Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 34,575 Location: Paris, France
Mexican presidential election « Thread Started on Jul 1, 2012, 5:30pm »
Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I am certainly interested in the future of this country of 80 million people. And since what happens in Mexico influences what happens in the United States (more or fewer immigrants, more or fewer drug problems, etc.), I don't think that Americans should turn a blind eye to these either.
I thought that thisvideo report from Al Jazeera is a good introduction to the basic problems for us laymen. I have read a number of state-by-state accounts of the situation, indicating that there are extreme variations in security and corruption depending on where you live, but such things are meaningless to people who just see a blob on the map to the south of the United States...
Can't wait to find out the results, even though they appear to be quite predictable.
I kept wondering if, when, and where to post a thread on this. There have been 2 major articles I read very recently, one in The New Yorker, and one in a recent NY Times magazine. Both lengthy pieces. Enlightening on many levels. But, I wouldn't know where to begin in discussing it there are so many, many aspects of the whole wretched situation. All coming down to greed and power in the hands of a very few people and affecting so many hundreds of thousands, millions I suppose, others.
So, it looks like the PRI is back in power. I prefer to be optimistic and believe that 12 years out of power has given it time to learn from past mistakes.
Just watched the Al Jazeera report, which I found quite accurate. Some of the phraseology leads me to think they really did their homework with real Mexicans instead of making up their minds before writing the text.
The fear & violence on the border is almost unimaginable in the part of the country where I live, knock wood. Today I talked with a guy from Durango who lives & works here. He's homesick, but said that he was kidnapped twice when he lived in his home state & that such a thing wasn't all that rare.
It's true that work is underpaid here, but I've heard that punk excuse for not working ever since I've lived here. It's particularly disgusting in a country where people generally work so hard. And someone is working so that disaffected lad can turn up his nose at work that doesn't pay enough.
It may be true, depending on how the unemployed are counted. If you become unemployed in many countries, but have an ad hoc sideline in cutting yards, you would probably say yes if asked if you're unemployed. Here, people work at so many similar, often self-created jobs, where they'll never receive benefits, but in the strictest sense can be counted as employed.
Interesting question -- I'll ask around to see if I can get a better answer.
And, for all those benighted souls who persist in referring to the New York Times as a "liberal" newspaper, just read the pussy-footing, white-washed to the point of borderline lying swill that they published on the Mexican election: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/world/....dit_th_20120702
I really don't like Reuter's treatment of the subject, but it's accurate enough, if smarmy. However, presenting López Obrador's reaction of the previous election as a mere tantrum is most unfair & bad reporting besides. López Obrador did what Al Gore should have done when he "lost" to baby B*sh. AMLO called for a recount of the votes, which seems a simple enough thing to have granted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/0....E86007220120701
To give you an idea of how small minded a lot of people can be, the only thing that interests a lot of the French press is whether this election increases the chance of Florence Cassez being released. (She is a French citizen who may have got in with the wrong crowd, or maybe it was all invented by corrupt police, but she was sentenced to 60 years in prison for some sort of kidnapping affair.) The "year of Mexican culture" in France in 2011 was cancelled because of this case. This implies that France does not believe in the independence of Mexican justice and was willing to punish hundreds if not thousands of Mexican cultural participants on its little peeve.
Apart from that, the press here has been relatively neutral about this election, just hoping that the situation in Mexico will improve and not saying in advance that the PRI coming back to power is a heresy. The gist of most of the articles is that things will probably get a little better but not earthshakingly so. That's about the same way the French press feels about the recent French elections.
I guess the French press, like media everywhere, tends to harp on subjects dear to the home folks. Probably all countries have headlines similar to "Mega jumbo jet goes down. 3 Americans killed".
I well remember the Florence Cassez thread, & just looked at it again. This line by you (written in July of 2010) provoked a sad chuckle: I am totally ignorant about this subject [drug wars in Mexico]... What news-watching or -reading person could say that today?
But I applaud France's decision to cancel the year of Mexican culture & hardly consider the unexamined & lengthy incarceration of one of France's citizens a "little peeve".
From what little I've read about the Mexican election in the US press, it seems their attitude is just as bland as that of the French press.
The amount of blatant fraud & vote buying is astounding. I have a small report to put up about the lack of ballots for people needing to vote away from their districts.
Mexico recounting more than half presidential vote
Mexican electoral authorities are recounting more than half the ballot boxes used in the weekend's presidential election after finding inconsistencies in the vote tallies.
Of the 143,000 ballot boxes used during Sunday's vote, 78,012 will be opened and the votes recounted, said Edmundo Jacobo, executive secretary of Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute.
Electoral officials expect the recount plus the final, official overall count on the presidential vote to be ready by Sunday, said Ana Fuentes, an IFE spokesman.
Mexico's electoral law states that votes should be recounted if there are inconsistencies in the final tally reports, if there is a difference of one percentage point or less between the first and second place finishers or if all the votes in a ballot box are in favor of the same candidate.
With 99% of the vote tallied in the preliminary count, Enrique Peńa Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, led with 38% of the vote. Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party had 32%.
Authorities also will recount 61% of the ballot boxes in the vote for Senate seats and 60% in the vote for the lower house of Congress, Jacobo said.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 25,355 Location: Mexico
Re: Mexican presidential election « Reply #17 on Dec 4, 2012, 5:01pm »
Vomit. Vomit. Vomit.
I went to a baptism on Sunday, the day el copete was sworn in. Dry laws were enforced across the land, in a dictatorial desire for tranquility.
The priest at the baptismal Mass was a hoot. He was not young, commenting at one point that he'd been a priest for 49 years. During the sermon he spoke about sacraments, not surprisingly. When he got to the sacrament of marriage, he slyly said that even the new president had to marry La Gaviota in order to be president. Later, at the end of the Mass, we were asked to pray for the newly baptized boy, his parents, etc. etc. and "for the new president ....... pause ......... even if he is a PRIista".
Mexico's new first lady is known as "La Gaviota" (The Seagull) because of her most popular role during her soap opera career:
Left to right, top: Angelican Rivera How she sees herself How Peńa-Nieto sees her How the tv network sees her Left to right, bottom: How the proletariat see her How fb & twitter see her How the priistas see her The reality*
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