Marv wrote:
The problem, of course, is what happens after tomorrow's rally - assuming it doesn't turn bloody. I expect the cops/troops will be kept on a very tight leash to ensure that doesn't happen.
Mexico City is ran by the PRD. Marcelo Ebrard (PRD) won the election and will be the new DF governor, mayor of Mexico City -- or whatever we wish to call him. No. There's anger and frustration, lots, but all that will remain within very "tepid" bounds. Why? Because the political system in Mexico -- in spite of what some ultra-left nuts inside or outside of Mexico may think on the basis of mental inbreeding or intellectual onanism -- is not about to collapse. The people, the poorest of the poor, the urban and the rural poor, to the extent they are willing and capable of mobilizing collectively, still view the current political system as the most direct and economical vehicle to advance their needs. The dynamics of class struggle following a victory of the "tepid" left in Mexico is the only thing that could allow those masses of people to test -- and adjust their minds accordingly -- the real possibilities offered by the current political system. Radical preaching won't do it. People don't change that way. So, right now, at the very center of this class struggle is a "tepid" ***legal*** dispute. Both teams are readying their top legal guns. The legal maneuvering has began. On Saturday, the movement in support of López Obrador has a chance to build momentum and show the political establishment, the plutocracy, the media, and the U.S. that the conduct of the judges will be under popular scrutiny, that their ruling can strengthen Mexico's political institutions or -- else -- they can say goodbye for the time being to their illusion of a stable political system. The legal argument for opening the ballot packages is not disproportionate -- it's not too much to ask. If tempted to do so, the court is going to have a hard time dismissing it. At this stage, however likely such scenario might be, it's idle to speculate about what will happen if the judges rule against the ballot recount. Right now, the goal is to mobilize and push in all fronts for the opening of the packages and the recount. I don't know this for a fact, but I'm persuaded that the locus of the fraud (or attempt thereof) is in the Bajío, a region in central western Mexico that, stretching it a little, goes from Colima, Jalisco, and northern Michoacán to Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, and Querétaro. In northern Mexico, the PAN may have done bad things, but I'm sure most of the trickery happened in the Bajío. Those are the ballot packages the PAN would love to have burned. Yoshie wrote:
I see two competing projects of Latin American political and economic integration: Chavez's and Lula's. It would be interesting what sort of alliance Obrador will make if he and his supporters win.
He knows a lot about oil. He's from Tabasco, where he tried twice to become the governor. Tabasco is one of Mexico's oil states. And he believes Mexico should strengthen his petrochemical industry. I'm sure he'd have plenty of things to discuss with Chávez. That said, Mexico doesn't have a lot of trade (as a share of GDP) with Brazil or Venezuela. That's a reality. Another (huge) reality is that Mexico's trade is overwhelmingly with the U.S. So, he would not pick fights with the U.S., but he'd be very assertive of Mexico's national sovereignty. He's declared repeatedly that the main issue in the bilateral agenda is the situation of the Mexican workers in the U.S. He'd not be "tepid" about that. Julio
