Pero a veces vale más la vaga incertidumbre

A veces la palabra anglosajona vale menos que los fish and chips (pescado con papitas) envueltos en papel periódico.

Les comparto lo que leí en The Economist hace dos días y mi comentario al mismo, disculpas por no adjuntar una traducción, tal vez la haga.  A continuación viene los títulos y el primer párrafo e inmediatamente mi comentario con letra más grande, y así párrafo del ‘analista’ y mi comentario.

Mexico’s election

The PRI’s qualified comeback

The former ruling party triumphs, but without the majority it had hoped for

Jul 7th 2012 | MEXICO CITY | from the print edition

THE band that struck up jolly music to greet Enrique Peña Nieto as president-elect probably had not bothered to practise any of its downbeat numbers. Mr Peña, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), had long been the favourite and went into the election on July 1st leading by double figures in most polls. Sure enough he won, restoring to office the party that ran Mexico for seven decades until 2000. But his victory was slimmer than expected, and the PRI was denied a majority in Congress. Indeed, it appeared that the party had lost seats in the lower house. Voters are clearly not ready to hand the former ruling party free rein.

“Mr. Peña…had long been the ‘favourite’ …leading by double figures in most polls.”  Three days ago the ‘Official polls fabricators started apologizing for theirs consistently erroneous (more than double points) figures.  I have not heard ever about polls with consistent large errors for months.  I do have inferred that they were neatly invented.

We, the citizens certainly are not ready to accept that anyone reins in our Republic.  In deed many are backing the worldwide famous Mexican dictatorship, which is proving to be more perfect than ever in a more imperfect world.      

It was a good night for the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and its allies, whose presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, came within 6.6 percentage points of Mr Peña, less than half the predicted gap. His coalition will form the biggest opposition block in Congress’s lower house. Of the five state governorships up for grabs the PRD lost one but took control of two, including Tabasco, which the PRI had run for more than 80 years. The PRI still controls most of Mexico’s 31 states (see map). The result was dismal for Josefina Vázquez Mota of the ruling National Action Party (PAN), which was pushed into third place for the first time since 1988.

This impartial magazine has showed an admiration for the party which has ruled for more than 80 years.

Some cheating took place. All parties, though mostly the PRI, were reported to have offered some poorer voters over 500 pesos ($38) each. Soriana, a supermarket chain, was flooded with shoppers spending gift-cards said to have been doled out by party activists. The Green Party, allied with the PRI, broke the rules by making campaigning phone calls on election day. A few polling stations ran out of ballots. Accusations flew of bias in the polls and the media (see article).

Cheating but not enough?  “Some cheating…”  “…some poorer voters..”  Some, some,  why you do not say that the PRI cards spending were millions of pesos?

Mr López Obrador cried fraud, though without offering proof, and demanded a full recount. The electoral authority decided to recount votes from over half the polling stations, but in many cases only because the result was close. It said the exhaustive recount was unlikely to change the result. Some fear a repeat of 2006, when Mr López Obrador staged a months-long protest after losing the presidency by less than 1%. But Mr Peña’s margin of victory is much bigger, and fewer irregularities were reported this time. Turnout was buoyant, too: in spite of torrential rain in the capital and the competing temptation of a European football final, 63% voted, almost five points up on 2006.

The law says that the recount is a right.  It seems that ‘some’ people sees the peaceful citizen protests as a crime against the kingdom, I mean, the government.  It is a pity that ‘analyst’ does not illuminates us with the tale about the political inclination of those who preferred casting their votes rather than watching the telly. 

The Peña agenda

The president-elect has promised to pass structural reforms that have previously got stuck in Congress. On his to-do list are a new labour law to ease hiring and firing; a fiscal reform to broaden value-added tax; and the prising open of Pemex, the state-run oil and gas monopoly, to private investment. The last will need a two-thirds majority in Congress: public ownership of oil is written into the constitution.

By the way, if something the still PRI candidate never mention beyond confusion was that his potential government will change the “labour law to ease hiring and firing” least to the PRI highly corrupted Trade Unions.

Something that perhaps our analyst is not aware of is the fact that the Mexican right wing is pretty shy of the putting in plain Spanish the unpopular and criminal economic measures. 

The likeliest ally in passing these bills will be the diminished PAN, whose views overlap with those of the PRI. Labour reform, for instance, was proposed by the PAN last year, but blocked in Congress by the PRI for electoral reasons. Felipe Calderón, the outgoing president, is hostile to the PRI, but congratulated Mr Peña early on election night (looking almost indecently cheerful, some party colleagues grumbled, perhaps because Ms Vázquez was not his preferred candidate). He will need his successor’s protection after the transfer of power on December 1st; his war on organised crime means he is threatened with legal action by victims, and worse by criminals. The price could be helping Mr Peña push through some of his planned measures during the lame-duck period.

Well said: “looking…indecently cheerful”  He was not alone, days before official results, many ( some rather) among them Obama cheerfully called to congratulate him despite the fact his English is worse than mine.

The PAN will need new leaders. Gustavo Madero, the party president, described the election as “a defeat with a capital D” and is unlikely to survive long. Mr Calderón may try to boost the career of his sister, Luisa María Calderón, an aspiring senator. Ernesto Cordero, runner-up to Ms Vázquez in the party’s primary, will be jostling for power from the Senate, too. A party conference is due on August 11th. Until the dust settles, it may be difficult for Mr Peña to start building coalitions.

“Until the dust settles…”  I recalled that my copy of Oxford Dictionary recommends a more precise word than dust, something like: pestilent or putrid mud.  In deed the poetic phrase: Until the putrid mud settles   describe almost the tragedy.  However my scientific background tells me that that pestilent stuff floats forever, until…

The left is also in flux. Mr López Obrador, who comes from the radical wing, fared better than expected in the presidential race, but after two failed attempts will face pressure to step aside. He outperformed most of the candidates running for the PRD in regional elections. But in the capital Miguel Ángel Mancera, a PRD centrist, turned in a star performance, winning the mayoral contest with nearly two-thirds of the vote. The PRD members elected to Congress are mostly moderates. Squabbling, a party tradition, is guaranteed.

Which faction of the PRI will hold sway in Mr Peña’s government is uncertain. The president-elect looks and sounds like a moderniser, but plenty of old-fashioned party dinosaurs lurk around him. His best bet looks to be to try to strike a firm alliance with the PAN—if, in its chastened state, it is a willing partner. Otherwise, he risks being reduced to relying on some of his own party’s shadier governors to marshal their local congressmen—and even that might not be enough to approve reforms. Mexico has voted the PRI back to office, but not necessarily to power.

from the print edition | The Americas

1 comment

A fragmented Congress once again (the norm since 1997). PAN may pay back in kind to the PRI for all the occasions that the later blocked reform attempts (in recent times following the instructions of one Enrique Pena Nieto), in turn reciprocating what PAN (under the leadership of one Felipe Calderon) did in 1997-2000. Hopefully Pena will have more skilled political operators and will learn fast that arrogance rarely clinches legislative deals. What Mexico needs, and probably will not get for many years, is a functional political system –where clear winners with a clear electoral mandate emerge (that is, through second-round voting) and where those winners can govern (more a parliamentary system that the current weak presidential one).

Collectively Mexicans proved somewhat unenthusiastic about Pena, even less keen on Lopez Obrador and voted decidedly against Vazquez Mota –whose last minute campaign pitch that she would offer the Justice ministry to Calderon, thus ensuring that the insanity of the current all-out war against drug cartels would continue, was a coherent last misstep in a disastrous campaign.

The Lopez Obrador fraud claims in 2006 almost became a tragedy as he did his utmost to subvert the constitutional order; the 2012 episode seems more like comedy.