Frontera NorteSur 2006

And the (Political) Beat Goes On....

In Mexico City , protests by supporters of presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are far from over. In southern Chiapas state, the PAN and PRI parties refuse to recognize the recent gubernatorial election victory of Lopez Obrador's endorsed candidate. On Mexico 's northern border, however, political parties and actors are already setting their sights on local and state elections in 2007. Indeed, entirely new political parties are emerging in some locales.

In Baja California , two new parties are marshaling their forces for 2007 races. The Social Encounter Party (PES) is the first new party that's requested registration from the Baja California State Electoral Council (CEE). Luis Moreno, an ex-deputy from Lopez Obrador's PRD party, is identified as one of the leaders of the new party. The Democratic Inclusive Front (Fidel) is the second new political force that's solicited state registration. Fidel's principal promoter is an unnamed leader of a non-governmental organization dedicated to the legalization of illegal vehicles in Baja California .

According to CEE official Raul Flores Adame, the two new parties will be granted the necessary status to receive public campaign financing and compete in elections if they meet the legal prerequisites of Baja California 's electoral law. Flores said two other new nationally-organized parties that won federal registration due to their showings in the July 2 elections, Roberto Campa's National Alliance Party and Patricia Mercado's Alternative Social Democrat and Campesino Party, are also seeking registration in Baja California . If approved for registration, the four parties will join 7 previously-registered parties in the border state. Existing, officially-recognized parties include the PAN, PRI, PRD, PT, PVEM, Convergencia, and Baja California Party organizations.

In Nuevo Laredo , Tamaulipas, Felipe Calderon's PAN party is preparing to choose its mayoral candidate for the 2007 city election. Jorge Ramirez Rubio, president of Nuevo Laredo 's PAN branch, said three possible candidates for mayor are under consideration. Besides Everardo Quiroz Torres, a Tamaulipas state legislator, the possible candidates include two customs agents: Francisco Gonzalez Quezada and Hugo Galindo Leal. According to Ramirez, the next mayor of Nuevo Laredo will administer a city that employs more than 2,500 municipal workers and boasts an annual budget of about $140 million dollars.

Sounding very optimistic about his party's 2007 prospects, Ramirez said he is "completely sure" the PAN will win Nuevo Laredo 's mayoral election. Ramirez said the main battle will be against the former ruling PRI party, adding that the current municipal administration of the border city of Reynosa is a "living example" of what the PAN can deliver at the local level. Ramirez contended that the deepening conflict over the results of the July 2 presidential election should not have big repercussions in next year's local election. "This is another movie..," Ramirez said. "There will be another movie next year that has nothing to do with the one that showed."

Nuevo Laredo 's next mayor will take the reigns of power an from a city administration that's presided over unprecedented bouts of narco-violence, generalized public insecurity and declining cross-border tourism. Everardo Quiroz, one of the possible PAN mayoral candidates mentioned by Ramirez, said public insecurity and economic development should be the top priorities of the next PAN candidate.

" Nuevo Laredo should be a pole of development that generates thousands of jobs for all, and it should be a national example as well," Quiroz said. "I believe that the priority is to improve the quality of life through education, sports, culture, jobs, and public security."

Sources: Frontera, August 29, 2006 . Enlineadirecta.info, August 28, 2006 . Articles by Angel A. Guerra Salazar and Blanca Leticia Guerra Guerrero.

Border Governors and NGOs Gear Up for Austin Meets

Governors of the 10 Mexican and US border states will begin their annual meeting in Austin , Texas on Wednesday, August 23. And for the second year in a row, civil society groups organized by the Albuquerque-based Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice will stage an "alternative" conference during the official three-day gathering. The 2006 events will take place against a backdrop of stalled US immigration reform legislation, renewed opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement, deployments of US National Guard troops near the Mexican border, protests over the July 2 Mexican presidential election results, and the upcoming US mid-term elections that increasingly feature immigration and border security as hot-button issues.

As in previous years, the governors are expected to pass resolutions on matters that affect border communities and states. Working groups have traditionally focused on the issues of agriculture, border crossings, economic development, education, energy, environment, health, security, tourism, water, and wildlife. Held with support from Cemex, AT&T, Western Union , the Texas Border Coalition and other sponsors, most of the conference's Austin sessions will be closed to the press.

Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores said he plans to propose strengthening and expanding the North American Development Bank (Nadbank), which was established under a side accord to the North American Free Trade Agreement to fund environmental and infrastructure projects on both sides of the border.

Pointing to studies that predict the emergence of the US-Mexico border region as the most dynamic economic zone in the world within the next 50 years, Gov. Hernandez said the Nadbank needs to broaden its mandate. "We need projects to come that fortify development, an ordered development that doesn't translate into the loss of the quality of life," Gov. Hernandez said.

Dissolving the Nadbank was a topic of conversation between Mexico 's Ministry of Finance and Public Credit and the US Department of Treasury earlier this year. Since its inception, the San Antonio-based bank has distributed nearly $400 million dollars in grants and loans to border communities.

While the border governors and their representatives debate and shape public policy in their sessions, members and supporters of the SNEEJ will also gather in Austin August 23-25 to draft an alternative agenda opposed to border militarization and walls, National Guard deployments and the NAFTA.

"We feel that the policies, resolutions and strategies that the governors have been discussing a these border conferences for the last 14 years have been very negative for the border communities," contended Tomas Garduno, SNEEJ border campaign organizer. "We've got the solutions. They need to listen to us," Garduno said.

According to the SNEEJ activist, civil society groups meeting in Austin will demand that the governors urge their respective national governments to renegotiate the NAFTA to include worker, community and environmental protections. Regarding the Nadbank, Garduno said the SNEEJ has many concerns about the financial institution's role in the direction of the border economy. "We're against any entity that is not accountable to the people having more power," Garduno said.

Garduno told Frontera NorteSur that the Austin event will include a vigil in memory of dead migrants, panel discussions and a public protest. For the second time, Garduno said the NGO conference will draft a letter to the governors containing demands and recommendations. Mexican and US state leaders did not respond to a similar letter delivered last year, Garduno added. "We plan on having as many (alternative conferences) as possible until they do," he said.

Additional Sources: Enlineadirecta.info, August 21, 2006 . Article by Roberto Aguilar Grimaldo. Irc-online.org, June 9, 2006 .: "North American Development Bank: An Institution Worth Saving." Article by Andrea Abel and Marico Sayoc. Bordergovernorsconference.com

Post-Election Conflict Continues; Border States Face Renewed Scrutiny

Repudiating the Federal Electoral Tribunal's August 5 decision not to order a complete recount of the July 2 presidential results, candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the For the Good of All Coalition vowed to step up the mass protest movement he heads. In a speech before supporters in Mexico City 's Zocalo, Lopez Obrador blasted the TEPJ's decision limiting the vote recount to only 9.07 percent of Mexico 's more than 130,000 precincts

The former Mexico City mayor contended that 72,000 precincts exhibited the same sort of irregularities as the 11,839 precincts selected by the TEPJ for a recount. He also charged that 900,000 presidential election ballots were missing. Predicting greater emigration and the intensification of other social problems if conservative candidate Felipe Calderon assumes the presidency, Lopez Obrador warned that the future of Mexico was at stake.

"This is a democratic movement, but at the same time we contend that democracy is a path, the most important one to make social justice a reality," Lopez Obrador said. "If we let them impose the project of the right, it means not only the trampling of the popular will, but more poverty and margination as well."

In contrast to Lopez Obrador's sharp rejection of the TEPJ's decision, other political actors praised the action of Mexico 's top elections' court. Both the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the newly-formed Alternative Social Democrat and Campesino organization, which fielded feminist Patricia Mercado as its presidential candidate, backed the TEPJ's ruling. Calderon's National Action Party (PAN) quickly applauded the move.

German Martinez Cazares, the PAN's representative to the Federal Electoral Institute, expressed confidence that the recount will "clarify the victory" of Felipe Calderon. Sounding the trumpet of victory, Martinez added that Calderon was willing to engage in serious talks with his opponents about Mexico 's most severe political crisis in years. "We once again extend the hand of dialogue," Martinez said.

In its ruling on the so-called "mother" legal complaint presented by the Lopez Obrador camp, the 7-member TEPJ also rejected charges that President Fox had unduly intervened in the electoral process; that unfair media treatment prevailed; that campaign expenditures surpassed legal limits; that foreigners illegally participated in the campaign, and that the Office of the Federal Attorney General's election crimes division was negligent in investigating complaints.

In reaching its decision on how many ballots should be recounted because of presumed irregularities, the TEPJ employed a strict legal interpretation based on existing election law and the documentation presented by Lopez Obrador and his supporters. According to the election judges, Lopez Obrador did not specifically challenge the results in all of the nation's 300 electoral districts, a condition required under Mexican law to conduct a full recount.

The precincts the TEPJ agreed should be recounted paint an interesting political and geographic picture. In Jalisco state, where PAN Governor Francisco Ramirez Acuna openly backed Calderon as a presidential candidate in May 2004, the TEPJ ordered the votes recounted in 2,705 precincts. Neighboring Aguascalientes , also governed by the PAN, emerged as the state facing the greatest percentage of precinct recounts- 35 percent- under the TEPJ's ruling.

Standing out in the TEPJ's order were the 6 northern border states of Baja California , Sonora , Chihuahua , Nuevo Leon , Coahuila, and Tamaulipas. Despite constituting a distinct minority of the total nationwide pool of potential votes, border state ballots now represent a disproportionately high percentage of votes subject to the recount. The TEPJ found that the votes cast in 4,470 precincts scattered throughout the 6 states should be recounted. The number make ups nearly 40 percent of the 11,839 precincts nationwide pinpointed by the TEPJ for a recount.

Downplaying the local implications of the TEPJ's decision, the Ciudad Juarez-based Internet news service LaPolaka.com claimed that the vote recount in Chihuahua state will be "minimal." However, the TEPJ actually ordered that the votes be recounted in slightly more than 18 percent of the precincts in Mexico geographically biggest state.

Election results in the northern border region raised interesting questions, especially in Sonora, where a PRI governor, Eduardo Bours, was known to be on the outs with his party's presidential candidate, Roberto Madrazo, and in Tamaulipas, where another PRI governor, Eugenio Hernandez, was allegedly a player in a complicated scheme involving ousted leading PRI member Elba Esther Gordillo, the longtime leader of the National Teachers Union who's immersed in a political blood feud with Madrazo. The Lopez Obrador campaign charges that Gordillo organized anti-Madrazo PRI factions to funnel votes to Felipe Calderon.

Both Sonora and Tampaulipas, as well as the remaining northern border states , favored Calderon, according to the Federal Electoral Institute's official vote tallies. While flirting with the PAN, Gordillo is credited with helping form the New Alliance Party (PANAL), which ran Roberto Campa for president. As part of its legal complaint, the Lopez Obrador campaign contended that the PANAL actually transferred votes to Felipe Calderon, another contention the TEPJ rejected. Lending some credence to Lopez Obrador's claims were the preliminary election figures that showed a three-fold difference between votes cast for Campa and the PANAL's congressional candidates, with the latter curiously racking up a far greater total than their presidential standard-bearer.

Meanwhile, in Tamaulipas, pro-Lopez Obrador protests spread to the Texas border on Friday, August 4. Demonstrations or partial bridge closings by scores of Lopez Obrador supporters were reported at international crossings at Nuevo Laredo , Reynosa and Matamoros . The participants in the protests, which drew the ire of some motorists trying to drive over to the US, included members of the National Movement for Democracy, For the Good of All Coalition and Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). No major incidents ensued, but a tense stand-off between demonstrators and heavily armed elements of the Federal Preventive Police temporarily chilled the Reynosa action.

Miguel Angel Almaraz, Tamaulipas PRD leader, said he expected more protests in the border state in support of a national vote-by-vote recount, but was awaiting further instructions from the party leadership in Mexico City .

Sources: Enlineadirecta.info, August 5 and August 6, 2006 . Articles by Gaston Monge, Hugo Reyna, Rodolfo Sanchez Barron, and Federico Zuniga Garcia. La Jornada, August 6, 2006 . Articles by Alonso Urrutia and Fabiola Martinez. El Universal, August 5, 2006 . Articles by Jorge Herrera, Arturo Zarate, editorial staff, and the EFE and Notimex news agencies. Laredo Morning Times/Tiempo de Laredo, August 5, 2006 . Article by Vicente Rangel. Lapolaka.com, August 5, 2006 . Univision, August 5 and August 6, 2006 .

Pre-Election Tempers Sizzling

Like the blazing desert temperatures this time of year, political tempers are sizzling in the northern border state of Sonora . Denied the registration of candidate slates in 10 Sonoran municipalities and 21 local legislative districts, members of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's For the Good of All Coalition occupied the offices of the Sonora State Electoral Council (CEE) in the state capital of Hermosillo on Sunday, May 21. The protestors, who included members of Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the allied Labor Party (PT), charged that Sonoran election officials used "biased" reasons for denying the coalition the right to run its chosen candidates in the upcoming state election. In addition to a national president and congress, Sonoran voters will elect new municipal governments and state legislators on July 2.

Hildelisa Gonzalez Morales, leader of the Sonora PRD, declared that her party will "go all out" to defend the rejected candidacies. The protest followed a CEE decision that was taken in an extraordinary session held late on Saturday, May 20. In a press statement, the CEE justified its ruling on several grounds based in Sonora 's state election law. According to the CEE, some pro-Lopez Obrador slates in question did meet state requirements for gender balance; failed to present candidate identification documents and, in other instances, did not provide signed, sworn documents attesting to the nationality of two candidates for city council positions.

The CEE's ruling affected For the Good of All Coalition slates in the municipalities of Empalme, La Colorada, Bacerac, Rayon, Atil, Banamichi, Divisaderos, San Javier, San Pedro de la Cueva, and San Felipe de Jesus. Empalme has been governed by the PRD for the last three municipal administrations. The PRD-PT coalition can appeal the CEE'S decision and, in the event of a lost appeal, take the matter to state and federal election courts.

Jesus Humberto Valencia Valencia, CEE president, later said the PRD and PT were warned May 15 they had three days to remedy their slates' deficiencies. But PRD leaders questioned the motives of CEE President Valencia. Last November, Jesus Bustamante Machado, the coordinator of the PRD fraction in the Sonora state congress, denounced that Valencia omitted from a personal declaration to a state legislative committee that he had been fired as a federal judge in 1997 for freeing alleged drug traffickers in Hermosillo during the 1990s.

Confronted with a sudden political crisis, Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours, a member of the Institutional Party of the Revolution (PRI) quickly disassociated himself from the CEE's decision, adding that the state election authority is an autonomous institution that makes its own decisions.

In other action, the CEE approved PRD-PT slates for 18 municipalities, but rejected a PRD-PT challenge to 6 PRI-PANAL slates for the municipalities of Nogales , Guaymas, Cajeme, San Luis Rio Colorado , Navojoa, and Hermosillo . The CEE also approved Mexican Green Party (PVEM) candidacies for state legislative decisions, as well as for municipal positions in the historic mining municipality of Cananea .

The pre-election conflict in Sonora erupted amid an increasingly charged national political atmosphere. Accusations of character assassination, dirty campaigning and undue interference by the Fox Administration are flying all over the airwaves and in the press. Largely lost in the sharpening acrimony is any serious debate about the issues facing Mexico . Speaking out in Sonora , Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, secretary general of the PRD, charged President Fox's office with spending about $90 million dollars to promote National Action Party (PAN) presidential candidate Felipe Calderon during the month of April alone. Acosta contended that the government publicity subliminally included phrases and slogans used by the Calderon campaign.

Like Acosta, the PRI is making similar accusations about unfair publicity. Felipe Solis Acero, the PRI's representative to the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) , claimed that a media monitoring study contracted by his party revealed that the federal government ran 456,375 television and radio spots promoting its programs during the months of April and May at an estimated cost of $160 million dollars. On Tuesday, May 23, an IFE-negotiated “neutrality agreement” went effect that bars federal, state and local government agencies from publicizing their public works for the remainder of the election campaign.

In the manner of old PRI governments, Calderon's opponents charge the Fox Administration with preparing a "state election" to thrust their man into office. On Monday, May 22, PRD national President Leonel Cota filed criminal charges with the Federal Office of the Attorney General ( PGR ) against President Fox. The complaint accuses the president with illegally interfering in the political campaign . Earlier, PRI President Mariano Palacios Alcocer announced that his party too would file charges with the PGR and the IFE on similar grounds.

Vowing to take the election intervention issue to the international stage, Cota based the PRD's complaint, in part, on statements by PVEM President Jorge Emilio Gonzalez Martinez. The so-called "Green Boy," of Mexican politics, Gonzalez created a recent scandal when he said President Fox personally tried to convince the PVEM leader, on three separate occasions, to ally with the PAN. The PAN and PVEM formed the coalition that elected Vicente Fox president in 2000, but the Greens broke with Fox shortly after he assumed office and are supporting the campaign of the PRI s Roberto Madrazo this year. According to Gonzalez, President Fox told him that Madrazo isn't "trustworthy," while Lopez Obrador represents a "danger for the country."

President Fox's critics charge the Mexican leader will use his planned tour of the United States this week to campaign on behalf of Felipe Calderon. Only slightly more than 30,000 Mexicans residing in this country will be eligible to cast absentee votes, but their preferences could prove crucial in the event of a tight Calderon-Lopez Obrador race, which some polls indicate. Campaigning for candidates abroad, nonetheless, is illegal under Mexican election rules, save for the 5-minute messages from each candidate that are recorded on a DVD included in the election packages containing the absentee ballots mailed to Mexican expatriates. Rejecting his critics' charges, President Fox responded this week that he is not interfering in the election. In a broadcast statement, he assured viewers that Mexico "will have the cleanest elections" in its history.

Sources: La Jornada, May 22 and 23, 2006. Articles by Cristobal Garcia Bernal, Alfonso Urrutia and editorial staff. El Imparcial ( Hermosillo ), Article by Luis Alberto Medina. Cambio Sonora , May 22, 2006 . El Universal/Notimex, May 22, 2006 . Univision, May 22, 2006 . Proceso/Apro, May 18, 2006 . www.ceesonora.org.mx, press statement.

Migration, Narco-Violence Shape Political Landscape

With less than 7 weeks to go before Mexico 's July 2 election, political and other red flags are fluttering in Nuevo Leon , a northern state that shares a border with Texas . Blaming migration to the United States , the president of the Nuevo Leon State Electoral Commission (CEE), Eduardo Guerra Sepulveda, has announced that not enough people will be available to supervise polling stations for the July 2 state congressional and municipal elections. Legally charged with organizing state elections, the CEE is a separate entity than the Federal Electoral Institute, which will oversee the federal congressional and presidential elections also scheduled for July 2.

In some cases, Guerra said intense out-migration has prevented state election officials from locating up to 80 percent of previously selected and trained polling booth officials. In one place, Los Aldama, a municipality located southwest of the border city of Reynosa , Tamaulipas, Guerra contended that the CEE could not locate a single pre-approved election worker because every last individual was in the United States , legally or illegally.

Statistics from Mexico 's National Population Council report that 500,000 residents of Nuevo Leon , or more than 10 percent of the total state population of 4 million people, currently reside in the United States . Reportedly, the majority of the population of the northern municipalities of Hualahuises, Mier, Noriega, Los Ramones, Agualeguas, and General Bravo has relocated to the United States .

Guerra said the population deficit made it impossible for election authorities to find replacements for the leadership posts of polling stations before a May 15 deadline. "(The people) that remain are minors or old people who don't have an education and can't be trained to count votes," Guerra said. Due to the election official shortage, Guerra said some polling stations will have to be closed and fused with others. The CEE's president did not disclose how and when eligible voters will be informed about the ballot box changes.

Meanwhile, escalating narco-violence is increasingly tainting the pre-election landscape in Nuevo Leon . A grenade and AK-47 attack on the Punto Vivo night-club in San Nicolas de los Garza early Monday morning on May 15 that killed four persons and wounded 25 others was blamed by authorities and business leaders on organized crime.

Owned by Salvador Corona Duenas, the Monterrey metro-area club hosted dozens of youthful clients at the time of the bloody assault. Local police pursued suspects and recovered a vehicle with Tamaulipas license plates linked to the attack, but as in countless similar incidents, the gunmen escaped. One press story suggested that the attack was directed against an individual known as "Danny Boy," but ended up killing and injuring innocent people instead. Two of the slain victims, Rene Espinosa Sanchez and Oscar Villareal, were employed as Punto Vivo security guards.

Jesus Marcos Giacoman, the president of the Monterrery Chamber of Commerce," called the attack "an act of war." Saying he will demand serious federal action , Nuevo Leon Governor Jose Natividad Gonzalez Paras (a member of the opposition PRI party) charged that the Federal Office of the Attorney General is "not responding to the narco-war" and losing the national battle against drug trafficking.

At least 30 people have been reported murdered in Nuevo Leon in cases to narco-violence since the beginning of the year, though Gov. Gonzalez has said that 10 murders were committed in neighboring Tamaulipas state and the victims' bodies later dumped in Nuevo Leon . Along with the PRI governors of Tamulipas and Coahuila, Gov. Gonzalez said that he will present a new series of anti-organized crime proposals to Mexico's National Governor's Conference.

Sources: Proceso/Apro, May 16, 2006 . Article by Arturo Rodriguez Garcia. El Universal, May 14 and 16, 2006. Articles by Juan Cedillo. Milenio ( Monterrey ), May 16, 2006 .

Voters Tune Out Presidential Debate

Anecdotal reports hint that many Mexicans decided they had better things to do the evening of April 25 than watch the televised debate between four of the five presidential candidates. In the first of two debates, candidates Roberto Madrazo, Felipe Calderon, Patricia Mercado, and Roberto Campa faced a broadcast audience which might have been much smaller than they had desired. Candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador did not participate in the event, but is expected to join his political rivals in a second debate scheduled for June 6.

An unscientific poll conducted by the Diario de Juarez newspaper, which is historically close to Roberto Madrazo's Institutional Revolutionary Party, reported that 118 out of 150 people interviewed said they did not see the debate. According to El Diario, the non-viewers said they did watch the debate because of they did not know about it; had conflicting work schedules, or were not interested.

Of the 32 people interviewed by El Diario in Ciudad Juarez who said they watched the debate, 75 percent judged the National Action Party's Felipe Calderon the winner, a result that was similar to two other unscientific post-debate polls carried out by Mexico City's Reforma daily- a newspaper partisans of presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador accuse of favoring Calderon. The post-debate polls led Maria Elena Salinas, Univision's star news anchor, to declare that Calderon was now clearly the front-running presidential candidate.

Interestingly, one of the Reforma polls indicated that Patricia Mercado of the Alternative Social Democrat and Campesino party could have been the second real beneficiary from the debate, especially considering that her new political organization is short on money, publicity and infrastructure and is in desperate need of a shot-in-the-arm just to keep its electoral registration. According to Reforma, 14 per cent of the respondents to one poll gave Mercado the debate victory.

But in Acapulco , Guerrero, a city which is governed by Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution and under siege from violence attributed to border drug cartels, journalist Ricardo Castillo Diaz declared that indifference was the genuine winter of the debate. In an excursion with friends through popular cafes and restaurants in the City that Never Sleeps, Castillo encountered turned off television sets, empty seats or groups of people busily watching soap operas, soccer matches and waitresses during the two hours of the political debate.

In one case, clients of a Sanborn's Cafe became upset and yelled after Castillo and company asked the waiter to turn up the volume on the televised political debate. Castillo's experience led him to suggest that many voters might just simply stay away from the polls on July 2. If Castillo's observations are accurate, then it is increasingly likely the party/coalition that mobilizes its hard-core base of support will take the election.

Sources: El Diario de Juarez, April 26, 2006 . Frontera/EFE, April 26, 2006 . El Sur, April 26, 2006 . Article by Ricardo Castillo Diaz. Univision, April 26, 2006 , 2006.

Amid Media Blackout, Congressional Campaigns Unfold

Virtually overlooked by the US and international press, Mexico 's congressional campaigns are getting underway in the border and other states. Much of the media's attention is focused on the 2006 race for the Mexican presidency, but scant international press coverage is being devoted to the battle for the federal Mexican congress. Given the historic weakening of the authoritarian Mexican presidency, the media blackout of the congressional election is especially glaring in light of the potential power of Mexican senators and deputies. Pre-election polls suggest Mexico 's next president could confront a similar political equation faced by outgoing President Vicente Fox: a divided congress capable of blocking or drastically compromising the executive branch's political agenda.

In the Baja California border city of Tijuana , the competing political parties recently unveiled some of the strategies they will employ to get their candidates elected to the federal Chamber of Deputies on July 2, 2006 . Currently running Tijuana 's municipal administration, the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) and its Alliance for Mexico will rely on direct, door-to-door contact with the city's population, according to Carlos Barboza Castillo, the party's Tijuana leader. As in other Mexican cities, the PRI can rely on a hard-core network in Tijuana of supporters mobilized by colonia leaders, merchant association heads and other political operatives.

For President Vicente Fox's National Action Party (PAN), the record of current Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon's government will be put to the scrutiny of the voters. Salvador Morales Riubi, the state leader of the PAN in Baja California , said the conservative party will ask voters to compare previous PAN administrations with PRI ones.

Members of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's For the Good of All Coalition said they will ask voters to give thumbs down to the performance of both the PRI and PAN parties, or the so-called "Prian," as the two organizations are sometimes derisively called. Lopez Obrador's partisans will emphasize the candidacy of their standard-bearer to benefit the campaigns of their other candidates. Besides the big three, two smaller parties also will field congressional candidates.

Martha Patricia Avalos Valenzuela, the state coordinator of prominent feminist Patricia Mercado's Social Democrat and Campesino Alternative party, said a lack of resources will demand creative and intense contact with the electorate. As of late last week, Roberto Campa's Social Alliance Party, which was formed from a split in the PRI, had not publicly announced their Tijuana and Baja California strategies.

In multi-party alliances that include smaller parties, the electoral coalitions are an unparalleled opportunity for the smaller organizations to inflate their influence by means of congressional candidacy concessions negotiated with the larger parties. Political scrambling in Mexico during the past weeks and months demonstrates that the high-stakes nature of the congressional races has not been lost on the various political actors. Power plays, positional bargaining, party switching, and top-down candidate impositions all have been features of behind-the-scenes dramas that could strengthen as well as weaken the prospects of the different parties/political coalitions and their respective presidential candidates.

As in Lopez Obrador's coalition, sometimes polemical candidate selection processes can provoke internal political discord, Dissension over the Chihuahua senatorial candidacy of longtime Priista and sudden Lopez Obrador convert Victor Anchondo, who served as government secretary during the controversial 1998-2004 administration of Chihuahua Governor Patricio Martinez, has threatened splits in Lopez Obrador's own center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution at a time when the party enjoys its best prospect ever of winning the presidency of the republic.

Sources: lapolaka.com, April 21, 2006 . Frontera, April 20, 2006 . Article by Luis Adolfo San and Fausto Ovalle.

Election Judges Order Migrant Voter Guide Revision

Responding to a challenge from a supporter of Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a federal electoral tribunal has ordered the revamping of a guide that will be sent to absentee voters living abroad. Horacio Duarte, a representative of Lopez Obrador's For the Good of All coalition on the Federal Electoral Commission (IFE), filed a complaint with the tribunal over allegedly negative publicity about Lopez Obrador that was included in an initial IFE voter guide prepared for absentee voters residing in the United States and other countries. Duarte 's complaint arose from a statement in the guide that accused Lopez Obrador of eliminating the jobs of 47,000 people when the candidate served as mayor of Mexico City .

After reviewing the complaint last week, the legal panel determined that the source of the statement was President Vicente Fox's conservative National Action Party (PAN). The judges said the accusation was “black propaganda” that violated principles of equity in the presidential campaign. Consequently, the IFE was ordered to strike the controversial statement from voters' guides that soon will be sent with mail-in ballots to absentee voters.

Although seemingly a minor bump in the electoral road, the controversy over the absentee voter guide is another example of how the Mexican presidential campaign is becoming more acrimonious. Launching their campaigns last January with a focus on their declared positive qualities and personal proposals, the major candidates lately have been lsucked into a whirlpool of negative campaigning, personal attack and scandal. Lopez Obrador's supporters, for instance, vigorously protested a PAN-sponsored television spot that compared the presidential hopeful with Venezuela 's President Hugo Chavez. The PAN ran the ad after Lopez Obrador publicly urged President Vicente Fox to “shut up” and refrain from allegedly campaigning on behalf of PAN candidate Felipe Calderon.

La Opinion ( Los Angeles ), April 13, 2006 . Article by Francisco Robles Nava.

Richardson Speaks Out on Immigration, NAFTA

As a high-profile border state governor with long-standing ties south of the border, New Mexico Democrat Bill Richardson carries weight in Washington D.C. , Mexico City and in state capitals on both sides of the border. Gov. Richardson's declaration of a state emergency along the New Mexico-Mexico border last year influenced similar measures in Arizona and elsewhere, helping fuel the immigration and border security debates taking center stage in recent weeks. Although he won't say yes or no, the talk of the town in Santa Fe and beyond is that Gov. Richardson will seek the 2008 presidential nomination for the Democratic Party.

In an April 3 interview with liberal Air America Radio host Al Franken, Gov. Richardson expanded on his views concerning immigration, guest workers, the Minutemen, and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Queried by Franken about his stance on the immigration issue, Gov. Richardson said he favored a multi-pronged approach that legalizes the status of undocumented workers, with a formula involving penalties, payment of back taxes and English-language instruction, while instituting a guest worker program.

The Democratic governor defined undocumented immigrants as generally "patriotic" people who root for the Dallas Cowboys (The governor said NFL team-deprived New Mexicans usually go with the Cowboys or Denver Broncos), work hard and send their children to school. On the Minutemen, Gov. Richardson called border watchers "dedicated individuals" who are frustrated at federal shortcomings in border security. However, he said the Minutemen create potential problems for professional law enforcement personnel because the civilians are untrained elements who could confront dangerous situations. "It's better that they don't do (border watches)," Gov. Richardson said.

New Mexico 's chief executive said he is receiving good cooperation from the Chihuahua state government on border security matters. He pointed to the Chihuahua government's willingness to undertake some actions in the town of Las Chepas , a place reputed to be a staging ground for migrant traffickers known as coyotes. "You know, the state of Chihuahua , the governor (Jose Reyes Baeza) and I get along very well," Gov. Richardson said. Minutemen deployments only complicate the relationship, he said, adding the Minutemen crop up in discussions with Chihuahua officials. Drug-smuggling, human trafficking, property destruction, and cattle-rustling are common complaints he hears from New Mexico border-area residents, Gov. Richardson said.

A long-time proponent of free trade, Richardson , as a Democratic congressman from New Mexico in 1991, campaigned for fast-track approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement during the administration of Republican President George Herbert Walker Bush. But in comments on the Al Franken show, Gov. Richardson was critical of aspects of the trade pact he earlier pushed.

Contending that the NAFTA was supposed to take care of the immigration-jobs issue, Gov. Richardson remarked that central Mexico has been the main beneficiary of the trade agreement. Emigration, he maintained, serves as a "safety valve" for Mexico , which should do more to create jobs internally with US assistance. The Mexicans, continued Gov. Richardson, are losing "a strong labor force" of young workers to the migrant stream. New Mexico 's governor said one of the problems with the NAFTA was that it didn't address the "worker parity" issue of vastly unequal wages between Mexico and the US .

In wrapping up the Air America interview, comedian and radio personality Franken thanked Gov. Richardson for spending extra time on the show. Franken said he knew the governor was busy with his 2006 gubernatorial re-election campaign, not 2008, when in Franken's estimation, Richardson is “going to run for president." "Thank you, Al," Gov. Richardson chuckled. "See, he confirmed it," Franken quipped, before moving on to the next commercial break.

Source: Air America Radio, April 3, 2006.

Border Cities to Get New Mayors

Residents of the twin border cities of San Luis , Arizona , and San Luis Rio Colorado , Sonora , will have new mayors and city councilors soon. In a primary election, voters on the US side went to the polls on Tuesday, March 14, to select one of four candidates who are vying for the seat of incumbent Mayor Nieves Garcia Riedel. Garcia's rivals include Delio Castillo, Juan Carlos Escamilla and David Lara. Ten candidates are also competing for 3 seats on the city council. Any candidate who gets more than 50 percent of the vote will be automatically seated on the city council. The others will compete in the general election scheduled for next May.

San Luis' primary election is the first time voters in Yuma County will be required to present photo or other proof of identification, because of the new law stemming from state Proposition 200 that is designed to prevent allegedly undocumented people from voting. Voters who show up at the polls without identification will be allowed to cast a provisional ballot, but then will be required to present proof of identification within three days. Official results of the March 14 election should be announced by Saturday, March 18.

Meanwhile, residents of neighboring San Luis Rio Colorado also will be getting a new mayor. Mayor Jose Ines Palafox Nunez is expected to request permission from the Sonora state Congress this week to leave office so he can run for the federal Congress on the ticket of the conservative PAN party of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon. A replacement for Palafox will be named by the city council, but it is unclear at the moment who will fill the post. Members of Palafox's party are divided between three possible replacements, leading PRI Councilman David Topete Hernandez to speculate that “we could have a mayor from the PRI or PRD” if the PAN doesn't agree on a new city leader.

Once the city council agrees on a new mayor, the state Congress is expected to give its stamp of official approval. Whoever is chosen as San Luis Rio Colorado 's new mayor could only have five months in office. In addition to the federal election, San Luis Rio Colorado and the state of Sonora will elect new city governments and a state Congress on July 2, 2006.

Sources: Yumasun.com, March 13, 2006. Article by Blake Schmidt. KSWT.com, March 14, 2006. Information from Laura Rillos. La Cronica (San Luis Rio Colorado ), March 14, 2006. Article by Juan Jose Razzo.

Candidates Retake the Northern Road

Big in territory but still relatively small in population, Mexico 's northern and border regions have become a strategic battleground in the 2006 elections. In a geographic zone where the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) can still count on a hard-core vote of about 25 percent of the electorate, a possible close race between presidential frontrunner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the center-left For the Good of All Coalition and the second leading candidate in the polls, Felipe Calderon of the center-right National Action Party (PAN), is giving the north extra importance.

For Lopez Obrador's supporters, the goal is to puncture the traditional bipartisan lock on politics the PRI and PAN have maintained for decades in northern Mexico . Founded in 1989, Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution has typically polled only about 5 or 6 percent of the votes in the states of Chihuahua , Nuevo Leon , Coahuila and Sinaloa. In 2006, the Lopez Obrador campaign is ambitiously shooting for 25 percent of the northern vote. Given the former Mexico City 's base of support in population-dense central and southern Mexico , a strong northern showing could push Lopez Obrador over the top on July 2.

"We haven't been in a situation like the one we are in right now," said Rafael Espino de la Pena, a representative of Lopez Obrador campaign in 8 northern and central states. "We have seen a lot of sympathy for the Alternative Project of the Nation, especially for the candidacy of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador... we have to translate this historical preference in votes for the left,"

In February, Lopez Obrador held large public rallies in Chihuahua City and Monterrey , Nuevo Leon , attracting thousands of supporters to each event. In the industrial city of Monterrey , the ability of the former Mexico City mayor to make some inroads among sectors usually not identified from the left was evident when he stood on the stage with Nora Garza Calderon, the sister of Javier Garza Calderon, one of Monterrey 's most prominent businessmen.

Despite Lopez Obrador's northern surge, representatives of the PAN view their real competition in the region as still coming from the PRI. In an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Jesus Avila and Francisco Ortiz, the press coordinators for the PAN and the Calderon campaign in Ciudad Juarez, said PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo, who's been struggling at the national level, remains strong in Chihuahua state due to support from Governor Jose Reyes Baeza and Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector Murguia Lardizabal. Ortiz said the PAN in Ciudad Juarez is banking on a combination of public discontent over Murguia's handling of controversies like the planned binational border city of San Jeronimo-Santa Teresa and Calderon's own message.

"(Murguia's administration) hasn't been the best and it could help Felipe Calderon," Ortiz said. " Ciudad Juarez traditionally has been an important PAN bastion, and Felipe has revived the traditional doctrine of the PAN."

In his campaign strategy, Calderon projects himself as the candidate of a new Mexico while he links Lopez Obrador with the old, "populist" policies of the Luis Echeverria era. Promising to continue President Fox's social programs and implement universal health insurance, Calderon vows to get tough on crime, "militarize" the police and make Mexico a top-notch world power. "His project is the project of the future," Ortiz said. "It puts Mexico at the forefront of world competition."

The youthful-looking Calderon is making a special pitch to Mexico 's young people, the potentially decisive voting bloc in this year's election. According to figures from the Federal Electoral Institute cited by Mario Sanchez Silva, the director of a research institute at Mexico City's National Polytechnic Institute, people aged 20-39 constitute 52.4 percent of the nominal voter list this year.

As February drew to a close, Calderon mounted a 3-day campaign swing through the Chihuahua cities of Parral, Delicias , Chihuahua City, and Ciudad Juarez . He drew thousands of supporters to rallies, spoke in a closed session with Ciudad Juarez businessmen and signed an alliance with civil society organizations. Speaking in Ciudad Juarez , Calderon vowed to arrest the killers of women in the border city, a remark that drew skepticism from Irma Monreal, the mother of 15-year-old Brenda Esmeralda Herrera, one of 8 victims found raped and murdered in a Ciudad Juarez cotton field in 2001. Many politicians have made the same statement but the killers of the women remain loose, Monreal noted.

Later, Calderon offered a moment of silence for the 65 miners recently killed in Coahila state.

Not lost on Roberto Madrazo either is the importance of the northern vote. In a bid to eliminate one of his numerous problems, Madrazo held a private meeting on February 26 with Sonora PRI Governor Eduardo Bours, who has been a high-profile opponent of Madrazo. In separate statements to the press after the meeting, both Bours and Madrazo indicated they would work together for the benefit of Madrazo's candidacy and the PRI. Bours urged Madrazo to move beyond the PRI's base and appeal to "those who are outside our party."

Following the meeting, Madrazo traveled to Sonora 's Yaqui Valley for a meeting with thousands of indigenous farmers. Evoking the memory of Sonora 's famous son and the PRI's assassinated 1994 presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, Madrazo addressed the issues of poverty, migration and Coahuila's miners. The PRI's standard bearer promised to increase the number of beneficiaries of the Liconsa milk program to two million people. Striking a note from Bours, Madrazo recognized the PRI must transcend its own base in 2006.

"We have a hardcore vote that the other parties don't have, but that isn't sufficient," Madrazo said. "We also have to go after the undecided vote, which can be obtained by means of proposals and not confrontations."

While Mexico 's presidential race will likely be won by one of the three major candidates, the two other smaller parties running candidates are also paying attention to the north and issues that affect the region. Appearing on February 25 in the northern Gulf Coast city of Tampico , Patricia Mercado of the Social Democratic and Farmers Alternative Party proposed that Mexico , Canada and the United States join together to promote economic development with migrant remittance funds. Mexico 's only female presidential candidate said a state program in Zacatecas that invests remittances in productive projects is an example of an economic development strategy that should be expanded.

Additional sources: La Jornada, February 19 and 27, 2006. Articles by Georgina Saldierna and editorial staff. Norte de Ciudad Juarez , February 25, 26 and 27, 2006. Articles by Margarita Hernandez, Ignacio Alvarado Alvarez, Angel Zubia Garcia, Bernardo Garcia Medina, and the Sun news agency. El Universal, February 27, 2006.

Group Demands Migrant Political Stands

A binational US-Mexico organization of migrants is calling on Mexico 's three principal presidential candidates to take strong stands on issues that affect expatriates. In a statement, the Coalition for the Political Rights of Mexicans in the Exterior (CDPME) contended that migrant support will be crucial in this year's election scheduled for July 2.

"The candidate that makes the best political proposal about migration, and who makes it in a serious way with knowledge about what he says, will be the one who becomes president of the republic," predicted the group. The pro-migrant organization appealed to the candidates to not discount the small number of Mexicans eligible to cast absentee ballots in the upcoming election. According to Mexico 's Federal Electoral Institute, about 56,000 Mexicans who live abroad, mostly in the United States , registered to vote before the deadline expired last month.

In an earlier count that was widely criticized for its miniscule figure, the IFE reported about 25,000 absentee voters were registered, but the federal agency revised the number upward this month based on what it said was a more complete tally . The absentee voter list represents about 1 percent of the 4.2 million Mexican nationals originally deemed as eligible absentee voters.

Noting that Mexicans who live in the US tend to have extensive social and family networks back home, the CDPME contends that each migrant could potentially influence between 50 and 250 votes in Mexico . Expatriates' political influence will be especially important in migrant-expelling states including Guanajuato, Jalisco, Zacatecas, Michoacan and others, according to the group. Criticizing the "hypocrisy" of Mexico 's official migrant policy, the CDPME said it seeks a "coherent policy of the Mexican government and the next president."

Sources: La Jornada, February 18 and 19, 2006. Articles by Gabriel Leon Zaragoza and Tania Molina Ramirez