The PRI is back: A lot of familiarity, a lot less contempt

06/07/2011

There were independence day celebrations and debates over whether Kate Middleton’s sleeveless crepe dress was by Joseph or Erdem, so if a few Mexican gubernatorial elections flew under your radar last weekend—it’s understandable. But even for those with a passing interest, last Sunday’s results in the states of Coahuila, Nayarit, and Mexico (D.F.) have done a lot to clarify the hitherto murky race to Los Pinos.

Up until the year 2000, calling the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world a one-party state was nothing short of completely accurate. No, unlike the caudillos who had run and were running other Latin American countries—Stroessner, Pinochet, Castro, to name a few—there wasn’t one figure who dominated Mexican politics. There was a structure. And that structure, which eventually came to be known as the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, enjoyed an uninterrupted 70 year dominance that lasted until that Vicente Fox victory.

Six years later, when Felipe Calderón won again for PAN (Partido Acción Nacional), it seemed as if the once invincible natural governing party had surrendered its role.

Lately, though, the tables are turning again.

Calderón’s fight fire with fire approach to the drug cartels has resulted in a few victories, but security is still the most pressing item on his agenda, and the war—as evidenced by the absurdly high murder rate—is certainly being lost.

That, many have thought, might just be the extra boost Mexico’s third party the PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) has been longing for.

In 2006, the brashly leftish populist stylings of their leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, got them as close as ever to the presidency; Obrador even went as far as to claim he actually won.

As for the PRI, their candidate—Roberto Madrazo—finished a distant third.

But again, that was then, and this now, and as political vicissitudes brought the PRI back into the fold, the PRD made a peculiar decision.

Instead of allowing the PRI to win gubernatorial elections that polls showed them leading, they joined forces with their ideological opposites in PAN and decided that, regardless of those differences, anyone who wasn’t PRI was good enough.

Screw their unique visions for those states.

Whoever was leading the polls as of a certain date got to run with it—and they did.

The strategy worked—at least initially.

Though last summer’s elections showed the beginning of a resurgent PRI, the PAN-PRD alliance held on in Oaxaca, Puebla, and Sinaloa.

Gustavo Madero, the PRD president, was defiant:

“2012 will be a completely different construction, a different agenda,” he said.

“At the local level, there are still states that need a shift in the balance of power, and that’s where alliances are fostered. It’s not opportunism, but rather democracy that’s been achieved in Oaxaca, Puebla, and Sinaloa.”

If the election Mexico City is any indication, though, that strategy has ceased to be an option. Eruviel Ávila won with 64% of the vote on Sunday, and the man he's replacing, Enrique Peña Nieto, will leave office as the clear frontrunner for the presidency.

Coahuila and Nayarit were just the icing on the cake.

The PRI, once a giant, appears poised to become a giant again. And an opposition that sacrificed their respective politics for short term gains is paying the price.

Rudy goes to Lima

19/05/2011

By now it’s a pretty tired narrative: Sherriff Giuliani rolls into town and uses the strong arm of the law to straighten out all that’s gone crooked. He did it in New York. Then he took the road show to Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. And now he’s in Lima advising Keiko Fujimori, suddenly the frontrunner in the Peruvian presidential election run-off.

The timing couldn’t be better for the aspirant. Because though the former New York mayor is there in a “consulting” role, it’d take a healthy amount of audacity to deny his presence is anything but an endorsement. And that’s pretty important when your father’s legacy strikes fear in the hearts of the most moderate libertarians.

But that really depends on whom you talk to, because for Peruvians, Alberto Fujimori is either the man who saved the country from the terrorists or a sociopath whose would-be public safety agenda did a poor job of concealing his fangs.

Yes, Giuliani has shown where he stands.

You needn’t look further than the photos of him and Keiko smiling together… like some crime-fighting super couple.

Of course some will argue it’s just business; it doesn’t mean Rudy condones El Chino’s authoritarian regime, because even Keiko has said she has no plans to commute her father’s sentence or pardon him.

It’s just that she has this habit of mollifying any criticism with praise for his economic policies…

So is it really that much of stretch to conceive of her reneging on her word? To dare to suggest that the apple might not have fallen too far from the tree—that the daughter he once made First Lady at the age of 19 might show some gratitude?

Because the Shining Path and Túpac Amaru no longer terrorize the country—and that’s all that matters, right?

Kind of like how it’s safe to hang around Times Square these days…

But every city is different.

“Before making recommendations, it’s necessary to meet the city’s people, because there’s no single method that can serve all cities,” he said in Lima.

Interesting.

It makes you wonder if they’ve discussed that clever alternate theory about Rudy’s successful war on crime in New York—the one that Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner suggested back in their fun little 2005 book Freakanomics: Maybe it wasn’t the strong arm of the law that cleaned up the Big Apple. Maybe it was legal access to abortion.

Since she stated her position on that during the first leg of the campaign back in January (“I’m not in favor of legalizing abortion, I’m a woman, the mother of a family."), she probably wouldn’t take too kindly to Mr. Giuliani suddenly reconsidering his success.

So for the “violent crime, including carjacking, assault, sexual assault, and armed robbery” that—if you need a reliable source—the American State Department describes as “common in Lima”—you can expect a more conventional, piecemeal approach.

Reducing the crime rate doesn’t happen “in two or three months” Giuliani told the Peruvian media—it took years in New York.

Now show him where the squeegee kids are, Keiko.

Another presidential kick at the illegal immigration can

13/05/2011

Still basking in the approval of his presidential decision to take out the most badass jihadist of them all, President Obama got his groove back and used that political capital to again ruffle some Republican feathers on illegal immigration.

Er, kind of.

Delivering his speech this week in El Paso, Texas—for obvious reasons—the President spoke euphemistically of the estimated 11 million “undocumented immigrants” who are “just trying to earn a living and provide for their families”.

Then he joked about what’s been done to appease the nativists, “Now they're going to say we need to quadruple the Border Patrol. Or they'll want a higher fence. Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they want alligators in the moat. They'll never be satisfied. And I understand that. That's politics.”

So what’s his solution, his panacea?

Well, first and foremost he’s a politician who needs to get reelected, so anything truly innovative had to be somewhat counterbalanced by big, juicy carrots like promises to maintain border security and continue expelling “undocumented criminals”.

The latter he boasted having done—thus far— to the tune of 70%—which, while a-ok for U.S.A., is much less so for the poor resource-starved Latin American countries required to welcome those delinquents back home.

But again, as the President said, “That’s politics.” And in order to really fix “the broken immigration system,” the fat kid can’t get on the policy teeter-totter till the skinny one finds a friend. They usually call this ‘compromise’; I call it confusing.

Especially the third pillar of Obama’s proposed “reform”:

“Third, those who are here illegally, they have a responsibility as well. So they broke the law, and that means they've got to pay their taxes, they've got to pay a fine, they've got to learn English. And they've got to undergo background checks and a lengthy process before they get in line for legalization. That's not too much to ask.”

So how will this work for José the Guatemalan dishwasher?

He’s gruelingly worked various menial jobs over the course of his undocumented decade chez Uncle Sam, but suddenly he’s given the gift of “reform”…

¡Qué bien! He thinks.

Or does he?

Ok, let’s think about what the president is saying…

José broke the law and has to pay taxes.

Does that mean retroactively?

All ten years?

How would the IRS go about determining what he owes?

Anyway, whenever that’s sorted out—he has to pay a fine.

Well, what kind of fine?

How much?

You remember he came to the United States because there was no work at home, to make a measly wage and scrape by on the money he didn’t remit.

Can he afford this reform?

Then he has to go learn English. But wait—if he’s made it this far without speaking any—isn’t that just a little bit ingenuous on his part?

The icing on the cake, though, is that once he’s complied with all those requirements, he has to undergo a background check and a “lengthy process” before he gets in line for legalization.

A background check? By the letter of the law, isn’t he a criminal?

And as far as waiting in line for this “lengthy process” with 10,999,999 others: he didn't or couldn't wait the first time, so why would he wait now?