If Vicente Fox is serious about democracy in Mexico he will exercise his power of pardon and allow Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (currently polling ahead of all other candidates for the upcoming Presidential race) to stand for election next year even if he is found guilty of what amount to minor charges in Mexico’s corrupt political culture. In fact, it would be fairer to pardon him in advance of the verdict in a lengthy court case, Mexican courts not being known for swiftness.
The U.S. should make its views known as well. Lopez Obrador may not be the most palatable candidate, but that is all the more reason for the U.S. to take a stand in favor of his not being shut out on dubious procedural grounds. This seems a chance for the U.S. to show its pro-democatic bona fides at little cost.
[Presidential spokesman Agustin] Canet Gutierrez strongly denied that Fox was trying to scuttle Lopez Obrador’s candidacy, but he said the critics had a point in noting that seemingly far greater corruption had gone unpunished.
“It is difficult to answer that — it doesn’t show coherence, and we accept that,” Gutierrez said.
That’s just what I was thinking…
{ 14 comments }
jet 04.14.05 at 9:43 am
Oh, so Bush can get attacked for propping up his bastards again? Haven’t we already been through this? The US can’t extend help to anyone tainted without the rest of the world booing. Just look at all the flack Bush catches for trying to keep his tainted bastards in power in Iraq. Certainly Bush has learned that even if it means promoting Democracy for the greater good, he can’t back tainted candidates without exposing his flank to the Left.
Jeremy Osner 04.14.05 at 9:59 am
But Lopez Obrador is not Bush’s bastard, Vincente Fox is. I don’t get your point, Jet.
roger 04.14.05 at 10:16 am
Since Vincente Fox has worked hard to bring about the stripping of the immunity, since the project was headed by his chosen heir, Interior Minister Santiago Creel, and since this follows the historica pattern, with both Fox and the PRI of engaging in alliances to keep the PRD down (see the recent article by Jonathan Hiskey in the Latin American Review), your suggestion has as much likelihood as Tom Delay apologizing to the Clintons for that impeachment thing. It would be nice. However, it isn’t going to come about unless Mexico erupts.
Hiskey quotes a political scientist, Jorge Alcocer, who sums up the historical situation pretty well:
“The government has followed a two-pronged approach in dealing with its opponents. With the PAN it has maintained cordial relations (even open alliance), and it has either recognized the PAN’s legitimate victories or taken drastic actions to remedy grievances, as in the cases of Guanajuato and San Luis Potosi.
With the PRD the government’s position has been one of aggression: slander campaigns orchestrated by the president’s press office; tolerance of continued fraud against the PRD; indifference toward the physical abuse and murder perpetrated by regional caciques. The litany of injuries is long.”
Ironically, while Lopez Obrador is going to jail on the charge of disobeying court orders there is no proof he even knew about for a matter that has the criminal dimension of a speeding ticket, the current mayor of Tijuana, Jorge Hank Rhon, (PRI) has not only been caught smuggling endangered species before, but his bodyguards murdered a journalist who was investigating the Hank family’s drug connections.
But we can’t be too harsh. They were just his bodyguards. As Fox likes to say, no man is above the law.
biztheclown 04.14.05 at 12:00 pm
Belle you have got to be putting us on with this. Fox pardon Lopez-Obrador? The US get involved? This may happen, if the popular poltical forces can force it, if Marcos gets involved, if L-O can make good on his allusions to mass non-violent direct action. If it does happen though, it will be the final capitulation of an abject defeat for Fox and Bush, not something that will ever be done at their behest.
Troutsky 04.14.05 at 12:15 pm
Old Jet should try de-caf.Mexico erupts, I do like the sound of that.Can you just see millions out in the streets on Cinco de Mayo, burning effigies,constructing a REAL democracy of the people, not just purple fingers and privitization? Ill be there. A bloc with Lula ,Chavez,Kirchner,Morales,the new guy in Uruguay? Flanking the beast on the south.
abb1 04.14.05 at 2:39 pm
Mexico erupts, I do like the sound of that.Can you just see millions out in the streets on Cinco de Mayo, burning effigies,constructing a REAL democracy of the people, not just purple fingers and privitization?
Yesss. Viva Che! Back to normality.
José del Solar 04.14.05 at 2:44 pm
And why should the US make its views known? Most Latin Americans are aware of US hypocritical foreign policy, and that little gesture won’t change anything. And by the way, who do you consider the “most palatable” candidate? You seem pretty sure it’s not Lopez Obrador…
A little extra comment: It’s not “Vincente”, but “Vicente”. See? No “n” after the “i”. That’s the Spanish version of ‘Vincent”, “Vincenzo”, etc. If I got a penny for every time I see it misspelled I would be a millionaire by now.
José del Solar 04.14.05 at 2:53 pm
Can you just see millions out in the streets on Cinco de Mayo, burning effigies,constructing a REAL democracy of the people, not just purple fingers and privitization?
I like the sound of that, too. But I
José del Solar 04.14.05 at 2:54 pm
am convinced the Big Bad Wolf won’t let it happen. Unless it gets bogged down in Iraq, Iran and its other imperialistic ventures in the Middle East.
jet 04.14.05 at 3:01 pm
Wait, Abb1, Troutsky, are you hoping for another grand democracy in the spirit of Cuba?
abb1 04.14.05 at 3:11 pm
Ah, shut up. It’s not about democracy, who needs it – it’s all about the struggle for democracy.
roger 04.14.05 at 3:47 pm
Actually, abb1, this it is all about Mexico — not about putting one in Uncle Sam’s eye. That is nice and left romantic, but it doesn’t feed a soul. I don’t see Lopez Obrador as Che, thank God. I do see him as a curb on the effort to privatizeof Mexico’s oil biz –which is probably a bad idea — and a man who will try to pass down to the working class some of the benefits of the economy that have been going exclusively to the top. AMLO has problems, however, with the Mittelstand, and that is a problem — for instance, his notorious callousness about the wave of kidnapping in Mexico City because it didn’t hit “his” people was stupid and a bad sign.
The worst thing that happens in Mexico and Latin America is that leftists begin to pay more attention to the romantic image of themselves (which seems to elevate vacationing Americans of the right political persuasion into St. Paul’s seventh heaven) than to the nuts and bolts of navigating a treacherous global economy.
abb1 04.14.05 at 4:38 pm
Roger, I know, I was just joking. Sort of. But it seems most of Latin America is in such a bad shape that it’ll probably take a bunch of Chavezes rather than da Silvas to turn it around. Not that I know much, but that’s my gut-feeling.
Michelle 04.14.05 at 10:39 pm
The likelihood of Fox pardoning AMLO is slim. Despite efforts by the President (and a few PAN presidential hopefuls) to distance himself (themselves) from the desafuero process, it’s fairly clear that the they have an interest in removing AMLO from the 2006 race. Seriously, there was a recent reshuffling within the PAN to make (more) room for Fox’s wife. The PRI was also able to rally last minute support for the desafuero, and the final vote in favor was much greater than most people had predicted.
The Times & Post need to catch up, though. The conflict has moved to the Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear a case brought by the General Assembly of the DF. Normally, in a case of desafuero of a governor, the case goes back to the local legislature, but since the Mexican government hasn’t gotten around to clarifying the legal status of the DF since creating an elected Mayor (rather than appointed), the constitutionality of the desafuero is in question.
Comments on this entry are closed.