Year: 2005

March of silence in support of AMLO

Today, a million (or more, according to some accounts) Mexicans marched from the equivalent of the White House to the main plaza in Mexico City in support of the Mayor, Lopez Obrador.

Image from El Universal

Image of Paseo de la Reforma from El Universal

Other images. Zocalo 1. Zocalo 2.

Of course, everyone was selling AMLO souvenirs along the way. Sorry to say, we did not get ours. Since the government had no problem deporting foreigners who participated in a Zapatista march years ago, I didn’t want to risk showing my very gringa face near the Zocalo today. Though, in hindsight, they might not have noticed me in a group of 1.2 million.

More on his speech later.

Mariachi’s in U.S. schools

I’m back, but way behind in the news…..

As a warm-up, there’s this story about Mariachi classes in public schools.

In my native Austin, several high school’s had mariachi bands back in the late 80s and early 90s. In elementary school, I remember putting on Cinco de Mayo presentations for our parents and learning to do dances that are now referred to as ‘ballet folklorico’. Nevermind that Cinco de Mayo is almost a non-holiday in Mexico.

Top secret mission…Shhhh…..

No posts will be made until Saturday a.m.

More on the desafuero of AMLO

According to the NYTimes, the AG’s office finally submitted the case against AMLO to a judge yesterday:

After days of mixed signals from the president, federal prosecutors finally sent their case against the embattled mayor of Mexico City to a judge on Wednesday, but then said the popular left-wing politician would not be arrested and sent to jail.

Instead, the prosecutors said two allies of President Vicente Fox would put up bail money for the mayor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, keeping him out of prison. The move seemed designed to deny Mr. López Obrador the chance to play the part of a Gandhi or the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., two people to whom he has compared himself.

Version from La Jornada:

”Sin embargo, en lugar de orden de aprehensión, la dependencia pidió una de comparecencia, y manejó en secreto que por la mañana dos militantes panistas pagaron 2 mil pesos de caución que el Ministerio Público Federal autorizó para que el jefe de Gobierno del Distrito Federal no pudiera ser encarcelado.

En absoluto hermetismo, la PGR manejó la existencia del acuerdo ministerial acerca de la caución y el pago de los 2 mil pesos que al filo de las 11 de la mañana realizaron los asambleístas del PAN Jorge Lara y Gabriela Cuevas….

[According to the Deputy AG:] “Dos ciudadanos mexicanos presentaron billete de depósito para que Andrés Manuel López Obrador goce de la libertad provisional desde este momento y, con fundamento en el artículo 416 del Código Federal de Procedimientos Penales que permite que un tercero otorgue garantía, fue aceptada.

Two PANistas were kind enough to pay AMLO’s bond so he won’t go to jail.

The AG’s office turned in the paperwork five minutes before the deadline yesterday. Is this a case of typical Mexican tardiness? Or, as some speculate, did the Deputy AG want a special judge on the case? More about the judge.

In related news, the PRD plans to reform their candidate selection procedures as necessary to ensure that AMLO can run for President in 2006.

Resolution to Ecuadorian crisis, redux

According to the NYTimes and Mexico City La Jornada, the Congress removed the president and replaced him with the Vice President in Ecuador.

AMLO en Villahermosa

Front page of La Jornada

Last post of the day…

More discussion about allowing mandatory private pension fund administrators (Afores) to invest in the energy sector.

Some argue that pension funds should be investing in Pemex (oil) and CFE (electricity) to help those para-statals (sp?) expand their operations or upgrade their infrastructure. They argue that the pension funds shouldn’t be investing abroad.

While domestic savings and investment might have been one of the goals of the pension privatization in Mexico (see book by Raul Madrid), I’m not convinced that investing those funds in Pemex or CFE would be good for future pensioners. Until those companies demonstrate efficient returns and subsidies are eliminated (did I really just say that?), I doubt pensioners would get good returns on their investment. And their pensions are already going to be dismal, even with funds invested abroad.

Mexican wages is U.S. rising faster than those of professors

According to an article in La Jornada , salaries for Mexicans working in the U.S. rose by 12.4% last year. That’s a lot more than the 1% GATech faculty received in January, which was the first raise since 2002 when our new Governor froze all state employee wages.

The total salaries earned by Mexicans in the U.S. are equivalent to 17.5% of Mexico’s GDP. And a larger percentage of those earnings are returning to Mexico as remittances. Expectations are that remittances will bypass tourism as the second leading contributor to Mexico’s gross income, second only to petroleum.

PAN backs away from anti-immigration bill

The bill that was supposed to be voted on in the Senate yesterday was withdrawn by the PAN who plans to “enrich” the bill before resubmitting it for consideration. They are going to eliminate some vague references to “zones of risk.”

Can AMLO go back to work next Monday?

AMLO has announced plans to go back to work next Monday to demonstrate that though he has lost his immunity, he has not been removed from office. In a bizarre twist, the legislators that removed that immunity agree that he still holds office until the AG’s office formally files charges against him.

The AG and President’s office are taking a harder stance. Both have said that the desafuero not only removed AMLO’s immunity, but also removes him from office.

The President’s spokeperson, probably in response to the comments made by the Secretary of State yesterday, also announced that the President has not considered pardoning AMLO. Granted, Creel’s comments yesterday about a “political arrangement” were vague, but clearly Creel and Fox are not on the same page. (Maybe this is because Creel and Fox’s wife both want to be President in 2006.)

In any event, even those that wanted AMLO’s desafuero do not agree on his current status. And some may even be trying to backtrack from the political fallout that the desafuero has caused.

Meanwhile, AMLO has stated various times over the last few days that he will not seek revenge when he becomes President against those who voted for the desafuero.

“Si la mayoría de los mexicanos me eligen Presidente, no voy a actuar con venganza ni les voy a fabricar delitos a mis adversarios políticos”…

“‘Si hay diferencias, que las hay, en cuanto a concepción de país, en cuanto a proyecto de nación, esas diferencias las tenemos que resolver mediante el método democrático. Es en las elecciones donde el pueblo va a decidir qué candidato, qué partido, qué programa debe prevalecer en nuestro país a partir de las elecciones de 2006”

My interpretation of this? AMLO is trying to tell his political enemies that once he becomes President, he will not try to punish them. Why? It reiterates his confidence that he will be elected. It also provides an incentive for his enemies to soften their stance because they can be assured that the costs of AMLO’s victory will not be too high for them. You can think of it in terms of Dahl’s cost of suppression versus costs of inclusion in a transition to democracy. You’re more willing to allow your enemies to participate if you think the costs of their victory will not be too high.

For all you anti-immigration enthusiasts

Today, in the Mexican Senate, the Senators will vote on a law that will enable the government to arrest would-be migrants before they cross the border into the United States.

But, it leaves me wondering, how will they establish “intent” to cross? And how might authorities manipulate such a law to harrass workers or political opponents?

As I was saying….

The desafuero conflict is likely to be resolved with some sort of negotiated outcome, in part, because all actors fear the economic consequences if foreign investors get too freaked out. I repeated this claim last week, too.

It seems the Mexican Secretary of State (and would be PAN candidate for President in 2006) agrees with me. In a press conference, Santiago Creel said that the government would wait for the decision of the Supreme Court, but that some sort of “political arrangement” was possible. From the story in El Universal :

En conferencia de prensa, Creel Miranda, en nombre del gobierno federal, planteó la posiblidad de un arreglo político, aunque primero esperaría a conocer las resoluciones del Poder Judicial.

De esa manera, “para ver si hay un campo de acción en donde el presidente de la República pueda intervenir desde el punto de vista político, en los márgenes que permitan las resoluciones de los jueces”.

Se buscará una salida política pero sin trastocar el Estado de derecho, precisó.

Primero, insistió, tenemos que esperar a que resuelvan las instancias judiciales que, en su opinión, de ninguna manera han sido rebasadas por este conflicto.

Hmmm….I seem to recall predicting something just like this when I was in Chicago last weekend. I said that they’d negotiate some deal to keep markets calm, and to prevent all hell from breaking loose. I think there was some sort of bet involved, too…..

More desafuero news….

Well, not really. Not much is happening, though the attorney general’s office, the Presidency, and AMLO are taking turns making statements to the press.

The AG and President’s offices are now taking the position that not only did AMLO lose his immunity when the Congress voted, but that he was also immediately removed from his post as Mayor of Mexico City.

For his part, AMLO has said he will be back at work next Monday, after running the city from his home for the last two weeks. This seems to be an attempt to call the AG’s bluff and try to get them to request the arrest warrant and get on with the case.

The Supreme Court is still considering two claims, one by the Mexico City council and another by the Chamber of Deputies.

Something to talk about other than the desafuero in Mexico….

Finally.

First, it seems that legislators are talking about the proposals to reform Mexican labor law again. Proposals have been floating around for the last decade.

“Official” unions, or those affiliated with the PRI, have resisted reforms that might give more space to “unofficial” or “democratic” unions. I put “democratic” in quotes because all unofficial unions are not, by definition, democratic, though most claim to be.

“Unofficial” unions want reforms that will give them more room to organize workers, but fear that a full-fledged reform will reduce protections for workers and unionism, in general.

This is a well-founded fear. Employers have been trying to get formal labor reforms to relax restrictions on lay-offs and restructure union rules.

These differences have led to a stand-off. Everyone wants reform for different reasons, and fears the types of reforms that the other political actors want.

Second, the proposed privatization of public sector pensions is back in the news.

Since the early 1990s, there has been discussion of privatizing public sector worker pensions, but union opposition has blocked reform proposals. (I have a book manuscript that discusses this, if you’re interested….) In any event, the Fox administration has drafted a new proposal and has been shopping it around to the unions, which happen to have their own problems. I believe the ISSSTE reform won’t go anywhere given the distractions of the desafuero and the jockeying that will begin soon for candidacy for the 2006 presidential elections.

Interesting facts mentioned in the article:

The IMSS privatization is costing the federal government 35% more than expected so far, and costs are expected to rise throughout the next decade.

The average replacement rate so far for the private system is about 45%. To receive the minimum pension (which is 1 minimum wage), middle-class workers (making 5 times the minimum wage) will need to have real returns on their accounts of at least 8% for 25 years of contributions. Real returns have been much, much lower so far.

Not a shining example for privatization, I’m afraid.

More music on NPR

This time, on Weekend Edition Sunday. This post is really for Brian, who doesn’t really like singer/songers usually. But, I thought the way this guy used computers to loop violin playing was interesting.

R. Crumb on NPR

Reclusive Crumb is interviewed about his music interests in this Weekend Edition segment. For me, it made him seem less creepy. I’ve seen the documentary and looked at the art, and normally, I find (him and) his work unsettling.

Gutierrez backtracks….

President Gutierrez in Ecuador has rescinded the state of emergency, but still wants the Supreme Court resolved. Read the NYTimes coverage. Or, coverage in the Ecuadorian press.

Trouble in Quito, Ecuador

Last night, the President dismissed the Supreme Court and declared a state of emergency. Street demonstrations were the precipicating factor for the decree, but conflict has been brewing for a while.

Before being elected in 2002, Lucio Gutierrez was best known for leading a coup attempt in 2000 for which he spent 6 months in jail. In 2002, he ran on a populist-ish platform, but claimed he would respect property rights.

The pre-December 2004 Supreme Court apparently opposed many of President Gutierrez’s policies. There was an aborted plan to impeach the President last November.

When the Congress dismissed all but five of the justices last December, Gutierrez had the political backing of former president Abdala Bucaram.

Most recently, the newly appointed Supreme Court has dropped corruption charges against Bucaram, which sparked last week’s street protests.

In response the protests, President Gutierrez appeared on national television last night (with military officers standing directly behind him to demonstrate their support) to announce dissolution of the new Supreme Court and the declaration of a state of emergency. The state of emergency eliminates civil liberty protections.

The Economist chimes in….finally…

….and it doesn’t look good for Fox. The lefist paper, La Jornada, is running a story about the stories in The Economist (sub required) about the desafuero. Of course, it’s La Jornada‘s attempt to emphasize international sentiment against the desafuero. They are also running stories about French socialists against the desafuero and international solidarity behind AMLO in general.

Where I went last night….

La Perla….