Madrazo-style democracy threatens Mexico
The Cold War within Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has heated up.
The hairline crack in party unity that developed last year is now a gaping chasm.
At the center of the brouhaha is Roberto Madrazo, a man who talks about party unity but makes it clear that “unity†means doing things his way.
Last week “his way†meant defying a ruling by the independent Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) and barring secretary general Elba Esther Gordillo from replacing him as party president when he entered the race to become the PRI’s presidential candidate.
Days earlier the IFE ruled that under the party constitution Gordillo automatically becomes president and could stay for a year.
Madrazo didn’t want a political enemy as party president, so party officials selected Madrazo sympathizer Mariano Palacios Alcocer from a five-candidate slate. To avoid any ballot box surprises the executive staged a voice vote.
Source: mexidata.info
Mexico: Democracy Under Threat
To get a sense of the danger hovering over Mexican democracy, consider these numbers: In the 681 years between the founding of the Aztec empire in 1325 and the present day, Mexico has lived for 196 years under an indigenous theocracy, 289 years under the absolute monarchy of Spain, 106 years under personal or party dictatorships, 68 years embroiled in civil wars or revolutions, and only 22 years in democracy.
This modest democratic 3 percent of Mexicos history is divided over three periods, far separated in time: 11 years in the second half of the 19th century, 11
Mexico's Roberto Madrazo Wins PRI Presidential Primary Election
Mexico's Roberto Madrazo, the former governor of the state of Tabasco, won the primary election for the presidential nomination of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the country's largest political party.
Madrazo had 91 percent of the votes with the ballots from 74 percent of polling stations counted, according to the party's Web site. Everardo Moreno, Madrazo's only rival after former state of Mexico Governor Arturo Montiel dropped out of the contest, had 9 percent of the vote.
Mariano Palacios, president of the party, declared Madrazo the winner as of 11:30 p.m. New York time
Fox Separated Mexico from World, Says Madrazo
PRI presidential candidate (Institutional Revolutionary Party) Roberto Madrazo told foreign correspondents Tuesday that Vicente Fox´ arrival in office separated Mexico from the rest of the competitive world.
Madrazo pointed out that Mexico is 56th in a list of 60 countries in competitiveness, and its economy is stuck and oil dependent.
He condemned the absence of a national plan, an adequate migration policy, or an effective way to fight poverty, a scourge currently affecting 60 percent of the population.
When questioned about the Mexico-Venezuela dispute, the tri-color party candidate declared that the country had "lost its way" regarding
Mexico's PRI set to give Madrazo presidential nod
Roberto Madrazo, the leading figure in Mexico's main opposition party, was set to become its presidential candidate on Thursday as his main rival stepped down after a financial scandal.
A party source said Arturo Montiel, a former state governor, was dropping his bid to become the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years before it was ousted in 2000 elections.
The source, a key member of Montiel's campaign team, said he was withdrawing to preserve party unity after a bruising fight with Madrazo and recent corruption allegations
In Mexico, Lopez Obradors last stand
As the head of a government that purports to support democracy around the world (never mind that $2-billion-a-year hand-out to Egypts longtime, democracy-crushing dictator-president, Hosni Mubarak), George W. Bush has completely ignored democracys struggle for survival right next door, in Mexico. Many Mexicans have noticed Washingtons deafening silence.
As a result, now that its down-to-the-wire time there (Mexicos government must confirm who the next president will be by September 6), in recent days, leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (or AMLO) has reached out overseas in an impassioned appeal for support for his reform-minded, pro-democracy movement.
More
Wilma slams Mexico, threatens Florida
In the early afternoon on Friday, Oct. 21, 2005, Hurricane Wilma was moving slowly northwest with the eye 35 miles off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico on the Yucatan peninsula. The Category 4 hurricane is currently packing 145 mph winds with higher-speed gusts. Wilma is expected to turn northeast toward southern Florida while dropping as much as 40 inches of rain in parts of Cuba along the way.
With Wilma, the Atlantic Ocean's 21st named storm this year, the 2005 season has tied the record for the most named storms in a year. Pressure readings on
Mexico's Madrazo Wins Court Battle Against Party Foe Gordillo
Mexican presidential hopeful Roberto Madrazo won a legal battle against a party foe as the nation's electoral court confirmed one of his allies as president of his Institutional Revolutionary Party, Mexico's biggest.
The electoral court yesterday dismissed a motion by Elba Esther Gordillo, the party's executive secretary, to oust Madrazo's ally from the party's presidency, according to a statement on the court's Web site. The decision is final.
Gordillo had argued before the court that by party statutes she should be made party president, succeeding Madrazo after he stepped down to
The ever-changing face of campaign politics in Mexico
Once more the unimaginable seems unavoidable in Mexican politics.
Barely two weeks following the start of what looked to be a ho-hum event, Mexican presidential campaigning took another turn in which the 2006 election outcome may again become unpredictable.
The split in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ranks has turned into a mutiny that not only threatens party unity and its 2006 election results, but eventually the party itself. Earlier Roberto Madrazo, the PRI boss and leading presidential hopeful, had fought back a showdown with a group of PRI governors, and he
Mexico's former ruling party stumbles in struggle to find new leader
Mexico's largest party struggled on Wednesday to find a compromise choice for its top leadership post following a bitter falling-out between the two highest-ranking officials of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
The confusion reflected internal disputes within the once-monolithic party, in which current party president Roberto Madrazo appears poised to roll over the competition for the 2006 presidential nomination.
As nearly 1,000 delegates chanted "Unity! Unity!" at the PRI's cavernous Mexico City headquarters, Madrazo clasped hands with Arturo Montiel, the only other major contender for the 2006 nomination, and
Slim Persuades Mexico's Roberto Madrazo to Sign National Accord
Carlos Slim, Mexico's richest man, persuaded presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo to sign a national accord that ha backing from both union and business leaders.
The 12-page National Accord for Unity, Law, Development, Investment and Employment calls for cutting energy costs, overhauling the legal system and investing more in roads, said a spokesman for the accord. Slim, 65, is asking candidates to endorse the program to spur economic growth in Latin America's second-biggest economy.
Madrazo is running second to Andres Lopez Obrador according to a November Consulta Mitofsky poll. Lopez Obrador, the former
