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Mexican Political Notebook: April 16th
 For a map, click here By Chris Covert Rantburg.com The end of the Easter holiday and the first full week of campaigning saw Josefina Vazquez Mota reassign a campaign aide and bring on board two of Partido Accion Nacional's (PAN) heaviest hitters, PAN president Gustavo Madero and Ernesto Cordero as advisors to her campaign.
Cordero was Vazquez Mota's former rival during the primary campaign period of the electoral process. The news was a clear attempt to restart her campaign after a stuttering start which included less than optimum crowds at campaign rallies and at least one press gaffe. The press gaffe, a seemingly minor one, got one campaign press worker, Karla Garduño, ousted from the campaign press office. Her mistake was typing "Tlazcala" instead of Tlaxcala, which is a state in Mexico. In a tweet she attributed the gaffe to "thick fingers." As soon as Madero and Cordero were on board a negative campaign began, which included at least three Youtube spots attacking Partido Revolucionario Institutcional (PRI) presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto for his poor record as governor of Mexico state. The first of the spots can be seen here. The theme of the first spot ad was Pena Nueto's broken promises, 67 by PAN's count. A second cartoon hitting on just a few themes attacking Pena Nieto can be seen here. The cartoon's theme was repeated in another spot ad, which can be seen here, and which will likely be repeated throughout the campaign. The cartoon's narrative is:
As a result, PRI president Pedro Coldwell has filed a complaint with the Mexican Institutio Federal Elecciones (IFE) the federal governing body that controls elections right down to how much money campaigns are allowed to spend. He characterized the attack as desperate.
Coldwell also announced at the start of the week that his campaign's auditing proposal was accepted by the IFE, word for word, as he put it, to prevent "dirty money" from entering PRI campaigns. The campaign of Gabriel Quatri de la Torre of Partido Nueva Alianza (PANAL) was not so lucky, coming under charges by the IFE that his campaign had accepted government money, a charge his campaign has denied. Pena Nieto in the meantime has responded to the negative ads, saying to the press he will not fall into provocations of his opponents "to devote more time to deal with themes that really interest Mexicans." He told an audience in Guerrero state his opponents make false promises and speeches that promise to make things easy, but "hardly have viability." He also said he intends to run a "clean campaign." But not everything ran smoothly for the frontrunner. In Oaxaca state, he attended a raucous rally where many PRI supporters called him a murderer, and tried to shout him down as he was giving a speech. It is unclear why Pena Nieto was the recipient of that particular smear.
During that speech PRI supporters also attacked a reporter with glass bottles only a few meters away. It was a violent incident Pena Nieto was apparently completely unaware of. At that rally Pena Nieto promised to consolidate the hospital network in the state. PRI has recently had considerable problems with supporters in southern Mexican states, especially during the term of Humberto Moreira, who quit last December. Moreira's resignation came partially at the insistence of PRI militants in Tabasco state. Meanwhile, Partido Revolucion Democratica candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador came out with a proposal he said he will implement if he becomes president, which he called republican austerity. The details have yet to be released, but Lopez Obrador has vowed to cut federal government spending to the tune of MP $800 million and to plow those savings back into the economy. He also promised to maintain the macroeconomic policies already put in place by PAN president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa to include attracting foreign investment.
Where in the Mexican government Lopez Obrador intends to cut, being that he is an old style socialist, will likely be in the defense budgets of the army and navy. He has vowed to return ground forces to the barracks as a strategy of dealing the drug cartel violence. In his speech in Mexico City, he rejected the notion of structural reforms, osaying that reforms in critical area have always been imposed from foreign influences, and not done by Mexicans, an economic condition he says he wants to change. Speaking of changing, Vazquez Mots was forced to change planes in Oaxaca state Tuesday after the aircraft she was using developed an unspecified mechanical problem. Pena Nieto also has an aircraft problem, that is, if you ask Lopez Obrador. He announced Friday that his campaign was about to file a complaint with the IFE demanding PRI release data on whose aircraft he is using to get about Mexico. In a Friday morning press conference Lopez Orbador complained that every cost of operating the aircraft to move about Mexico must be accounted for. "How much does an aircraft cost per hour?" asked Lopez Obrador He said Pena Nieto is using helicopters and two or three private jets to move around an advance party with "up to 200 campaign workers for logistics, such as installing fences, closing streets. And that costs money... How much is the income of private jets?." Finally on Thursday Madero tweeted a link to an opinion piece in El Universal news daily by Mexican academic Maracrio Shettino, which asks the question, how can Pena Nieto's party claim to do what PAN has not done when the PRI has frustrated PAN attempts at reforms virtually every step of the way. His answer: Either Pena Nieto doesn't know what he is doing, or he is a liar. The editorial can be read here. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com Posted by: badanov 2012-04-16 |
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Josefina Vazquez Mota
Pedro Joaquin Coldwell
Enrique Pena Nieto
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
