Adios Juanito

Juanito's campaign office and home in Iztapalapa

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard finally snookered Rafael Acosta, the vendor-turned-politician better known as "Juanito," by forcing his departure from the borough chief's office in the capital's most populous borough, Iztapalapa.

His unceremonious departure ends a colourful political run for the headband-wearing antihero, whose ascent to the top job in one of the country's most populous jurisdictions was both improbable and unseemly.

The mayor proposed that Clara Brugada - the Andrés Manuel López Obrador loyalist that the electoral tribunal disqualified from the July 5 borough chief election - take over in Iztapalapa. Brugada had governed in Iztapalapa for 59 days until Juanito ended a leave of absence in late November. He later fired her as judicial director after taking his office. (Taking a leave of absence fulfilled a promise he made during the election campaign, when he lent his candidacy for the Labor Party (PT) to Brugada.)

Media reports say that Juanito met with Ebrard earlier in the week, when he was presented with evidence showing that he had supposedly registered for the election with a false birth certificate. Juanito apparently used that false birth certificate - unwittingly or not - to obtain an IFE voting credential and CURP identification. How the mayor and Clara Brugada obtained the documents is still unknown, although officials in the capital were quick to also produce evidence that one of Juanito's closest collaborators failed to declare her full net worth while she held a position in the PAN-run borough government of Miguel Hidalgo.

Juanito apparently quit upon learning that he potentially faced up to eight years in prison - double for being a public servant - for the local and federal crimes of using false documents.

He told Radio Formula on Dec. 11 that the PT handled his documents for registering as a candidate in the July 5 election. But Juanito denied that the prospect of prison motivated his departure - and suggested that the PT lost his original document. Instead, he said, he left because of "the problems that were taking place every day in Iztapalapa.

"When I was a candidate, I wanted peace and quiet and if I wasn't personally well received, I prefer to step aside so that for someone other than Clara Brugada."

Brugada's supporters had surrounded the Iztapalapa borough offices and had hindered access to the building at times last week.

Ebrard has proposed that Brugada take over again in Iztapalapa. The Mexico City Assembly still must approve his proposal, but the PRD is divided over her return. The factions loyal to López Obrador and the PT only have 32 of the necessary 34 votes, according to the Reforma newspaper. The PAN, PRI and Green Party all want nothing to do with Brugada.

Seven members from the PRD's New Left faction hold the balance of power, but it's uncertain if they would back Brugada. Iztapalapa, of course, had been the main power base of the New Left and its Mexico City lieutenant, Sen. René Arce.

Ironically, Arce's ex-wife, Silvia Oliva, was defeated by Brugada in the PRD primary. Later, the electoral tribunal overturned Brugada's primary victory and named Oliva the candidate. López Obrador and Brugada extracted their revenge, however. They co-opted Juanito's campaign and ousted the Arce clan from the Iztapalapa borough government. Why the New Left members would now do any favors for Brugada is uncertain - especially with Arce on the brink of leaving the PRD.

Juanito takes over

"You're fired!" Rafael Acosta - aka, "Juanito" - said that in so many words to his stand-in, Clara Brugada, after he took over the Iztapalapa borough offices last week.

Juanito, of course, is the elected borough chief of Iztapalapa, who ended a leave of absence that he took after taking his oath of office Oct. 1. Brugada, meanwhile, was the judicial director of Iztapalapa and, for 59 days, the acting borough chief. She was borough chief until Juanito took back his office. He subsequently fired Brugada from her judicial director post and relieved many of her closest collaborators in the Iztapalapa government, too.

The return of Juanito to his elected post - a move that broke a non-binding promise made in public June 16 to step aside for Brugada if he won the July 5 election - has revived an ongoing political soap opera over control of the capital's most populous borough. It also deepened divisions in the country's political left and exposed some of the more unseemly staples of Mexican political culture.

Juanito - to recap - was registered as the PT candidate in Iztapalapa, while Brugada was registered as the PRD candidate. The electoral tribunal disqualified Brugada in June, but López Obrador - who is staunchly backed by the PT - co-opted the Juanito campaign, and had Juanito swear an oath that he would take leave after winning the election in favor of Brugada.

Juanito won, but had second thoughts and ultimately turned on López Obrador.

He acknowledged his sly acts at a press conference last week, saying that he "pulled a coup" on the "López Obrador mafia," and that the Brudada camp would accuse him of just about anything to win his ouster.

"Juanito is accused of everything," he told reporters. "If Clara Brugada gets pregnant, they're going to say it was Juanito."

NOT GOING QUIETLY

For her part Brugada refuses to go quietly. Her supporters - many culled from the so-called "frentes" that agitate for housing and run political machines in run-down areas of Iztapalapa - have occupied the esplanade outside the Iztapalapa borough offices since Juanito's return and have blocked access to the building on at least once. They even prevented Juanito from lighting the borough's Christmas tree on Dec. 4 - or so Juanito said after canceling the event.

Flanked by the Frente Popular Francisco Villa - the same frente linked to the pirate taxi business in Mexico City - Brugado marched Dec. 1 from the Zócalo to the Mexico City Assembly (ALDF). Arms locked, her followers chanted slogans to the effect of, "Juanito go to hell," and waved acerbic placards that demanded Juanito's ouster.

Brugada and her allies branded Juanito, "Crazy" - something they failed to fully recognize when they struck a deal with him to take office and then take leave.

Chamber of Deputies rabble rouser Gerardo Fernández Noroña branded Juanito, "A presta nombre," or someone that lends their name or license to another person to circumvent the law. (In fact, Juanito was a "presta nombre" for López Obrador, but withdrew his consent.)

PRD Assembly spokesman, Alejandro Sánchez, went so far as to say Juanito should be ousted because he was not "morally apt" to hold office. His comments drew a sarcastic response from La Razón columnist Adrián Rueda, who pointed to Sanchez's standing within the PRD's IDN faction - the same faction founded by ace organizer Rene Bejarano. Bejarano, of course, was caught on tape in 2003 stuffing wads of cash from a developer into a suitcase. (Bejarano was exonerated on all charges stemming from the incident.)

ANOTHER DESAFUERO?

Brugada loyalists in the ALDF have filed a motion that would remove Juanito from his post due to "ungovernability" in the borough. The measure needs two-thirds support to pass in the ALDF.

The motion seemed improbable, considering that its backers decried similar attempts in 2005 to strip then-mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador of his immunity from prosecution - a process known as the desafuero - and prevent him from running in the 2006 presidential election.

An ALDF committee is studying the removal of Juanito and is expected to report back by the end of December. Juanito's critics allege that his entering the borough office through a back door - and thus not having a proper transfer of power ceremony - bringing a locksmith to gain entry to the borough chief's office and not presenting a report on the state of the installations that he took over are serious enough transgressions to support his ouster.

They also accused the PAN of being behind Juanito. The man that launched Juanito's improbable run to the borough office, López Obrador, meanwhile, blamed a familiar whipping boy: former president Carlos Salinas. He blamed his latest target, State of Mexico Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto, too.

During a radio interview with Joaquín López Dóriga, López Obrador denied allegations that he coveted Iztapalapa because of its more than three-billion-peso budget, saying that he only cared about the "wellbeing" of residents in the capital's most downtrodden borough.

Juanito has accused López Obrador of wanting to use Iztapalapa's budget as his "piggy bank" to finance another presidential run in 2012.

The PAN, meanwhile, has denied being behind Juanito, but his ascent has stirred some discomfort for the No. 2 party in Mexico City - one that generally performs well in the wealthier parts of the capital and does poorly in places such as Iztapalapa.

Juanito appointed Alejandra Nuñez, a former head of markets in the borough of Miguel Hidalgo under then borough chief Gabriel Cuevas - who is now president of the Federal District committee in the Chamber of Deputies - to Brugada's old job. But Nuñez ran into controversy almost immediately as it was revealed that she never fully disclosed her full net worth during her time in the Miguel Hidalgo post.

Mexico City comptroller almost immediately found Nuñez unfit for her position - an act of "unusual efficiency" for the comptroller, according to Rueda.

Cuevas and other Panistas seemed to waver on the issue, saying that that Juanito couldn't ensure governability in the borough.

The PAN also appeared to come out in favor a position outlined by the PRI - which has eight members in the 66-seat ALDF - that said it would back neither Juanito or Brugada and would prefer a third option.

That might just come to pass as analysts say that the Brugada supporters in the ALDF lack sufficient support to depose Juanito. One report in the El Universal political gossip column, Bajo Reserva, suggested that some in the PRD viewed Brugada a poor political operator; she lost her grip on the borough to Juanito - a former vendor, actor and waiter.

Juanito picked up one improbably endorsement, however. The business group Coparmex-DF said Juanito should govern since he won the election - even though it's highly doubtful its members would have trusted Juanito to so much as wash their cars prior to his turning against López Obrador, whom business groups savaged with attacks in the 2006 election campaign and branded a danger for Mexico.

Juanito: The rest of the story

Ice cream-vend0r-turned-Iztapalapa-borough-chief-for-five-minutes Rafael Acosta - better known as "Juanito" - at the PRD 19th anniversary celebrations on May 5, 2008 in Mexico City's Col. Juárez.

Rafael Acosta, better known as "Juanito," took the oath of office as borough chief for Iztapalapa on Oct. 1. He then promptly asked for a leave of absence.

His departure ends one of the biggest political melodramas in recent memory - one that vaulted him into stardom as a sort of antihero: a headband-wearing, ice cream-vending, system-fighting, junior-high-school-educated, man-from-the-barrio, who gained widespread affection by defying the mandates of the country's so-called legitimate president and risking the wrath of a shadowy political machine that made it unsafe for him to hold public office.

Juanito showed that defiance one last time on Oct. 1, when he yelled during the swearing in ceremony, "Death to the PT for betrayal" - a jab at the left-wing party that he ran for in the July 5 election, and later pushed him aside as part of its job of doing the legitimate president's political bidding.

By taking leave, Juanito fulfilled a non-binding promise to cede control of perhaps the county's most populated local-level jurisdiction - and 3.5-billion-peso budget - to Clara Brugada, a former federal deputy and die-hard loyalist of former presidential candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador, the man who masquerades as the Mexico's, "legitimate president" and leads an alternative government.

Juanito's decision to step aside has been interpreted by many observers as an AMLO victory - one that will propel him toward another presidential candidacy in 2012, and weaken his internal rivals in the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), whose political heartland had been Iztapalapa.

But it also highlighted the dark - and some might say, "Undemocratic" - side of AMLO, whose confederates resorted to threats of mob rule and violence and made promises to block Juanito's access to take his oath of office. Some lawmakers even devised legal tricks in the D.F. Assembly that would by hook or by crook oust Juanito from the borough office.

AMLO attack dog Valentina Batres of the PRD summed it up best by caustically warning Juanito, "It's best not to come."

(These are same people that decried the 2005 "desafuero" that would have denied AMLO a spot on the 2006 ballot, but four years later proposed pulling the same underhanded tricks on Juanito.)

Juanito basically acknowledged that fear factored into his decision to step aside. He told reporters after making his decision, "I was going to see deaths. I was going to see violence."

IMPORTANT BOROUGH
The vitriol and threats underscore the importance of Iztapalapa to Lopez Obrador - whose alternative government has been reportedly short of cash - and pretty much the entire PRD, the dominant party in the capital. Such drama probably never would had played out in another borough such as neighboring Iztacalco, for example.

Iztapalapa unfolds across the eastern part of the Federal District and long has attracted poor migrants from outlying states that come to the capital in search of better economic opportunities. It lacks many things: good water service, drainage and adequate housing, to name but three. The population now numbers roughly two million, 25 percent of all people in the Federal District.

It also had been the power base of the New Left, a PRD faction that departs from AMLO's admonishments to eschew all dealings with the federal government - a government AMLO calls "spurious" and refuses to recognize. The New Left won the disputed 2008 PRD election over AMLO's preferred candidate, Alejandro Encinas, in a race that was eventually settled by the electoral tribunal (Trife).

The New Left had governed Iztapalapa since the first borough election in 2000, when René Arce - now a PRD senator - won control. His brother, former DF Assembly speaker Victor Hugo Cirigo, would follow. For the 2009 election, Arce's wife, Sivila Oliva, was the New Left candidate for the PRD nomination. (Some voters interviewed after voting on July 5 cited "nepotism" and fatigue with the Arce clan for voting against the PRD.)

But D.F. ace organizer Rene Bejarano - the same guy caught on film accepting briefcase full of money from a developer earlier this decade - moved in and swayed it favor of Brugada, who captured the PRD nomination for borough chief. (Bejarano reputedly holds sway over PRD politics in most of the 15 other boroughs.) AMLO had seemingly bested his PRD rivials.

The New Left appealed the primary vote outcome to the Trife, which annulled results from some of the polling stations, giving the nomination to Oliva.

The ruling outraged AMLO, who - once again - branded the Trife a "political mafia" and began campaigning heavily in the borough. But he lacked a registered candidate. Even worse, the Trife ruling allowed no time for registering Brugada as a candidate for another party.

ENTER "JUANITO"
Rafael Acosta had a spot on the ballot as the PT candidate, however. Brugada supporters belittle Juanito as a "Nobody" when asked about him, but he was a familiar fixture at AMLO rallies. He would stand out with his trademark headband - complete with "Juanito" written on it in a felt pen - and placards with acerbic comments.

Juanito seemed like a die hard AMLO loyalist - one that would comply with any order from the "legitimate president." In a brief interview on May 5, 2008, he gave me business card that read: "Luchador Social" (social activist). In fact, he was a jack of all trades: waiter, vendor and B-movie actor, among other things.

He was also immensely political, according to Francisco Sánchez, a vendor selling freshly fried potato chips and bananas from the back of 1970 Chevy Malibu parked kitty-corner to Juanito's home-campaign office in the Pueblo Santa Marta Acatitla neighborhood. Juanito showed his political convictions and AMLO loyalty by resigning from the PRD after the disputed internal elections. He subsequently joined the PT and won its borough chief nomination for a race that is normally a lost cause in heavily PRD Iztapalapa.

PLUCKED FROM OBSCURITY
The Juanito campaign received little acclaim until AMLO plucked him from obscurity on June 16. In an act of quasi-legitimacy, he made Juanito swear an oath that he would resign in favor of Brudaga after winning office.

AMLO later toured each of Iztapalapa's colonias with Brugada - and often Juanito. Signs went up with AMLO and Brugadas photos that implied Brugada was the PT candidate, even though Juanito's name was on the ballot. The intense campaigning ironically forced AMLO to break his own word as he had promised to only promote PRD candidates in the Federal District. (He always intended to back PT candidates in other parts of the country, spare Tabasco, his home state.)

Juanito won on July 5, along with other candidates for Congress and the Mexico City Assembly that AMLO had been promoting.

SECOND THOUGHTS
Then, almost immediately after winning, Juanito had second thoughts. The borough chief job pays roughly 90,000 pesos per month, involves running the biggest borough in the Federal District - one with more people than municipalities such as Monterrey and Guadalajara - and offers loads of presitige.

As Juanito had second thoughts, his celebrity grew. His pronouncements generated immense media attention - much of it from outlets that AMLO disdains and accuses of bias - even if his style of speaking in the third-person and obvious lack of refinement and knowledge were embarrassing.

And, while AMLO had a dark cloud over his head - often railing against electoral fraud and the skulduggery of former president Carlos Salinas - Juanito, with his impish grin and trademark headband has a sunny disposition and simple manner that won hearts across the country, especially in the working classes and among AMLO's enemies.

Juanito even took jabs at AMLO - which generated even more media attention. He said that he was more popular than the former mayor and that he could have won Iztapalapa on his own. He also confessed to feeling used and disrespected by the Lopez Obrador.

A shopping trip to the Hugo Boss store in upscale Polanco made big news. Even trivialities were gobbled up, including an El Universal interview that revealed his immense liking of Rambo movies, obsession with the Cruz Azul soccer team and his fondness for eating "shrimp with lots of catsup."

Juanito's name even became part of the political vocabulary as media outlets branded the female federal deputies (mostly from the Green Party) that took leave in order to have male colleagues take their places - and mock gender equity rules - "Juanitas." (Juanita referring to someone elected that was never supposed to hold office.)

Some analysts began looking at the bigger of what Juanito represented. Diego Petersen Farah, editor of the Guadalajara newspaper Público called Juanito, "Our mirror," someone whose rise to prominence was essentially an attempt by AMLO to "make fun of the law" - a not infrequent thing in Mexico.

But as his celebrity grew, so did the threats. AMLO loyalists such as Assembly members Alejandro Sánchez Camacho and Aleida Alavez - who obsesses over the allegedly heavy hand of State of Mexico Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto - threatened to block access to the swearing in ceremony.

"Frentes," groups that supposedly agitate for housing, but mobilize votes in marginalized parts of Iztapalapa - read: much of the borough - began making not-so-subtle threats that Juanito better keep his word. Death threats were uttered and signs at a Brugada rally on Sept. 26 spoke of "killing" Juanito.

At a Sept. 26 rally near the Iztapalapa borough office, Brugada spoke of "non-violence" and "democracy," while members of the Frentes began screaming, "Juanito a la chingada." The murky Frente Popular Francisco Villa even began a protest camp and marched to the Zocalo. (The "Pancho Villas" have gained notoriety for its involvement in the pirate taxi business that reputedly funnels money into the local PRD and holding "political workshops" for its drivers that were instructed by the FARC.)

Juanito took refuge in a hotel shortly after winning the July 5 election. He even announced plans to live in the borough office and asked the Federal District government for additional security.

As a combatant, he seemed to give as good as he took - especially in dealing with pronouncements from a scorned López Obrador, whose hyperbole included words to the effect of: There's not enough water in the sea to wash away fraud stains.

Juanito would refer to Brugada as "spurious," the same word AMLO disparages President Felipe Calderón with. He would later say, "The people give orders," vintage AMLO language used to justify controversial acts and protests that have shut down parts of Mexico City.

Up until Sept. 27, when he was photographed at a bodybuilding competition," Juanito gave no hint of his stepping aside. He even had sat down with local National Action Party (PAN) president Mariana Gómez del Campo by that point and appeared ready to make deals with the New Left - the faction AMLO wanted out of Iztapalapa.

INTERVENTION
With Juanito set to take office, Mayor Marcelo Ebrard intervened. Details are uncertain, but after a Sept. 28 meeting with the mayor, Juanito said that he would step aside for Brugada due for health reasons. He apparently suffers from heart problems.

Adrián Rueda, local politics columnist with La Razón, said that Juanito would receive cash and the right to fill two borough secretary positions and name three local territory bosses.

Juanito supporters reacted with disgust and disappointment in comments on a Facebook page for the borough chief-elect. Vendor Francisco Sánchez said many in Pueblo Santa Marta felt the same way.

"People here feel really let down," he said.

Brugada supporters responded with an Oct. 1 rally at the borough office. Juanito was nowhere to be found. La Razón reported that he would be off to Europe and that Juanito might never again live in Iztapalapa.

Most commentators opined that AMLO emerged victorious in the whole affair, while others said that Ebrard showed deft political skill - not to mention strength.

UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Brugada inherits a borough rife with problems - and the droughts expected to hit Mexico City next spring are expected to hit Iztapalapa the hardest. Some residents expressed little confidence in either Juanito or Brugada to fix things. They include cab driver Jesús Barrera, who figured both were more interested in appropriating the budget than actually serving the people.

"No government has done anything for Iztapalapa," he said, while driving down a rutted road.

"This road (we're driving on) is proof."