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February 26, 2008

Internal division stalks the Mexican left

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Some were predicting it as far back as the summer of 2006, when losing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador brought hundreds of thousands into the streets to protest what he called a fraudulent election.

Two years later, the Mexican left is consumed by division, an internal fight that threatens to spill out of control and, experts say, weaken the Democratic Revolutionary Party, the PRD, Mexico’s foremost left-leaning party.

How bad have things gotten? This morning we read (subscription required) of death threats received by members of the New Left, a more moderate group of legislators, just days after they were verbally abused at a Lopez Obrador rally against privatizing Pemex. Among those receiving death threats is Lopez Obrador’s former top campaign aide Jesus Ortega, who has broken with his former mentor. “It seems to me that intolerance has no place among those who say they have a democratic stance,” lamented PRD founder Cuauhtemoc Cardenas after the rally. Lopez Obrador has condemned the aggressions.

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February 25, 2008

Mexico ex-pats favor Obama

The results are in for the first ever “Global Primary” and in Mexico, ex-pats overwhelmingly backed Barack Obama. Obama took 56 percent of the vote compared to 40 percent for Hillary Clinton. That was slightly less than the 65 percent to 32 percent whipping Obama gave Clinton in world-wide voting organized by the Democrats Abroad organization.

There are some six million American ex-pats scattered around the world (more than several U.S. states) and an estimated one million in Mexico alone. They run the gamut from executives in Mexico City high-rises, to retirees living the good life along Lake Chapala to surfer dudes hiding out in Puerto Escondido.

The Democrats Abroad will hold their convention in Vancouver, Canada in April to sort out the group’s 22 delegates, who will be attending the Democratic National Convention. As close as this race has been, a delegate from San Miguel de Allende or Mazatlan could cast the deciding vote.

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February 6, 2008

Mexican media: advantage Hillary

Mexican papers, most of them at least, are giving the victory to Hillary Clinton in last night’s Super Tuesday elections, which were followed rather breathlessly south of the border. The front page of the influential daily El Universal features a huge photo of a pumped up Clinton addressing the crowd with the headline, “They voted for experience.”

La Cronica also featured a jazzed Clinton, juxtaposed with a somber photo of Barack Obama looking like his pet dog had just died. The headline was a little more restrained: “Hillary triumphs, but doesn’t deliver the knockout blow.” Both the Excelsior and Reforma newspapers featured large photos of the celebrating Clinton rally, without any visuals of the Obama fever in Chicago.

Only the left-leaning daily La Jornada newspaper took a different approach, casting last night’s primaries and caucuses in terms of Obama’s sudden surge. La Jornada was the only major metro to feature a smiling Obama on the front page and ran this headline, sure to warm the hearts of Obama’s many Mexican supporters: “Obama frustrates Hillary’s Super Tuesday hopes.”

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January 25, 2008

The ultimate half-time show

Hands down, the coolest half-time show I’ve seen in any sport took place last weekend at a soccer game between Mexico City’s Cruz Azul and Santos of Coahuila (which should be the home town team for Austinites given their proximity).

If I had known what was going to unfold I would have videotaped it, so hear goes the written explanation: Two men ran parallel races through an obstacle course. So far so good. In the first leg, the men ran with parachutes strapped to their back, which slowed them up a little. Then they jumped on tricycles and tried to pedal their way across a steeply pitched see-saw (they went almost vertical before the see-saw crashed to the ground). They were then met by hulking luchadores, the famous Mexican masked wrestlers, who tried to keep them from advancing. The men were slapped, kicked, tackled and pile driven. If they managed to make it past the wrestlers, they found a teammate strapped inside a gigantic ball who they then had to roll into the goal while the same wrestlers tried to take out their knees. That, my friends, is entertainment.

Forget grown men in animal costumes doing dunks off trampolines. The Mexican soccer league knows how to do half-time.

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Mexico drug war really is like a movie

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Remember that movie The Departed, where Matt Damon’s character joins the Boston Police Department so he can serve as the inside man for Jack Nicholson’s criminal enterprise? Well, it seems that that little ploy is in full effect here in Mexico, according to an article in this morning’s El Universal. No longer content to corrupt existing police officers, Mexico’s drug organizations are apparently sending their own stealth officers through the training academy and into unsuspecting law enforcement agencies.

“They infiltrate the authorities to create a group with impunity,” said top federal prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos.

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Vasconcelos should know — not only is he one of Mexico’s most respected law and order men, but he was also a target of two assassination attempts over last month that authorities believe were carried out by the Sinaloa Cartel. Police foiled both attempts when they arrested the alleged gunmen just before the hit was supposed to take place. Among those arrested were three high ranking police officers, who just may have entered the force under the scheme described above.

The arrested men were found with vests emblazoned with FEDA, an acronym for Arturo’s Armed Forces, a nod to drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva, whose brother was arrested this week.

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