Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
All the entries posted in September.
Categories
Commenting is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. M-F
More recent entries
Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2006 > September
September 2006
AMLO gave me bronchitis
I knew there would be trouble once the rain started falling on the Zocalo. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had convened hundreds of thousands of supporters for his “national democratic convention� to form a shadow government on Sept. 16, Mexico’s Independence Day.
At the time, the rain seemed a cruel joke on Lopez Obrador. A giant crane had just lifted a big screen TV into the air and Lopez Obrador and his team had just stepped on the stage when the torrential rainstorm struck. For the next hour, his loyal followers stooped under umbrellas, pieces of plastic and old newspapers as a cold and hard rain fell from the sky. I was huddled under a neighbor’s umbrella with another correspondent and we joked that Tlahuac, the Aztec rain god, was no Lopez Obrador fan. By the time the rain let up, we all looked as though we had jumped in a pool and I was convinced my laptop was fried.
While the laptop survived, the rain did temporarily fry the speaker system and the big screen, and it took another 45 minutes to get everything set back up. Surely, we figured, they would speed things up and abbreviate what everyone knew was a ceremonial event. But no, a good dozen speakers paraded up to the stage, speechifying until dark. By the time the convention was over, we had spent more than three hours soaked to the bone.
After I got home I didn’t think much of it except for the appearance of a nagging cough that didn’t go away for a week. I finally decided to see a doctor, and after a few missteps with the nurse (when I put the thermometer in my mouth she looked aghast and told me to stick it in my bare armpit), I got my diagnosis: bronchitis, verging on pneumonia.
My only consolation is that now that the election is over there won’t be any more mega-rallies in the Zocalo. Oops, check that. Lopez Obrador is staging his “swearing-in ceremony� there on Nov. 20. At least the rainy season will be over.
Permalink | |
Burning the ballots
The presidential election controversy here is moving into territory similar to the period after the Florida 2000 fiasco, when a number of newspapers performed their own recount of the ballots. The media outlets got access to the votes through public information laws and found that Al Gore would have lost even if the Supreme Court had agreed to his partial recount request. But a close look at the ballots also found that Gore might have won with a recount of the entire state.
Here in Mexico, media outlets are trying to do the same thing under Mexico’s 4-year-old freedom of information law, but they are getting the cold shoulder from an obstinate IFE, Mexico’s election commission. While Mexico’s version of the Freedom of Information Act is quite broad, the IFE is arguing the ballots aren’t technically documents and should be burned in accordance with Mexican law.
It’s a strange stance for the IFE, which has stressed transparency and fairness in Mexican elections, and underwent a massive overhaul more than a decade ago in response to rampant fraud that used to mark this nation’s elections. Even presidential winner Felipe Calderon has called for the ballots to be preserved.
The IFE’s credibility already has taken some heavy blows from losing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has charged fraud and an IFE cover-up. Lopez Obrador repeatedly called for a full recount but was denied by Mexico’s electoral court, which agreed to only a partial recount.
Back in 1988, the ballots were quickly burned to hide a massive fraud that most observers agree robbed leftist Cuauhtémoc Cardenas of the presidency. The dirty tricks of that election, including the burning of the ballots, spurred much of the electoral reform that was supposed to have made this election clean.
Many here are wondering why the IFE would fight the unofficial recount, especially since it could go a huge way in legitimizing the results. Without it, millions of Mexicans will never believe Calderon won the election.
Permalink | |
When the rich go to the movies
The gap between rich and poor in Mexico City appears in lots of ways, but one of the most jarring is at the local cinema. Moviegoers at the Cinepolis chain of theaters are presented with two choices.
There’s the regular ticket for about $4, which entitles you to stadium seating and a perfectly fine digital sound system.
But if you don’t want to sit with the unwashed masses, there is the VIP ticket, which gets you into the super premium room. It costs 100 pesos (roughly $10) to get in, which is the equivalent of nearly two day’s salary for Mexicans making minimum wage. Of course, minimum wage earners are not the target audience for the VIP experience.
So what does the VIP room get you? Well, first, there’s the reclinable, plush leather easy chairs that make you feel like you’re sitting in your living room. Then there’s the Alamo Drafthouse-like food and beverage service (if the Alamo Drafthouse were a fancy Japanese restaurant): Waiters scurry to take your order from a menu that includes a full sushi bar (the best we’ve tasted in this sushi-crazed city) and mixed drinks. The seats are assigned and there’s an exclusive lobby set away from the mayhem of the general entrance.
For some socially conscious Chilangos, as Mexico City’s denizens are called, the VIP ticket is a status symbol, a way to separate yourself from the pack. And judging by the crowd when we went last week, lots of teenage boys are ponying up the extra cash to impress their dates. Either way, it’s another reminder of the two parallel Mexico Cities.
Permalink | |
Turn for the worse in Oaxaca
Things got even more hairy in the Oaxacan capital this weekend with a return to violence after a fairly calm few weeks. One protester was shot in the arm after a nasty scuffle outside the exclusive Camino Real Hotel, the snazziest in the city.
Striking teachers and their supporters, who have seized downtown Oaxaca city, descended on the hotel after hearing a rumor that Gov. Ulises Ruiz was there. They went on a door-to-door search for the reviled governor. They failed to find him, but succeeded in scaring a lot of guests and at least one journalist who was holed up in the hotel with a couple of cowering congressmen. Gunmen then appeared on the scene (Mexican media reported plain-clothed police were involved), provoking a shootout.
Events are clearly escalating in Oaxaca. Over the weekend, the governor issued an ultimatum to striking teachers, saying those who didn’t return to classes today would be fired, something sure to rile the strikers. Meanwhile, protesters set off on a weeks-long walk to Mexico City where they plan more acts of civil resistance.
The U.S. Embassy also issued another travel advisory for the city on Sunday.
Permalink | |
Who turned off the sun?
When my wife and I moved to Mexico City in May, we had no idea we were actually moving to Seattle.
OK, so that may be an exaggeration, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a rainier place than Mexico City in the summer. At times it feels as if we are trapped in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” (It rained for five straight years in the village of Macondo.)
We have learned to take an umbrella with us almost everywhere, and it can go days without an appearance from the sun; a hard crust of clouds keeps temperatures in the 50s and 60s.
Friends and family back in the States have a hard time absorbing this information. Well, it’s summer and it’s Mexico, they reason, so it must be sweltering! Visiting friends and relatives have packed suitcases full of T-shirts and been crestfallen when we tell them they need sweaters and raincoats.
We’ve been caught in dozens of torrential downpours, none worse than a hellish hailstorm that trapped us as we tried to make our way to a party in the Condesa neighborhood. The hail was so bad that it beat the leaves from the trees, clogging the drains. The results were lakes where the streets used to be and clumps of freezing hail floating like mini-icebergs.
Our taxi got stuck in the mess but not after an hour in traffic with the meter going. It took all our cash to pay the fare and the power was out throughout the neighborhood so we couldn’t go to an ATM.
We got out of the taxi and tried to walk it, but we weren’t about to cross icy, waist-deep water. Meanwhile, motorists were abandoning their cars in the road, wandering the flooded streets in a daze, like urban refugees. What finally saved us was a bus-card in my wallet, the kind you charge up with money. We got home, shivering, at 2 a.m.: no party, no food and no drinks.
Not that I’m complaining, especially when I saw the record temperatures in Austin this summer. Raw, chilly mornings and flooded streets still beat 100 degrees at rush hour.
Fear and loathing in Oaxaca
On the late-night flight from Mexico City to Oaxaca, I nearly worked myself into a panic reading the press clippings from the local dailies. After the sun goes down, they warned, the troubled city of Oaxaca enters a state of “psychosis.� Here’s how one newspaper described the scene: “Night becomes a dark space, filled with unease and hate. Anyone can fall into that sudden nightmare of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.�
Good Lord, I thought, what am I getting into? We were on the last flight into Oaxaca, arriving at about 10:30 p.m., long after the nightly barricades had gone up. The barricades are manned by striking teachers and their supporters, ostensibly to keep federal forces from invading. I was convinced I’d never make it to the hotel, which was in the heart of the heavily fortified center.
I had traveled to Oaxaca three times before, the first as a highly impressionable 18-year-old studying Spanish for the summer. The idea that Oaxaca had become an armed camp seemed inconceivable — it was among the most serene of Mexican destinations, its history, architecture and culture attracting more socially conscious travelers than you would find in, say, Cancun.
But a teachers’ strike had exploded over the summer, unleashing decades of frustration in Mexico’s second poorest state. According to the press clippings, Oaxaca had become a malevolent place, where violence could erupt at any moment.
The half-filled plane arrived at the airport and we clambered aboard a colectivo, a minivan that fit about 10 passengers. I kept asking if we would make it to the downtown. Maybe, was the answer. It depends on the barricades. We sped through eerily empty streets, passing a few barricades made up of men milling around a fire in the middle of the street. They waved us through without incident and we arrived at the hotel safe and sound.
After three days in Oaxaca, the scariest part was the flight there. True there were no police (they’ve abandoned the city since a pitched battle with teachers in June), but there were no bogeymen either. Squinting past the graffiti marking almost every building and the encampments set up in the Zocalo, it almost felt normal. At least until night fell and everyone scurried inside.
Fox backs down on “grito”
President Vicente Fox blinked first and announced Thursday that he won’t give the traditional “grito,” or shout marking Mexican independence, in the Zocalo Friday night. In a direct challenge to Fox, losing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had planned to give the grito in the Zocalo at the same hour, promising a chaotic scene.
Fox had been adamant all week that he would give the grito in the Zocalo, as is tradition for the sitting president. The dueling gritos became a game of chicken between the two leaders, who share a personal as well as political animosity. Fox changed his mind hours after senators from his conservative political party urged him to give the grito somewhere else to avoid a confrontation.
Fox will instead give the grito in Dolores Hidalgo in his home state of Guanajuato, where Miguel Hidalgo gave the original “¡Viva Mexico!” in 1810.
Permalink | |
The great belly button
There may be no more public space in all the world than the 787-foot-by-721-foot concrete slab called the Zocalo. For centuries, the plaza has been the preeminent social gathering spot in the Americas and the epicenter of Mexico City. Its roots extend back to when the Aztecs called this place the “belly button of the world.�
Although it stands in front of some of the country’s greatest seats of power — the Supreme Court, the National Palace, Mexico’s main cathedral — the Zocalo most definitely belongs to the people. Even before election demonstrations turned the Zocalo into a tent city, it hosted every imaginable form of protest. Teachers from Oaxaca, oil workers from Veracruz, dairy farmers from San Luis Potosi — all converged on the Zocalo, and after marching to Mexico City, many would set up their tents on the great belly button.
While the powers that be rule from the balconies overlooking the plaza, the Zocalo is a free-speech zone.
Now that the Zocalo has been taken over by defeated presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his supporters, the public space is heading for a showdown during this weekend’s Fiestas Patrias celebrations.
Friday night marks the traditional “grito,� or shout that marks Mexico’s independence from Spain. The grito is traditionally given by the sitting president, and President Vicente Fox is scheduled to yell “¡Viva Mexico!� at 11 p.m. Lopez Obrador however, plans to give his own grito at the same spot, at the same hour. And with his huge speaker system set up in the Zocalo for much of the summer, Lopez Obrador might have the upper hand when it comes to volume.
Saturday could see another face-off as a military parade and reception is supposed to fill the Zocalo. But Lopez Obrador has scheduled his “national convention� — expected to gather up to a million supporters — for the same day. Seeking to avoid a dustup with the military, Lopez Obrador has said he will dismantle the encampments before the parade and hold his convention once it ends.
But even without a direct confrontation, the Zocalo should see some fireworks this weekend besides the ones marking independence.
Permalink | |
Alert! Alert! Someone’s asking for a bribe!
The one place where Mexicans should be free from fear of the dreaded “mordida,� or bribe, is the Mexico City suburb of Atizapan, where officials recently installed big red panic buttons in various government offices.
“If you are a victim of corruption, press this button,� signs read at the customer service windows of the municipal water offices.
Should Mexicans with an overdue bill or dispute with a neighbor be shaken down, they need only slap the button and an anti-corruption alarm will sound throughout the office. The unscrupulous employee will then be handed over to the authorities, the idea goes.
“Hopefully we’ll all have the courage to ring the alarm,� resident Victor Garcia told the Mexico City daily Reforma.
Although Mexico has taken big strides toward fortifying its electoral democracy (at least we all thought so before the contested July 2 presidential election), the culture of corruption remains deeply embedded.
According to the well-regarded nonprofit Transparencia Mexicana, corruption in Mexico actually rose between 2003 and 2005, despite the hope that things would change once the “perfect dictatorship� of the PRI was run out in 2000.
The poll recorded a mind-boggling 115 million acts of corruption in 2005, translating to nearly $19 million in bribes.
The states with the lowest incidence of corruption were Baja California Sur, Chiapas, Sonora, Guanajuato and Queretaro. The highest rates of corruption were registered in Guerrero, Hidalgo, Tabasco, the state of Mexico and, no surprise, Mexico City, which led the nation.
The most common bribe? Paying a traffic cop to avoid getting your car towed.
Permalink | |
Shoe shopping in the megalopolis
My wife had quite a shopping problem back in the States — namely her small feet. Her size 5½ tootsies, though delicate and elegantly shaped, were nevertheless too tiny to fit into most shoes sold in Austin. At shoe stores she was consigned to a selection as small as her feet.
As a somewhat average and regular 10½, I observed her footwear woes with detached pity — a shake of the head and a “can you believe that?� It wasn’t until I moved to Mexico City that I would learn to truly empathize with her plight.
My introduction into the world of size discrimination occurred on a quick trip to the megalopolis to set up the Cox Newspapers office. I like to travel light and was loathe to pack sneakers. But our home/office sits near one of the few green spaces in the city — Los Viveros, a prime area for runners and walkers — and I decided to buy a pair of running shoes.
For my first attempt I hit the local mall. I found a sporting goods store with a variety of newfangled shoes with air pockets and air jets and, after getting over the shock of their price — well more than $130 for most — I found a reasonably priced, workmanlike pair. The salesman went in the back and said he didn’t have anything remotely that big that didn’t cost more than the average Mexican’s weekly salary.
A tad alarmed I left the mall and hit a mom-and-pop shoe store I had seen. I found about a dozen running shoes with good prices to match — about $30. Once again, however, the sales clerk could find nothing in the back. The only shoe approaching my size was bright florescent orange with a vaguely Nike-like stripe and Spider-Man-type webbing. Desperate, and despite the sales clerk’s obvious revulsion, I bought them.
A day later I wedged my feet into the monstrosities and hit the street. Maybe, I thought, they won’t stand out too much — they were sort of European backpacker chic. And our new neighborhood, Coyoacan, is perhaps Mexico City’s most colorful. Frida Kahlo’s famous blue house is here and vibrant yellows and reds color many of the homes.
But bright orange running shoes are another matter. As I ran, from my peripheral vision I could see what looked like a pair of overripe tangerines dogging my every step. My lungs strained against the Mexico City altitude and cramps appeared in places they never had before, like my neck. But what hurt the most was not the strain, but the looks of my fellow joggers. Eyes darted from my face to my shoes, grew wide and settled into an expression of distress or pity. I tried to block it out, but in a sea of respectable blacks and whites, I was the course clown, bouncing up and down in my obscenely orange freakshoes.
Since then I’ve had to adjust to life with oversized feet. Shoe shopping takes a while, but at least my wife can find her size anywhere we go.
Garage sales in a gated city
One of the more head-scratching trends to hit Mexico City in recent years is the rise of the garage sale. It might not sound significant, but in a city where most everyone lives behind locked gates, the idea of letting strangers into your home represents a sea change.
Walk down many streets in Mexico City and the one thing you won’t see are houses. Like most residents, my wife and I live in such a place. From the street all you can see are imposing green wooden doors, a half-foot thick, topped with a chain link fence. It’s only once you pass the initial barrier that the house opens up. A favorite Mexico City pastime is catching glimpses of homes when the garage doors swing open.
Being new to the city (and in desperate need of furniture), my wife and I checked out a few garage sales when we arrived in May. At one garage sale in the posh Polanco neighborhood, the owner conducted what felt like a quick personality check on the intercom before she let us in. At another, the owner kept all the valuable stuff in the back of her house and only brought potential customers inside if she felt she could trust them.
In some ways, the garage sale is another example of cultural influences bleeding into both sides of the border. But in another way, it’s the quintessential Mexico City activity, fit for a place where you can buy or sell almost anything, anywhere.
It’d be nice to be able to say it represents a defiant neighborliness in the face of an out-of-control crime rate. But the real reason is probably less warm and fuzzy: People need the money.
Permalink | |
Party at the bullring
President-elect Felipe Calderon celebrated with his party people on Sunday at a packed Plaza Mexico, Mexico City’s main bullfighting ring (47,000 capacity). It was the first major public gathering of Calderon’s National Action Party since the July 2 election, and his followers celebrated with, well, not quite abandon, but with a certain happiness cut with a heavy dose of relief.
But on a day dedicated to celebrating his come-from-behind electoral victory, Calderon sounded suspiciously like his archrival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Calderon has expropriated Lopez Obrador’s major campaign theme — combating poverty — and made it his own in the name of national reconciliation.
“I am personally engaged with the issue of poverty and the millions of families who still live in poverty,� he told his mostly un-poor audience.
Calderon’s embrace of the issue highlights Lopez Obrador’s largely unspoken victory in the past week. Even as his more moderate supporters have defected his protest movement and he receives daily ridicule for his plan to form a parallel government, Lopez Obrador, the anti-Al Gore, has succeeded in forcing his opponents to recognize his anti-poverty agenda.
Whether Calderon will do more than give lip service to poverty still isn’t clear. But Lopez Obrador has shown that by not going away quietly, he’s been able to influence events in ways the Democrats of post-Florida 2000 could only dream of.
The endless election
Forgive Mexicans if they feel like they live in a state of permanent campaign. For at least three years, they have lived through official and unofficial campaigns for president that make even the tedious U.S. version look like a blink of the eye.
Not only did the July 2 election not bring an end to the endless campaigning, it ushered in another 10 weeks of even more intense electioneering as the two sides fought to convince voters they had won.
How long can a country, even one filled with news junkies, like Mexico, live on politics alone? Even before the election, many Mexicans sought refuge from the never-ending politicking in the World Cup. (Team Mexico’s quick second-round exit made it a short getaway.) No such collective escape looms on the horizon, except maybe Christmas.
Even this week’s Fiestas Patrias, two days of parties commemorating Mexico’s independence, promises to be soaked in presidential election politics. President Vicente Fox and losing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will give dueling gritos (¡Viva Mexico!), and a military parade will compete with Lopez Obrador’s “national convention� for the public’s attention.
Mexico City columnist Andres Pascoe Rippey probably summed up the feelings of the great middle of Mexican society when he wrote last week: “Many of us are simply fed up with what is happening, which doesn’t mean we are in favor or against anyone in particular. It just means that as a society we are tired of the political spectacle that we are living and living … �