dang, holmes. now that's the way to lay it all out. thanks for the effort!
Excellent job, Xicano... the only thing I MIGHT take exception to is the claim that 4 of the 7 judges are in Fox's pocket. If, as "People's Daily" says, they are retiring within a year, what can Fox hold over them? He'll be out of a job himself come Dec. 1.
Calderon was not a "hand picked" successor. If I remember correctly, both Santiago Creel and Jorge Castaneda were considered the insiders and the favorites to win the PAN primary. Calderon was an upstart, but turned out to be the better candidate.
The PAN was definitley trying to shove AMLO out the door with the bogus charges about violating the court order. Of course, this backfired spectacularly and made AMLO look very sympathetic to many Mexicans. After he won this showdown with the federal government, he was the presidential favorite for 2006.
The Ahumada scandal cuts both ways. It seems that AMLO's political enemies were trying to discredit him and his administraton, but AMLO's people WERE caught on video taking enormous bribes. Of course, Ahumada has credibility issues as a witness, and the Cuban government's involvement only raises suspicions.
We all await TEPJF's ruling. Until then, all this "proof" of irregularities and fraud is just political gossip.
Yes, Creel was Fox's protégé, but PAN is not stupid either. People still remembered what the PAN and the PRI tried to do to AMLO. There was no way Creel was going to beat AMLO consider all the ammunition PRD would have on PAN. Let's look at how PAN Calderon his win:
1. Less than a week before Creel resigned as Interior Secretary, his department issued 65 gambling permits to Apuestos Internacionales, a subsidiary of Televisa. From Mexidata.info (a right wing e-zine) - As recently as April 19, Creel said his department had no applications pending for betting parlor permits. The biggest beneficiary of the spate of new permits, Apuestos Internacionales, didn’t even exist until April of this year.
Another curious element is that this inordinate number of permits was issued in the midst of a still-undecided constitutional case before the Supreme Court relating to gaming regulations.
If the investigation uncovers nothing illegal, public perception of him as something of a sneak and a shady dealer will remain. This is bound to cost him support both within the party and, if he wins the nomination and remains free of criminal charges next April, at the voting booth in July.
2. The debate
Before the PAN debate, Creel was only 7 point ahead (38%) of Calderon (31%). At the end of the debate, Creel droped and Calderon gained, both were now at 35%.
By this time, Manuel Espino, PAN President, was already getting criticized for the way he had organized and handled the primary election. The absenteeism rate among party voters had reached a high of 70% percent in some areas. Not only that, Espino scheduled the debate, at a time that made it a media non-event — it aired just before midnight Mexico City time.
This is just too much of a coincidence to be ignored, especially on Creel's part. Fox's plan failed and this is the only way he and PAN were going to safe face.
I do have to make a correction on one which I made the same mistake others have done too. Rene Bejarano WAS not working for AMLO when he took the bribe, in fact, he was AMLO right hand man from December 2000 to November 2002. The only one in question is Ponce. Why he did it, who knows? The same thing can be asked as to why Jorge Emilio González, head of the Partido Verde Ecologista Mexicano (PVEM), risking the fate of his up and coming party which is now nearly dead because of it. And the sad thing is, it does seem everybody can be bought and members within the PRD are no exception.
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