijos sigan en la escuela y de que reciban las vacunas ofrecidas por el gobierno. Es decir, no es un regalo a los pobres por ser pobres, sino una inversión para incrementar el capital humano de los brasileños que menos capital humano tienen. Más allá que sus méritos morales, los que abogan por la Bolsa Familia creen que es un motor importante para el crecimiento a largo plazo. Peor aún, Sharma se queja de los bajos niveles de educación en Brasil, pero ignora que la Bolsa Familia representa un intento de superar precisamente este obstáculo al desarrollo.

Más aún, aceptando su premisa de que la Bolsa Familia reduce el crecimiento a corto y a largo plazo, cabe mencionar que el crecimiento del PIB no lo es todo. Un país que crece rápidamente pero sin provocar reducciones correspondientes en sus niveles de pobreza y desigualdad –véase por ejemplo el Perú de Toledo– no tiene un modelo envidiable. Es decir, suponiendo que dedicar tantos recursos a la Bolsa Familia baja el crecimiento por un punto anual, si esta estrategia implica que docenas de millones de brasileños entran a la clase media, entonces es un sacrificio lógico.

I actually agree with a lot of what the author says, but this piece was too one-sided. I'd say that Brazil's rise represents the odd relationship between perception and reality in determining success within the community of nations. Often people seem to want to treat a nation's performance like a football team's, only there is no easy and relatively comprehensive metric (like wins) with which to do so, nor is there a logical endpoint at which you can look back on a season of competition. People use growth, of course, and with emerging markets they talk about needed structural reforms, and the ease of doing business and the competitiveness rankings and poverty reductions and inequality measures and a million other things. But all of these have a limited application, and you wouldn't say you really know the reality of Brazil's political economy simply by looking at the latest report from the World Economic Forum, at least not in the way a 3-13 record gives you a definitive picture of reality for an NFL team. So much of what you are left with is others' perceptions, which in turn fuel your own perceptions, and likely do the same with authors of subjective rankings like those of the WEF. Perceptions fuel perceptions which fuel perceptions, a dynamic that tends to generate rote thinking and bubbles of enthusiasm.

Obviously, this is quite a bit simplistic, but I do think there something like this was at play with Brazil's image over the past decade. And so an article aiming to take some of the air out of this bubble is quite right, but the overwhelmingly negative opinion expressed by Sharma is a bit much.

AMLO Up, Josefina Down, Peña Nieto Still Way Ahead

AMLO's polling at 25 percent according to Excélsior, which would presumably lean away from el Peje. This puts him 3 points ahead of Josefina Vázquez Mota, which is no small achievement given where he started and how hardened views of him were going into the election. However, he remains 18 points behind Peña Nieto, and I have to think that gap remains all-but-insuperable.

I wonder if, should things continue down this path, AMLO will continue the steadfast calm and cool of the past six months, or if we will open up with the same visceral anger that dominated much of the previous six years.

New Pastures for Guardado

After helping Deportivo la Coruña back to the first division, it appears Andrés Guardado will jump ship to Valencia. I look forward to seeing him in the Champions League. Hopefully Gio dos Santos will wind up in a good situation in La Liga as well. Although anywhere is better than the Tottenham's eighth string.

New Stuff

Here's a piece about the wave of killings of journalists in Mexico. Highlights:

More troubling than Calderon’s failure to enact the law is what it represents: a lack of genuine interest in protecting journalists, evident across the country at every level of government. (However, journalists are not alone in this: the fact that roughly 80 percent of all murders go unsolved demonstrates a lack of interest in justice for victims, of whatever profession.) As the failure of the special prosecutor demonstrates, merely adding new agencies into the mix is unlikely to change anything.

Moreover, while the plan to give investigators an added push and extra resources to track down those who attack journalists is laudable, it’s worth noting that the authorities already have all of the legal tools they need to do this. Anyone convicted of murder faces a lengthy prison sentence in Mexico. If the local authorities made a point of concentrating their resources disproportionately on those who attack reporters, making the conviction rate in such case higher, than criminal groups facing a journalistic nuisance might think twice before resorting to violence.

That is, after all, the biggest reason that attacks on journalists, even when they publish damning information about criminal operations, are so rare in more developed countries: such crimes place a great deal of pressure on the government to solve them, which, in turn, makes a conviction more likely still. In short, it’s not in criminals’ interest to target reporters.

And here's a piece following up on the investigation into the arrest of Tomás Yarrington.

Following Up on the Judicial Reform

Shannon O'Neil checks up on Mexico's judicial reform four years later:

Now four years on, many are worried about Mexico’s judicial future. Though technically halfway through the transition phase, less than half of Mexico’s states have taken steps to change their justice systems, and the policies put in place vary. Pioneers such as Chihuahua (which implemented its own state level shift in 2007, before the federal reform) have backtracked, reviving many elements of the older inquisitorial-style system, such as permitting hearsay (effectively undermining the rights of the defendant).

The federal government is also still wrangling over its own role, with legislation to guide the states caught up in Congress. During a speech on Tuesday at the forum, President Calderón chastised Mexico’s legislators for dragging their feet. “It doesn’t matter if they are in recess,” he said, “in any moment they could hold an extraordinary session and resolve it [the legislation].”

The implementation of the judicial reform was to last eight years (which was probably too ambitious given the scale of the shift), so we're halfway there. Chronologically, anyway.

The Importance of Communication

Rubén Aguilar has a sharp post on how Calderón's faulty communication strategy has fed perceptions of Mexican anarchy:

La percepción que hoy se tiene de la violencia en el país es todavía peor que la realidad. Brasil y Colombia, para poner solo dos ejemplos, son más violentos que México, pero no se les percibe así. En la construcción de estas imágenes resulta fundamental la comunicación de los tres presidentes sobre el tema.

Calderón, a partir de su declaratoria de “guerra” contra el narcotráfico, en diciembre del 2006, la convirtió en el tema central de su gobierno y el eje rector de su comunicación. Desde un inicio, lo ha mantenido hasta ahora, asumió la tarea de ser el portavoz de la lucha que su gobierno da en contra del narco.

En la campaña o como presidente constitucional electo nunca hizo mención al tema del narco. Si en el gobierno se encontró con un problema que antes no había visto -tengo datos para sostener otra posición- lo pudo haber combatido. Es su responsabilidad, sin embargo, convertirlo en el tema central de su comunicación. Eligió otro camino y el presidente se convirtió en caja de resonancia, en amplificador mediático, de los hechos de violencia que ocurren en el país. Su estrategia contribuyó de manera decidida a generar la percepción de que México es más violento que los otros. 

The Arrested Generals

I have a new post about the recent rash of detained generals in Mexico at Este País. Highlights:

Ademas, es dificil saber si debemos interpretar el arresto del General Tomás Ángeles y sus colegas como buena o mala noticia. Obviamente, nadie quiere que haya altos mandos militares trabajando con los narcos. Sin embargo, puesto que la corrupción es un fenómeno que ha existido por casi un siglo, una mejoría en la capacidad de descubrir vínculos ilícitos implica noticias como esta. La pregunta importante es si las investigaciones son producto de un nuevo esfuerzo por la PGR para iniciar un proceso permanente de limpieza en las instituciones mexicanas, o sí las detenciones representan un incidente aislado que no provocará cambios de fondo. Han sido muchas las limpiezas institucionales que no han tenido un impacto mayor, pero también hay evidencias de que la PGR de Marisela Morales está haciendo más que sus antecesores al respecto. 

I also covered the same topic in English at InSight.

Disaster

Here's the headline to a recent column from Leo Zuckermann, who's hardly an avid anti-panista:

Un desastre la campaña de Josefina

Hard to argue with that.

The Lucky One

As I continue to catch up on reading I've missed over the past several weeks, Alejandro Hope has written a couple of really interesting posts on the comments made by a Zetas boss recently arrested in Veracruz, and what it tells us both about the ability of government operations to interrupt criminal cash flows and the size of the internal drug market in Mexico. More to come on that.

Mexico's Principle Problems

Pablo Ruiz Nápoles has a new piece on this topic at Este País, and it is well worth reading. He starts his list with poverty and unemployment, which despite their perennial importance somehow feel ignored, what with all the attention devoted to public security.

Change in Mexico

I very much liked this point from Noel Maurer, in reference to Mexico's most famous debate hostess/centerfold:

When I lived in Mexico, during the late 1990s, I often found myself arguing with people over the rate of cultural change in that country. It was blinding, even in those days before the internets and all that. And the pace has not slowed.

Evidence of change is not that the woman in the white dress handed out the order in which the presidential candidates were to speak. Evidence of change is that it was extremely controversial and prompted an apology by the organizers.

Santos Campeón!

A huge win for Santos, and what a way to do it: the demons --Monterrey and Tigres-- have been exercised! I saw broadcasters talking about Oribe Peralta going to Europe after such a successful season at Santos. Peralta's been huge for Santos for a few seasons now, but it's hard to see that working out well for him. I can't think of one aspect of his game that would allow him to thrive in Europe--he's not that big, or fast, or particularly hard to drive from the ball (i.e. Chupete Suazo), nor does he have a particular knack for finding space (i.e. Chicharito) in the area. I've also never seen him play anything but striker, so I don't know if he has other gifts for building the attack that would translate well to La Liga. I'd rather see him score buckets of goals for Santos for the next five years, but of course, if he goes, Gancho wishes him all the success in the world.

Also, I don't know quite which adjective should be applied to this photo, which was taken from outside the stadium. It's a good one though. 

That's More Like It

Ronaldo, back to being a petulant ass:

Cristiano Ronaldo, delantero portugués del Real Madrid, concedió una entrevista a la CNN World Sports en la que repasó su temporada en el Real Madrid. El luso aprovechó para hablar sobre Messi y los récords que han conseguido en esta Liga, especialmente en la comparación entre los 50 que logró Leo, batiendo todos los registros, y sus 46: "Messi logró más goles que nunca, pero el Madrid ganó la Liga. Y aunque nosotros hayamos quedado primeros, toda la atención se la sigue llevando Messi".

Boo-hoo.

Update: Actually, this appears to have been taken from the same interview as below; he glides from graciousness to petulance rather effortlessly, though the reverse trip is likely more difficult.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Divorce in Mexico

Check out Diego Valle-Jones' posts from this week for a comprehensive and predictably graphics-heavy examination of that subject. Chihuahua is the state with the highest divorce rate, which means that the relatively high likelihood of a marriage ending through violent death did not overwhelm the other factors (i.e. the lack of prevalence of Catholicism) in keeping the divorce rate up.

Ronaldo Reflects

Cristiano Ronaldo, demonstrating how winning can make you suddenly a more gracious person:

Meanwhile, Ronaldo has claimed that the rivalry between himself and Lionel Messi has helped Barcelona and Real Madrid become the top two sides in world football.

"Sometimes it makes me tired ... for him too because they compare us together all the time,'' he told CNN World Sport. "You cannot compare a Ferrari with a Porsche because it's a different engine. You cannot compare them.

"He does the best things for Barcelona, I do the best things for Madrid, so the number [of goals] ... everyone says it's incredible for him and for me because we beat our own records, so it's amazing.

"I think we push each other sometimes in the competition [La Liga], this is why the competition is so high. This is why Madrid and Barcelona are the best teams in the world because everyone pushes each other.''

I think I preferred the haughty jerk store version of CR7.

Fourth Time Is a Charm

Not entirely unlike the man photographed in the post below, I had planned on a year-long sabbatical from blogging, to clear my head and to charge my batteries and cliche cliche cliche and to see if any wealthy Russians wanted to pay me millions to come and revitalized their blogging organizations in London.

Or something. I still may do so, but Santos' return to the finals of the Liguilla, beginning 32 minutes from now, is worthy of comment. Santos has lost three consecutive finals in the past three years, four if you count the finals loss to Monterrey in last month's ConcaChampions. All have been, in different ways, rather heartbreaking. Two of those losses have against Monterrey, who is tonight's opponent as well. The bleeding must stop. I love Suazo, but I hope he racks up significantly more offsides calls than he does scoring chances.

More on these issues here.