Support NeoGAF

[Incognito]

Pretty interesting article...

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/4/7/93753/46058

The world may learn today that the work of the Mexican revolution is unfinished. Eighty-six years ago this week Mexican revolutionary General Emiliano Zapata was assassinated in a State-plotted ambush, on April 10, 1919. Eleven years ago, also at this springtime of year, leading presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated on the campaign trail, in Tijuana: on March 23, 1994. What President Vicente Fox, together with his former adversaries of the once-monolithic PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for seven decades prior to Fox’s 2000 electoral victory), are attempting today is nothing less than a pre-emptive coup d’etat: a political assassination, dressed up in legal technicalities no more serious than a parking ticket, to remove Mexico’s leading presidential candidate from the 2006 contest.

Unable to play and win by the rules of democracy – a word that supposedly means that the people decide their destiny – Fox and the PRI (urged on from Washington from the very day that Condoleeza Rice, in January, took the helm of the State Department) are likely to win a battle today – a vote in Congress – to declare López Obrador guilty until proven innocent and rob from the Mexican people the right to vote for him – he now towers 20 points, at 44-percent in the polls, over his nearest rivals – to be their president next year.

"And that – as a 12-percent crash in recent days of the Mexican stock market presages – will set in motion a political war dance with steps already planned by Mexico City’s activist (and strategist) governor. López Obrador is ready to go to jail and lead the fight from there. And much of Mexico is declaring its will to, if need be, join him behind bars by launching what would be the country’s first-ever campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience.

There is little question in this correspondent’s analysis that the pressure on Fox and the PRI to cement their little coup d’etat today comes from above, from the Bush administration in Washington, which has decided it cannot abide another democratic decision by another large Latin American country that would place Mexico with Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela (among others such as Uruguay) in a Bolivarian bloc of resistance to the imposed policies from the North.

"Today, April 7, 2005, is the date that Vicente Fox – if he gets his way in Congress - destroys his own historic legacy as a transitional pro-democracy figure and goes down in history the same kind of authoritarian cretin as presidents Carlos Salinas and Ernesto Zedillo before him.

"But while the government of Washington appears hell-bent on ripping democracy from Mexican hands once again, the reaction from Civil Society in the United States is, for the second time in the five-year history of this newspaper (the first being the rejection of the US-backed coup d’etat in Venezuela in 2002), emerging in opposition to the dirty tricks from inside the beltway.

Damn. Anyone in Mexico or with close ties there care to respond on this? I'm pretty clueless.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

i remember that Colosio assassination. That shit was brutal.

 

[Ash Housewares]

not terribly surprising, I don't know that they'll ever give the PRD a shot at the presidency, but it will be even more difficult now that PAN is villified and seen as working with PRI

can't really comment on US involvement but it goes without saying that our government would be less than pleased with a socialist/populist president on their doorstep

 

[whytemyke]

I studied Mexico for a semester last year.

Know what I learned? Stay the fuck out of Mexican politics. There's a reason they break the rules to come here...

 

[Ash Housewares]

I studied Mexico for a semester last year.

Know what I learned? Stay the fuck out of Mexican politics. There's a reason they break the rules to come here...

two years worth and that's the only part I remember too

 

[maharg]

not terribly surprising, I don't know that they'll ever give the PRD a shot at the presidency, but it will be even more difficult now that PAN is villified and seen as working with PRI

can't really comment on US involvement but it goes without saying that our government would be less than pleased with a socialist/populist president on their doorstep

Bit late for that.

*waves from up north*

 

[Ash Housewares]

Bit late for that.

*waves from up north*

keep sendin the oil and it's all cool

 

[Doc Holliday]

Well the US already has Chavez in venezuela, and hes been one tough mofo. They dont need a another guy like him in power.

 

[Azih]

Bit late for that.

*waves from up north*

Liberals are pretty corp friendly mang. NDP and Bloc on the other hand...

 

[Talas]

I studied Mexico for a semester last year.

Know what I learned? Stay the fuck out of Mexican politics. There's a reason they break the rules to come here...

I have lived in Mexico for 26 years and I agree 100% with you.

Anyway, this all situation is incredibly fucked up, it all began with the city's alleged failure to obey court orders, the halting construction of a road around on private land to a new hospital, it supposedly blocked a non-existant access to that land.

But there was a problem, mexican laws forbid the prosecution of public servers in functions, so they have to remove his immunity and that's exactly what they did yesterday.

The PRI (party in power for 60 years before Fox) and the PAN (Fox's party) voted 360-127 in the lower Chamber of Deputies and that clears the way for López Obrador to be prosecuted.

He's very leftist and popular and that's why the people in power fear him, they fear that he may be the next Chávez or the next Lula but maybe that's what Mexico needs to overcome the overwhelming corruption that infects our Government in all its areas, or at least replace it for another that may lead to a complete change in the future. Even if some people don't like it, that's democracy, just for that I think I will vote for him... if they let him.

 

[Christoff Yurievich]

Mexico Drops Land Dispute Against Mayor

By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer
20 minutes ago

The Mexican government said Wednesday it was dropping a land expropriation case against popular Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, clearing the way for the fiery leftist politician to pursue his presidential bid.

Lopez Obrador had fought the investigation with protests and speeches accusing the government using the charges as a pretext to keep him out of the presidential race — allegations President Vicente Fox denied. Under most interpretations of Mexican law, anyone facing criminal charges cannot run for office.

In a statement Wednesday, the federal attorney general's office said it wouldn't pursue the investigation of the Mexico City mayor because the law didn't state clearly what sentence he might face if convicted.

Most polls show Lopez Obrador — a leftist known for his handout programs — as a clear presidential front-runner ahead of 2006 elections. Fox cannot seek another term.

The action came a week after Fox accepted the resignation of former Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha, replacing him with a new attorney general whose first task was to review the case against Lopez Obrador.

The attorney general's office had sought to prosecute Lopez Obrador on charges he failed to obey a judge's order to stop building a hospital access road on private land.

Congress had stripped Lopez Obrador of the immunity from prosecution he enjoyed as a public official, in a process similar to impeachment.

The announcement came as the mayor and Fox are planning to meet on Friday, an encounter seen as a gesture of reconciliation after weeks of public bickering.

Former law professor Daniel Cabeza de Vaca was sworn in the week as attorney general, replacing Macedo, who won praise for jailing prominent drug traffickers but came under intense public criticism for his handling of the criminal investigation against Lopez Obrador.

interesting.