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By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
The Mexican presidential campaign week began with at least international press atwitter about the appearance of Playboy Playmate Julia Orayen who appeared on stage just prior to the start to hand out placards to determine the order of debate of the candidates for all of 15 seconds.
Her appearance reportedly set off a trending topic on Twitter ranging between 3rd and 4th of all topics.
This writer watched trending topics as well following the debate, but did not notice Ms. Orayen's name or references to her in any trending topic during the date, but it was hard to miss her the following day as international press wire claims, absurdly, that the model stole the show.
And of course without missing a beat, feminist sympathizers tried to write the appearance off as the "hyper-sexualization of Mexican women." This writer missed something because what I saw was a willing young woman dressed in revealing clothing. I was not under the impression her arm was twisted to make the appearance, nor she had stolen anything but a few glances.
The rest of the political week was spent with the respective camps spinning their candidate reactions to questions posed by Mexican citizens and to responses.
Last Wednesday, the camp of Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) candidate Enrique Pena Pieto responded to leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to the charge of almost MX $1 billion (USD $73,782,800) spent by Pena Nieto of self promotion in his first year as governor of Mexico state. The response was a countercharge that while head of government of Distrito Federal, Lopez Obrador himself spent MX $674,125 (USD $49,729,607) between December 2000 and June 2005 on personal communications.
Lopez Obrador responded to Mexican journalist Aristegui Carmen in a radio interview that his administration spent less than MX $1 billion during his tenure.
- In 2001 MX $148 million (USD $10,919,854.40).
- In 2002, MX $149 million (USD $10,993,637.20)
- In 2003, MX $72.9 million (USD $5,378,766.12).
- In 2004, MX $92.2 millones (USD $6,802,774.16).
- In 2005, MX $93.3 million (USD $6,883,935.24).
He added that if the PRI figures are true he will renounce his candidacy, adding Pena Nieto should renounce his because Lopez Obrador's figures are correct.
Meanwhile, Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota promise while in Guerrero state Wednesday that she will press for as parental responsibility law that will provide for monetary child support for unwed mothers.
Vazquez Mota spent the days following the debate dodging charges during a radio interview/talk program called Third Degree, in which she was questioned about the inclusion of Juan Molinar in her campaign. The subtext of the question was her support for families in such proposals as the parental responsibility law is in contrast to the inclusion of Molinar in her campaign.
Molinar is a PAN politician who was president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa's director of Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, or Mexico's Social Security agency when the ABC daycare fire took place in Hermosillo, Sonora. That fire took the lives of 49 children, most of them under the age of four. Molinar resigned from IMSS as a result of the investigation.
Vazquez Mota weakly told the panel that the inclusion of Molinar was not her idea. She shifted the blame to PAN president Gustavo Madero Munoz. Madero has not responded to the interview to date.
In the last part of the week,responding to polls which now place her in third place behind Lopez Obrador, she attacked her next rival, Gabriel Quadri as being a part of s system that allows " education chiefdoms" as she put it, which she vowed to end as president. Quadri's party, Partido Nueva Alianza (PANAL) founder is teacher's union president Elba Esther Gordillo.
The most harrowing experience of the week for a Mexican presidential candidate has to go to Pena Nieto who went to the Universidad Iberoamericana Thursday to give a talk to students.
In a posting to its website, El Sol de Mexico reported that Pena Nieto managed to "...overcome questions about his relationship with former President of Mexico, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the leader of the teachers union, Esther Gordillo, and his management as governor of the State of Mexico."
The actual exchange was much, much worse than that, because Pena Nieto faced a raucous and unhappy crowd of students who continually hammered Pena Nieto for his actions in the earliest weeks of his administration in Mexico state in 2006.
Students shouted "murderer" at the PRI candidate, referring to the two protesters who were killed by Pena Nieto's security forces in an action to end a blockade that was started to stop a new airport project from beginning. The issue was land expropriation by the state government, which would have presumably placed several local flower vendors out of business.
The engagement was so out of control that PRI president Pedro Coldwell suggested that the incident be investigated. Universidad Iberoamericana is Vazquez Mota's alma mater.
The big question coming out of that is why Pena Nieto would walk into such a firestorm in the first place. The answer may well lie in the one area that both PAN and PRI agree on, law and order.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political new for Rantburg.com