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Mexican Political Notebook: May 21st
 For a map, click here. By Chris Covert Rantburg.com While the Mexican political week was relatively quiet, a new event was revealed which could potentially cost the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) its commanding position atop the polls ahead of the July 1st national elections. Two Mexican army commanders, one retired and one active duty were detained and then subsequently ordered into 40 days preventative detention after alleged links of organized crime were discovered by the Mexican Procuradura General de la Republica (PGR), or attorney general last week. General Tomas Angeles Dauahare and General Brigadier Roberto Dawe Gonzalez were both detained by order of SubprocuradurÃa de Investigación Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada (SIEDO), an anti-organized crime unit of the PGR last Wednesday and then subsequently ordered in to preventative detention. The preventative detention order is a virtual guarantee by the PGR that the two military commanders will be convicted. General Thomas Dauahare Angeles was an aide to former Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA) Enrique Cervantes Aguirre during the term of president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, and at one time had been considered for the top army job before current SEDENA chief General Guillermo Galvan Galvan was appointed SEDENA by president Felipe Calderon. For the PRI, General Thomas Dauahare Angeles's arrest was most problematic, as he was in a slate of legislative candidates for the PRI. The detentions and revelations forced PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto to cancel a public event in Campeche state, while he and his advisors huddled to determine their next step. Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota wasted no time in her response as she said, as she has numerous times when PAN finally figured out just how much trouble they were in in the polls, that a Vazquez Mota presidency would never make pacts with organized crime. That deft twist of the blade by Senora Vazquez Mota is a clear reference to an unfortunate statement made by a former governor of Nuevo Leon state, Socrates Cuauhtemoc Rizzo Garcia last year. In a talk with university students, Rizzo Garcia told them PRI state governors made deals with organized crime to allot territory for control and shipment of illegal drugs in exchange for a reduction of organized crime violence. Disgraced PRI president Humberto Moreira Valdes spent several days putting out numerous political fires from that statement, but it was ultimately too late. Subtle references to Rizzo Garcia's remarks have been made by PAN politicians since then, at least three times this author has seen in Mexican press since the campaign for president began. The detention of General Thomas Dauahare Angeles is an especially poignant element to the story since he was involved in investigating the late General Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro, who had been convicted and then later exonerated of the same charges General Dauahare Angeles now faces. General Acosta Chaparro was shot to death last month in Mexico City. PRI has to be careful. Under Mexican electoral law, none of the opposition candidates can speak of the nexus between organized crime and General Dauahare Angeles and the PRI unless the candidate himself brings it up. The next Mexican Presidential debate is set for the first week in June, and the question and countercharges relating to PRI's past are bound to come up. At this point, it is far from certain that even were the PRI to deal openly with this new potential disaster, it might not be enough to knock PRI out of its comfortable 15 point lead in nearly every nationwide poll. Speaking of electoral disasters, Senora Vazquez Mota received the good news late in the week that a lawsuit filed in early April challenging her candidacy as president was dismissed by the Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE). Under Mexican federal election law Mexican deputies must obtain permission to leave their posts to run for another office. The requirement is understandable but because Senora Vazquez Mota was a plurinomonal deputy, which means she was at large and not a geographical representative, her departure would not have imposed an undue hardship on her constituents. The second bit of news is the presumptive return of Vazquez Mota's campaign manager Roberto Gil Zuarth, who had been away from the public since the debates two weeks ago. Gil Zuarth surfaced at a campaign event in Cuautla, Morelos last Saturday. It had been rumored that Gil Zuarth was to be replaced, since the Vazquez Mota campaign appeared to have all signs of an imploding campaign. Closing out the week was an "Anti-Pena Nieto" protest march in Mexico City Saturday led by the radical leftist Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME) or electricians unions. The protest only gathered 22,500 participants, and was intended to show negative support for Pena Nieto and the PRI. But Pena Nieto would have none of it. Leading in every major poll by 15 points, he hammered on the themes of unity and his own staying above the fray. That message resonates in the polls, but PRI is taking no chances. Last week it was reported that several high school students in Guerrero state were induced to attend a PRI rally dressed as PRI party members in exchange for a soda and a photo op with Pena Nieto. Mexican old timers would probably tell you that is a strong sign that PRI is returning to power, and no one is better at co-optation than PRI. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com Posted by: badanov 2012-05-21 |
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