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."

Ebrard says he'll work with Calderón on flu

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said Tuesday that he would continue working with President Felipe Calderón during the flu outbreak, but cautioned that future cooperation with an administration he considers to have been illegitimately elected would be limited.

On Monday, the left-wing mayor stepped into Los Pinos for the first time since he and Calderón both took office in December 2006, attending a meeting on the flu with the president and the nation's 31 governors. Unlike his counterparts, Ebrard wore a face mask and gloves.

Ebrard - who has faced criticism for putting partisan interests and loyalties to Andrés Manuel López Obrador ahead of the needs of the capital, among other things - defended his trip to Los Pinos.

"What I'm doing is being responsible with respect to my role as head of the Mexico City government," Ebrard told El Universal. "It's clear that in many areas we [already] have been seeking relationships [with Los Pinos]."

Most pundits welcomed the thawing of relations, however. El Universal columnist Ricardo Alemán simply suggested such a diplomatic move should have come sooner. "The Mexico City mayor acted as he should have acted since the beginning of his government: as a statesman," he wrote on Tuesday.

Ebrard previously appeared at a security summit last summer with the president and governors. However, he has largely skipped any joint appearances with President Calderón.

Ebrard has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate for 2012, but has downplayed those suggestions. His most probable rival for the PRD nomination, López Obrador, told W Radio on Tuesday that "whoever is in the best position" would be the candidate. López Obrador used the radio interview to criticize Calderón for lacking a flu outbreak strategy and "arousing fear."

López Obrador also announced plans to campaign for his preferred candidates this week in Tabasco and Chiapas. Spokesman César Yañez said the events would be low-key - and not involve large crowds, as per Health Secretariat recommendations.

Flu makes normally bustling Mexico City fall quiet

By David Agren, For Canwest News Service

MEXICO CITY — With nothing more than his bare hands, trash collector Felipe Reyes sifts through household waste in the back of a garbage truck, including kitchen scraps and soiled toilet paper, six days a week. He searches for valuables and recyclables, such as cans and bottles, that can be resold. And he hardly ever falls ill, Reyes boasts. But he recently started wearing a mask to avoid catching swine flu, which he considers far more dangerous than anything lurking in the tons of trash his truck hauls off to an overflowing landfill run by the mafia.

“We have more defences against what’s in here than the flu,” he said after removing his mask to puff on a Marlboro cigarette.

“The flu,” he added, “rather scares me.”

Reyes is hardly the only one taking extra precautions in this city of more than 20 million inhabitants, where the flu outbreak has forced authorities to cancel classes, limit restaurants to offering just takeout service, and urge all non-essential businesses to stay closed until May 6. Authorities also called on residents to stay home and forgo decamping the city for traditional Labour Day (or May Day) weekend getaways to Acapulco.

Residents have largely complied, although some in the Mexican capital have taken advantage of the tranquillity and unusually clear skies to ride bicycles, rollerblade, and jog down streets normally clogged by inattentive drivers.

Many prominent institutions and organizations have also complied with orders to avoid convening large public gatherings. Some unions called off their May 1 marches, political parties suspended campaign inaugurations for the summer midterm elections, and the Archdiocese of Mexico City cancelled Sunday Mass across the region. Even cabbies in their ubiquitous Volkswagen taxis were seen wearing masks and latex gloves.

The high rate of compliance with the suggestions from government officials failed to surprise pollster Dan Lund of the Mund Group in Mexico City, who studies Mexican social values.

“This isn’t people obeying the government. It’s that they’re afraid, and what’s being suggested to them makes sense,” he said.

Still, some signs of normalcy were visible. The subway is operating on schedule, grocery and department stores are brimming with merchandise — except for some shortages of masks and hand sanitizer — and garbage is being collected, even on Sundays.

The usual stream of bad news so prevalent before the outbreak also has kept flowing. Prisoners rioted in a Mexico City holding facility, supposedly over a disputed soccer game, punks clashed with cops in the annual May 1 demonstrations, and renegade sections of the teachers’ union protested pension changes and an education reform package that would strip them of the right to sell or bequeath their jobs upon retiring.

Congress also ended its regular legislative period on April 30 by convening sessions marked by lawmakers wearing masks, while voting and staging photo-ops that involved eating pork tacos to prove pork consumption was safe.

“The reputation of politicians is terrible, and now with us being masked, it’s going to get even worse,” quipped lawmaker Gerardo Priego of the governing National Action Party.

On a more serious note, the lawmaker called for authorities to use the outbreak as an opportunity to “decongest” the capital by moving parts of the federal government out of disaster-prone Mexico City, which so dominates national life, trips there are necessary to carry out routine bureaucratic procedures.

But disasters are nothing new for Mexico City, which has been flooded, hit by pandemics, and rocked by earthquakes since its founding in 1325 on a series of lakes in a high-altitude valley.

And the current flu outbreak comes as the country suffers through a wave of violence that has claimed more than 10,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon declared war on narcotics-trafficking cartels in December 2006. The economy has also slumped in recent months, causing the peso to tumble and prices for staples such as food and fuel to soar.

Still, many residents seemed to take the latest outbreak in stride.

“We’re a society that’s used to catastrophes,” said pharmaceutical company employee America Vega, while jogging through a popular tree nursery in the Coyoacan borough.

Others refused to believe the severity of the outbreak, including soft drink and cigarette vendor Maria Bautista Flores, who compared the current panic to the mythical “chupacabras” that terrorized rural Mexico in the mid-1990s through tales of an alien creature snatching goats and sheep.

Cab driver Carlos Gallegos also doubted the severity of the outbreak, saying he only put on a mask to “inspire confidence” in his passengers.

But in Catholic parishes of Mexico City, attendance has dropped by 60 per cent, said the local archdiocese. Church officials also asked the faithful to pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the country’s patroness, for intervention. Followers of the Santa Muerte, or Saint Death — a skeletal figure popular in crime-ridden barrios and among those involved in activities such as piracy and kidnapping — also pleaded for intervention and appeared to be complying with government orders to avoid large gatherings.

Alberto Jimenez, who hawks Santa Muerte paraphernalia in a market famed for witchcraft and miracle herbal cures with dubious claims — a 10-herb blend for halting the flu was selling well, according to vendors — said that interest was higher than ever in the death saint, but was still failing to revive his struggling business.

“People have a lot of faith, but they don’t have very much money,” he said.

A lack of money, along with the forced closure of bars and halls used for weddings, has also dented the mariachi business, according to Ney Godinez, who plays a fat base guitar known as the guitarron in a seven-member band.

“This is a pay day and a long weekend. We should be busy,” he said while standing idly in the Plaza Garibaldi, a hub for cantinas-goers and mariachis looking for a gig.

Other destination districts normally bustling with bar and restaurant activity, such as Colonia Condesa, also fell quiet.

A few businesses reported normal sales, however. Convenience-store employees reported normal customer volumes and some larger-than-normal purchases of non-perishable items and bottled water.

Canadian expat entrepreneur Jody Rosen-Spearing, whose Guadalajara-area business sends Mexicans to Canada for education programs, reported having one of his busiest weeks of the year — in spite of the flu outbreak.

“People seem to have confidence that this (outbreak) will end soon,” he said.

Even Felipe Reyes, the trash collector, saw no real effect on his line of work, which involves selling the recyclables and valuables pulled from the garbage.

“The garbage never stops coming,” he said.

The next step in the López Obrador show

By DAVID AGREN
The News

Two years ago, an estimated 300,000 of Andres Manuel López Obrador's supporters packed the Zócalo in Mexico City to witness the anointing of the nation's "legitimate president." A year on, about 100,000 gathered there for his first "Informe" - his version of the president's state of the nation address.

This Thursday, López Obrador will once again rally the masses for an address. But he's not calling it an Informe - analysts say that's a reflection of the public having moved past the contentious 2006 election - and he won't be speaking inside the Zócalo, instead opting for a space nearby. Few expect turnout to be in the hundreds of thousands.

More than two years after the controversial 2006 election, López Obrador is soldiering on with his staunch opposition to the Calderón administration. And many of his loyalists - and some analysts - still see López Obrador as the nation's only true opposition leader and the most important figure in the Mexican left.

But Nov. 20, the anniversary of his "legitimate government" arrives on the heels of several setbacks for López Obrador. The energy reform package he tirelessly crusaded against was approved in Congress, and this past week, the Federal Electoral Tribunal, or Trife, quashed the aspirations of his preferred candidate for the leadership of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.

Now, instead of trying to establish himself as a political force, the "legitimate president" is simply seeking to stay relevant in the public policy discourse, as well as capitalize on new crises like the deteriorating economic situation. Some see his trajectory as beyond his control, given how difficult it will be to set his own agenda in the face of an economic downturn, among other powerful forces.

"His future doesn't depend on him at this stage of the game," said ITAM political scientist Federico Estevez.

STAYING IN THE GAME

López Obrador has struggled to find relevance since assuming the "legitimate president" mantle.

Two years ago, he outlined a 20-point plan for rescuing the country. He borrowed heavily from the populist proposals of his presidential campaign, and later set out on a tour of the nation's municipalities to spread the message and denounce supposed electoral fraud.

His movement failed to gain much traction in the first year, as few media outlets followed him off the beaten path. In the meantime, Calderón achieved several major legislative victories.

In his Informe last year, López Obrador delivered a 2008 forecast of economic hardships brought about by rising prices and stagnant incomes. But his message was overshadowed by the actions of a small band of renegades who stormed the Metropolitan Cathedral to protest the usual ringing of the church's bells.

Events beyond López Obrador's control would continue to haunt him through much of 2008, although his tactics, at times, appeared to be inspired. The legitimate president suspended his nationwide tour to oppose energy reform proposals that would have allowed for greater private-sector participation in the government-run petroleum sector. He organized brigades of protesters, and loyal lawmakers shut down Congress for 16 days to prevent debate after Calderón presented his proposals. The buzz surrounding a July referendum on energy reform, sponsored by PRD factions loyal to López Obrador, even supplanted discussion of the actual proposals.

But then the agenda shifted abruptly to public security.

López Obrador was left protesting an issue that much of the public had stopped caring about. And instead of proposing solid solutions for security, he clumsily tried linking the end of energy reform to the maintaining of law and order.

"We all want our children and grandchildren [to be able to] walk the streets free of fear," he told a crowd in the state of Guanajuato on Aug. 17. "Therefore, I propose the following: The first thing we have to do is avoid the privatization, open or disguised, of the national petroleum industry."

On the evening of Sept. 15, he spelled out a 10-point plan for saving the country from deteriorating economic conditions and public security woes. Barely an hour later, two grenades tore through Independence Day festivities in Morelia, distracting attention from his message.

By the time Congress actually voted on the energy reform proposals - which some PRD senators were instrumental in crafting - López Obrador's opposition and brigades of protesters storming the barricades had become mere sideshows.

BREAKING UP THE PARTY

Analysts, as well as some in the PRD, say López Obrador ironically helped shape much of the final energy package, but that his intransigence and unwillingness to compromise ultimately hurt his own party.

"The only thing that he has achieved is to give more power to the [Institutional Revolutionary Party] and minimize the PRD's political weight," said pollster Jorge Buendía, of the firm Buendía y Laredo.

"The level of rejection toward the PRD is of such a magnitude that those looking to cast a protest vote no longer see the PRD as an attractive option. They're going to the PRI."

The energy reform issue highlighted López Obrador's uneasy coexistence with the PRD.

Now, the electoral tribunal ruling has allowed López Obrador's opponents to seize control of the party. Its overturning of the annulled PRD elections - which were primarily fought over López Obrador's strategy of avoiding all dealings with the federal government - has been regarded as a major blow to his party status.

The PRD's National Executive Committee also recently took measures to distance itself from the pro-López Obrador coalition known as the FAP by cutting off funding for the coalition.

His electoral allies in the Convergence party and Labor Party - part of the FAP - have remained unwavering in their support. "He's the most important voice of protest in this country," Convergence party Deputy Jose Manuel del Río Virgen told The News. "He still has strength."

But public opinion - in the past, the main source of López Obrador's strength - is proving problematic. A September poll by Ulises Beltrán y Asociados found that 50 percent of respondents hold a negative opinion of López Obrador.

This Thursday, turnout will be yet another gauge of the "legitimate" president's legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

ECONOMIC SALVATION
After a year filled with protests on energy and the continuation of cries of fraud, López Obrador recently changed his discourse to economic topics, including rising prices for food and fuel, stagnant incomes and a lack of support for the countryside. While touring Michoacán last weekend, he blamed the country's economic woes on "Calderón's ineptitude."

And analysts are at odds over whether he can regain ground by focusing on such matters.

Some, like Aldo Muñoz at the Universidad Iberoamericana, say the shift from the fraud issue is a smart one. As it disappears from the public consciousness - "[people] care more about the present situation than they do 2006," Muñoz said - focusing on the present crises is more important for López Obrador.

The ITAM's Estevez said the issue actually favors the former presidential candidate, who has long been waiting for the Calderón government to stumble badly, or encounter a crisis.

"He was betting that the Mexican economy would sink, and now it turns out that it may sink because of the world," Estevez said.

"It's no longer an untenable strategic position."

Mouriño dies in crash

Mouriño dies in crash

by DAVID AGREN
The News

The nation's highest-ranking Cabinet official died Tuesday evening when his government-owned jet plunged into a narrow street lined with office buildings in the capital's upscale Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood.

Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño, a trusted adviser of President Felipe Calderón and the country's top public security official, died in a crash that claimed the life of José Santiago Vasconcelos, the former lead federal prosecutor for organized crime.

"Mexico lost a great Mexican, intelligent, loyal, committed to his ideals, honest and hard-working," President Felipe Calderón said in televised remarks Tuesday night.

The president tapped his former chief of staff to be interior secretary earlier this year in an effort to smooth relations with Congress for the introduction of a politically sensitive energy reform package. But the Spanish-born Mouriño, 37, immediately became polemic as contracts surfaced suggesting that he had steered Pemex business to family businesses while serving in previous public positions. He was most recently mentioned as a possible gubernatorial candidate in his home state of Campeche.

Mouriño and Vasconcelos were returning from public security meetings in the state of San Luis Potosí, but their plane crashed for reasons that are still unclear to investigators.

The crash killed all nine passengers and crew members and at least three more on the ground, according to Carlos Huber, spokesman for the civil protection agency in the borough of Miguel Hidalgo. At least 40 people were injured, seven of them seriously.

Photos taken by Huber shortly after the crash showed at least three weapons belonging to passengers on the plane littering the scene.

He told The News that at least 20 vehicles were torched and one of the victims was found sitting in a car.

Huber said that the Learjet 45 appeared to have been traveling in a northward direction - the opposite direction for aircraft arriving in Mexico City from San Luis Potosí and contrary to the normal flight path to the capital's international airport.

Senate votes for reform

AMLO addresses followers at November 2007 rally.


Senate votes for reform

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

The Senate approved an energy reform package Thursday, six months after President Felipe Calderón unveiled his controversial plan for overhauling the state-run petroleum sector and stemming a precipitous decline in oil production.

Lawmakers from the three main parties voted overwhelmingly in favor of the seven initiatives comprising the package, which now moves to the Chamber of Deputies.

"It's a success that we've had a civilized Senate debate, producing new rules of the game for a better, more modern and more transparent Pemex," said Sen. Manlio Fabio Beltrones, leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the Senate.

The vote was moved from the Senate chamber to a heavily guarded office tower several blocks away in order to avoid protesters loyal to former presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has long decried the plan as a first step to privatizing the nation's oil industry.

But López Obrador's protests, which included a takeover of Congress earlier this year and regular street demonstrations by his "oil defense brigades," lost some of their steam after members of his same Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, opted to negotiate the deal with the PRI and Calderón's National Action Party, or PAN.

The initiatives approved Thursday grant Pemex increased budgetary and operational autonomy; allow the state-owned oil giant to partner with private firms for oil exploration and exploitation ventures; make the company's tendering process more flexible and provide incentives to restart dormant drilling activity in mature oil fields.

But the reforms discarded Calderón's proposals for paying performance bonuses to Pemex's private-sector partners and eliminated another for building new refineries with private money. The reforms also failed to touch the influential oil workers union, which holds five seats on the Pemex board.

Despite the changes, Calderón lauded the Senate-approved package.

"Without exaggerating, I can say that it is the most favorable change in the hydrocarbons sector since 1938," he said, referring to the year the petroleum industry was expropriated.

Analysts described the reforms as an improvement over the status quo, but inadequate for solving the managerial issues in Pemex and arresting production declines.

"This reform is important in providing Pemex with increased autonomy, both financially and operationally," said Alejandro Schtulmann, director of research at Empra, a Mexico City risk consultancy.

"But it falls short in solving Pemex's challenges. The union is a huge problem ... it won't do anything to reverse the decline of [the massive Cantarell oil field.]"

The vote followed six months of discord over energy reform, which has provoked legislative shutdowns, more than two months of public hearings, a partisan citizen consultation process and the threat of López Obrador-sponsored brigades flooding the streets.

A small group of senators representing a coalition of left-wing parties known as the FAP voted against the reforms due to the lack of a clause explicitly forbidding future privatization. They also objected to a measure allowing private firms to win contracts for managing entire production areas on behalf of Pemex.

Deputy Javier González Garza, PRD leader in the Chamber of Deputies, said the two measures would be raised during debate in the Chamber, although he added, "I agree with a large part of the reform."

Debate in the Chamber is expected to begin Tuesday.

Following explosion, fireworks town safer, but less-visited

David Agren
The News

Hugo Domínguez is a self-confessed pyromaniac. The Cuernavaca native has always been always fascinated with fireworks; he often played with fire as a child. And so Domínguez entered the pyrotechnics industry as a naïve 14 year old, moving from Cuernavaca to Tultepec, State of Mexico so he could pursue his mischievous passion.

He immediately began learning the craft from veteran pyrotechnics makers in Tultepec, where a thriving cottage industry in fireworks dates back to the late 1800s. Domínguez worked in both legal and illegal workshops, where he would mix chemicals, roll firecrackers and stuff gunpowder into bottle rockets, known as cohetes. He also stared peddling fireworks, ranging from sparklers to Roman candles, at a crowded seasonal tanguis market for the pyrotechnics industry.

Safety was always an afterthought.“I didn’t really know the risks … that the whole thing could blow up,” he said during an interview one recent afternoon at the San Pablito fireworks market on the outskirts of Tultepec, a municipality of 130,000 just north of Mexico City.

But shortly after 1 p.m. on Sept. 15, 2005, the eve of Independence Day celebrations, one of the busiest selling days for the fireworks industry, the entire market exploded. Domínguez, still a baby-face teenager, vividly recalled hearing a rapidly growing crescendo of firecrackers as he was serving a customer.

“I knew right away,” he said.

He abandoned his stall and darted out of the market, which was flattened in mere minutes by an estimated 150 tons of exploding fireworks. No one died in the blast, but civil protection officials in Tultepec reported 128 injuries, including burns, bruises and broken bones. Merchandise loss totaled nine million pesos and 40 cars in the parking lot were torched.

The blast’s origins remain uncertain, but the incident tarnished the reputation of Tultepec, which has become infamous for calamities stemming from the irresponsible handling and storage of gunpowder and fireworks. But the explosion also ushered in even more industry regulation as the Defense Secretariat, or Sedena, imposed new rules for boosting vendor, producer and customer safety.

NEW RULES, NEW LOOK

The new rules radically transformed the Mercado de Artesanias Pirotecnicos de San Pablito, where vendors previously occupied a single area full of small plastic stalls that were bursting at the seams with pyrotechnics. The market officially reopened in December 2005 with enhanced security precautions like a permanent firefighter base and weekly Sedena inspections.

It now lacks electricity wire and phone lines – or anything else that could create a spark. A large sign at the entrance admonish customers not to smoke. Another tells drunken patrons to stay away.

An orderly collection of 80 red and white brick huts with metal roofs now house 300 small pyrotechnics businesses, which are christened with colorful names like Pingüino, Miguelito and Danubio Azul. The huts dot a 5,000-square meter property and are separated by 11-meter-wide aisles crisscrossing the market. Each business measures nine square meters and is supplied with 200 liters of water, 100 kilograms of sand, a fire extinguisher, shovel and pick. Explosive merchandise must now be stored behind thick plastic display cases.

But convincing the public of the new commitment to security has been difficult. Vendors at San Pablito report seeing fewer customers and experiencing diminished sales during the busy September and December sales seasons.

“There still aren’t as many people as before,” Domínguez said.

“Many people know that we’re open … they’re just scared that it’s going to blow up if they come.”

A Sedena rule limits customers to purchases to 10 kilograms of fireworks per visit, something Domínguez says state and federal police officers use a pretext for pulling over customers from outside the municipality.

“The police are always hassling our customers,” he said.

“They steal their merchandise or demand a bribe.”

Javier Bolaños regularly patronizes San Pablito, where he buys sparklers and bottle rockets for traditional Christmas posadas in his hometown of Tultitlán, a municipality sandwiched between Tultepec and Mexico City. He says the new market is a vast improvement over the previous version of San Pablito.

“Trips here used to be a really frightening experience,” he said while exiting the grounds with a bundle of sparklers slung over his shoulder.

“People would be doing stupid things … like smoking.”

Many vendors also speak well of their new facilities – even if sales are slack.“[Customers] used to enter drunk, or they were smoking … they didn’t know the seriousness of this,” says vendor Lizdeth Campos Sánchez, who managed to survive the San Pablito blast despite being slowed while helping a pregnant customer to escape the area.

Despite the risks, she says almost all of the vendors working prior to the explosion returned to San Pablito, which is open from mid July through Dec. 31.

“This is what we know,” Campos Sánchez said.

FIREWORKS TOWN

An estimated 30,000 people work in the Tultepec fireworks industry, according to the artisan promotion department of the municipal government. And a large yellow sign on the way into town dubs the municipality, “The fireworks capital of Mexico.”

Each year on March 8, local residents fete San Juan de Dios, the patron saint of those working with explosives and fire, with a series of castillos, towering wooden-frame structures with spinning wheels that spew sparks and fireworks. The National Fireworks Fair takes place every November.

The percentage of the population making a living from pyrotechnics was higher in previous years, according to Campos Sánchez, who grew up in a family of fireworks makers.

“We used to make bottle rockets on the kitchen table,” she said.

Unlike several her siblings, who still make pyrotechnics, Campos Sánchez opted for retailing fireworks instead of dirtying her hands with gunpowder.

Her shop, No. 143, hawks the standard assortment of locally-produced merchandise, including 50-peso bags each containing 500 firecrackers and 35-peso boxes of “chupacabras” that shoot off sparks and violently slither across the floor upon being lit.

Business was steady prior to the explosion as Campos Sánchez averaged sales of 15,000 pesos per month. But those numbers tumbled by 70 percent after San Pablito reopened, she said.

EXPLOSIVE SITUATION

The Tutltepec government and Sendena moved many previously home-based fireworks makers to a 10-hectare farm on the outskirts of town in the early 1990s after a series of explosions.

Regulations also gradually tightened over the years – especially after a 1998 explosion that claimed ten lives and damaged 180 homes. Legal fireworks makers – Antonio Urban Ramírez, director of the Tultepec government’s artisan promotion office says 551 licensed shops operate in the municipality – must purchase their supplies, including gunpowder, from Sedena.

But clandestine workshops and sales outlets still persist, including several tucked away on a rutted alleyway mere blocks from city hall, just off Calle 5 de Mayo. On this day, a 13-year-old boy riding a mountain bike lured customers to the shops, which operate out of private homes where entrepreneurs are wary of answering questions about their operations.

However, these unlicensed operators are becoming less common as the older generation of fireworks makers retires from the business, said Nacho Reyes, a Spanish-trained fireworks maker, whose hands and clothes were blackened with gunpowder.

“It’s a lot of old-timers who don’t want to leave their homes,” he said of the clandestine producers.

Neither Reyes nor anyone else interviewed in Tultepec criticize the new safety measures or crackdown on clandestine operations, but Domínguez, the young vendor, reminisced about the old days of lax regulation.

“It’s safer now, but not nearly as much fun,” he said.

Across Mexico, water bills go unpaid

By David Agren
The News

For six months of the year, water flows only intermittently from the taps in Guadalupe Nava’s apartment in the capital’s Colonia San Rafael neighborhood, often forcing her to haul buckets down to a local well for filling.

Nava grumbles about the price she pays for the unpredictable utility, which is subsidized by the city and costs just over three pesos per 1,000 liters. The elderly homemaker would prefer not to pay at all, though not necessarily because of the inconsistent service.

“For households, it should be free,” she said while washing clothes at a laundry in another neighborhood due to a lack of water at her apartment.

Even so, Nava says she always manages to pay her water bill, though it’s often a late settlement on an overdue account, and one that’s made largely made due to pressure from the other tenants in her cooperative apartment complex.

Nava’s story illustrates a Catch-22 of water service in Mexico, where many users, citing poor quality and a belief in the constitutional right to free water, pay infrequently or not at all. For their part, providers say the lack of reliable customer payment prevents them from making much-needed infrastructure and service improvements.

A DEEPLY ROOTED PROBLEM

According to the National Water Commission, or Conagua, 60 percent of water bills go unpaid nationwide. In some municipalities in the Valle de Mexico, the agency says, the delinquency rate reaches 90 percent, causing some water providers to give up on pursuing deadbeat customers.

In September, Conagua director José Luis Luege Tamargo called the present water billing problem “extremely critical” and blamed payment delinquency for leaving the country's water infrastructure in a sub-standard state. He went on to warn that the lack of revenue from payments could jeopardize the long-term supply of water in northern and central Mexico, where more than 70 percent of the population resides and one of every six aquifers is “overexploited.”

In an effort to address the problem, the Environment Secretariat, or Semarnat, launched an ad campaign over the summer, warning consumers of the long-term consequences of not paying their water bills – like continued inconsistent service, a lack of new pipes and persistent drainage problems.

The effort to rally citizens to pay their water bills may be largely in vain, said Sylvia Gutiérrez y Vera, a sociology professor at Universidad Iberoamericana, who added that the idea of free water is ingrained in the psyche of many Mexicans.

“In Mexico, it used to be said very clearly that water should not be denied to anyone,” she said.

The concept originated in a social pact between the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and the citizenry, Gutiérrez y Vera said. It resulted in local laws that barred utility companies from cutting service to delinquent customers – no matter how much they owed or how long they had owed it.

And the culture of nonpayment extends beyond cash-strapped pueblos. Some of the country's best-known institutions – and even the federal government – have accumulated enormous water debts.

Popular soccer franchise Chivas left an unpaid 5-million-peso water bill upon closing its Guadalajara sports club last fall. In September, Ramón Aguirre Díaz, water systems director for Mexico City, criticized the federal government for running up a debt of 4.6 billion pesos with his municipal utility.

Aguirre Díaz also accused Conagua of owing 2.8 million pesos, a charge hotly denied by the agency. Federal officials maintain that a constitutional amendment exempts them from paying for water services.

ONE CITY TAKES A STAND

In the central city of Aguascalientes, capital of a small, semi-arid state 500 kilometers northwest of Mexico City, a private waterworks concessionary demands timely payment and cuts service to delinquent customers after just two months.

According to the waterworks, Concesionaria de Aguas de Aguascalientes, or CAASA, 90 percent of its customers remit payment before the deadline. By comparison, in Mexico City, where service is seldom – if ever – suspended for nonpayment, one-third of bills go unpaid after two months.

Water customers in the city of 633,000 pay some of the highest rates in the country: 8.80 pesos per cubic meter, or 1,000 liters. The fee covers the full cost of the liquid flowing from users’ taps, something rare in a country awash in government subsidies.

“In the (country’s) 100 biggest cities, only four or five will charge the real price for water,” said former Aguascalientes governor Otto Granados Roldán of the PRI, who presided over the water privatization.

CAASA, a French, Spanish and Mexican partnership that assumed control of the Aguascalientes waterworks in 1993, says its network serve 99 percent of the municipality’s residences, up from 70 percent at the time the concession was granted. In addition, some 80 percent of city neighborhoods receive 24-hour service, a jump from 51 percent in 1996, according to CAASA. The firm also boasts that nearly all its wastewater is treated, while nationwide, Conagua put the number at around 30 percent.

Per-capita water consumption also dropped by 20 percent after privatization, added Granados Roldán, now a professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Aguascalientes.

“What we wanted, in effect, was a measure – like the concession was – to change people’s habits,” he said.

Still, some Aguascalientes residents complain about the relatively high price of their water. And CAASA recently landed on the consumer protection agency Profeco’s list of most complained about companies.

Enriqueta Medellín, legal representative for the (NON-GOVERNMENTAL?) environmental group Conciencia Ecológica de Aguascalientes, agreed with the idea of making delinquent customers pay their water bills. But she said that CAASA’s service is too expensive for poor residents and the quality fell short of what was mandated in the original concession.

“It’s been a bonanza for the water company, but from a social point of view, no,” she said, pointing out that in her own neighborhood, service is often intermittent.

“It’s the same or even worse service.”

Water issues surfaced in summer municipal election as the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, and Convergence Party promised to revoke CAASA’s concession. Both parties, however, finished well behind the PRI and the incumbent National Action Party, or PAN, which have shown a more favorable attitude toward the concession. In 2006, the PAN and PRI voted down a measure that would have revoked CAASA’s right to suspend service.

BUT WOULD IT WORK IN THE CAPITAL

Water tariffs in Aguascalientes, a relatively prosperous industrial city, increase regularly to keep pace with inflation. But in Mexico City, PRD Mayor Marcelo Ebrard opted this fall to keep prices low and not to impose a retroactive rate hike for the remainder of 2007. Instead, the mayor said the capital would improve on its collection rate before raising tariffs.

David Barkin, a water expert at the capital’s Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, said charging higher rates or bringing in a concessionaire wouldn’t necessarily solve Mexico City’s problems. As evidence, he cited mixed results after four private companies were hired in 1994 to handle commercial affairs for the municipal waterworks, including billing.

Barkin also questioned the fairness and viability of charging poor residents high rates for a service so essential for life.

“How can you charge a private rate of return to people whom the system doesn’t pay a living wage?” he asked.

Nava, the San Rafael resident with intermittent service, said “the poor shouldn’t pay for water,” but citing the example of a neighbor that never remits payment, she acknowledged, “Some people would abuse it.”

The Real Deal (My account of the Lucha Libre)

I penned a rather large account of the Lucha Libre, Mexico's campy, but increasingly popular, version of professional wrestling: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071130.lucha01/BNStory/specialTravel/home

The Lucha libre is good fun and worth taking in during a trip to Mexico. Shows are staged regularly around the country, although the epicenter is the Arena Mexico in Mexico City's Colonia Doctores.

'Bridge between politics, culture' faces uncertain future

David Agren
The News

The National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, selected a new rector last Tuesday. But given the media coverage of the secretive selection process, one could be forgiven for thinking the country had elected a new president.

Or as some observers perhaps more aptly put it, named a new Pope.

José Narro Robles, former dean of the UNAM medical school, officially takes over as the university’s rector on Nov. 20.

Unofficially, he assumes a much larger role in Mexico’s cultural and political life as the leader of the country’s pre-eminent institution of higher education, which has been described by outgoing rector Juan Ramón de la Fuente as the “grand social project of the Mexican nation.”

“Rectors have always had an important role, like that of a [cabinet] minister without legal recognition, someone [whose position] had enormous weight,” said UNAM professor Imanol Ordorika, who studies higher education institutions and co-authored a book on UNAM’s internal politics.

“The rector has an enormous influence in the national political scene.”

That influence stems from the stature and size of UNAM, which educates nearly 300,000 students per year, carries out roughly half of the nation’s scientific research and has produced graduates who went on to become presidents to Nobel Prize winners to billionaire businessmen – former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, writer Octavio Paz and impresario Carlos Slim Helú, to name three.

Its sprawling Ciudad Universitaria campus in southern Mexico City recently attained status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And the school’s professional soccer team, Pumas, has a long history of success and a large and loyal following.

UNAM also defines and dominates much of the nation’s intellectual scene and is affiliated with La Jornada, a left-leaning daily newspaper. As UNAM sociology professor Roger Bartra Muria put it, “[UNAM] is the principle bridge between politics and culture.”

Outsiders agree about UNAM's role. The university is a “very important, very influential institution,” said Carlos Briseno Torres, rector of the University of Guadalajara, the nation's second largest public university.

The school has always held a proud place as a public institution providing generations of Mexicans from all social classes with a secular and free education.

But UNAM’s sway has diminished somewhat with the advent of private universities. Private schools now educate approximately 40 percent of the nation’s university students, a 400 percent jump over the past three decades, according to Ordorika, who added that the federal government hasn’t invested in expanding access to public higher education over that time.

Although widely regarded for its profession programs, some UNAM humanities and social sciences graduates entering the job market report having their credentials belittled by private sector employers.

Thus, one of Narro’s biggest challenges will be maintaining the national university’s stature as Mexico’s educational and political landscape continues to shift. And already, the new rector has pledged during his candidacy to uphold the tenets of secularism and free access, which perhaps give the national university its greatest fame.

“The big challenge is to put [UNAM] in tune with the needs of Mexico and the challenges of the future,” the new rector said on Thursday.

Many UNAM professors have already expressed approval for Narro’s approach.

“For the population that doesn’t have easy access to education, the university resolves that problem,” said Rafael López González, an UNAM professor and coauthor of a book on the university’s political history.

“It’s a fundamental institution for higher education in Mexico.”

UNAM students only make a voluntary payment of 20 cents towards the cost of their studies. According to political science student Lucía Alvarado, “When you pay, you get a stamped receipt that costs more than the actual fee.”

Alvarado opted for studying at UNAM instead of an expensive private university costing 7,000 pesos per month, explaining, “UNAM is a better school in terms of research, freedom of thinking and the humanities.”

She also liked UNAM’s approach of admitting students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds.

"There are all types of people ... including the children of important political figures studying here," she said.

"We're all equal friends here ... in the [private schools], there are so many cliques."

Many of Alvarado’s classmates lacked her educational options, though.

Adrián Paredes, also a political science student, said he enrolled in UNAM for “the quality of its programs,” but more importantly, “It’s accessible.”

He noted, however, that the lack of resources generated by a tuition fee creates challenges for UNAM. The school only accepts about one-third of all applicants on an annual basis. It also urgently needs to upgrade aging classrooms and fading athletic facilities, Paredes added.

University administrators proposed a tuition fee in 1999 as a means of funding infrastructure improvements, but the plan sparked a backlash that shut down the school for nine months.

Outgoing rector De la Fuente assumed UNAM’s top job in the midst of the student strike. But during his eight-year tenure the school regained some of the stature it lost during the shutdown. It climbed into the ranks of the top 100 universities in the world on a prestigious survey of higher education institutions and undertook ambitious research projects, including developing the most powerful supercomputer in Latin America.

In spite of the fact he's inheriting a top university, Narro will face challenges as the new rector. Already, he has faced criticism, albeit indirectly.

Some faculty members, observers and protesting students – who burned down the doors to the rectory building on Thursday night – objected to the perpetuation of a management style they described as secretive and not fitting with the country becoming more open and democratic. They also took exception with the 15-member UNAM Board of Regents’ less-than-transparent method of choosing De la Fuente’s successor.

Ordorika compared the selection process to that of the Vatican.

“It’s like a conclave of cardinals, where the cardinals – in this case, 15 cardinals – meet behind closed doors and decide who is going to be rector,” he said.

Narro’s ascent into the rector’s office was greeted on Wednesday with newspaper headlines and commentaries inferring that De la Fuente was instrumental in naming his successor – a charge the outgoing rector and board members deny. But Ordorika noted that 13 of the 15 current board members were appointed during De la Fuente’s tenure by the UNAM University Council.

Additionally, “The proposals made by the rector are always approved,” Ordorika explained.

The list of eight aspirants vying for the rector’s position also drew scorn from some UNAM faculty members, who were hoping for candidates who would usher in a new era of leadership, untainted by previous political connections.

Bartra, the UNAM sociologist, said, “Many of the candidates are actually old PRIistas.”

He noted that all but one of the candidates either had deep roots in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, or have recently switched to the governing National Action Party, or PAN.
Only candidate Rosaura Ruiz Gutiérrez, who rose through the ranks of the faculty unions and student movements, lacked such a background. (Narro previously headed the IMSS during the administration of former president Ernesto Zedillo.)

Still, with a PAN president in Los Pinos, Bartra sees opportunity for UNAM and Narro.

Previous PRI presidents would often meddle in the rector selection process and by proxy, the UNAM agenda, according to Bartra.

But with the PAN – a party whose senior officials mostly attended private universities – now occupying presidency, he ironically saw an opportunity for UNAM to part with the remnants of the old PRI system.

“I believe this is a good thing,” he said.

“It implies more autonomy. A real autonomy.”

And with increased autonomy for the university – which President Felipe Calderón has promised to respect – Bartra expressed cautious optimism about the future of UNAM.

“It seems that now UNAM is in a new stage that hasn’t ever been explored,” he said.

“It’s something fascinating to witness.”

Mexico City museum honors Bolshevik revolutionary

David Agren
Special to the Express-News

MEXICO CITY — Sixty-seven years ago in Mexico City, a Stalinist assassin plunged a pickax into Leon Trotsky's skull. The Bolshevik revolutionary died in exile from the Soviet Union.

During the latter part of his three-year stay in Mexico, Trotsky lived with his wife, grandson and a team of security guards in a small compound surrounded by high walls in Coyoacán, a bourgeoisie neighborhood in the southern part of the Federal District.

Nowadays, Esteban Volkov Bronstein, Trotsky's grandson, helps run a museum in the former abode, which attracts an eclectic mix of curious tourists — usually in the area to visit the nearby Casa Azul, artist Frida Kahlo's longtime residence — and idealistic lefties, who pay their respects on the anniversary of the attack by laying flowers at the hammer and sickle-adorned mausoleum in the garden.

Alberto Fonseca, a philosophy professor at the Autonomous University of Mexico City, has visited the Trotsky Museum on Aug. 20 — the day Trotsky was assassinated — for 12 consecutive years, delivering a speech that highlights the aspirations of modern-day revolutionaries such as Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Fidel Castro, to a small group of communists sporting Marx and Lenin pins, and leading an off-key rendition of the Internationale, the communist anthem.

Although Trotsky lacks the present-day stature of Ernesto "Che" Guevara — who Fonseca described as a "sexier" icon — the Ukrainian-born revolutionary has enjoyed a modest surge in popularity in recent years.
More than 24,000 visitors passed through his museum in 2004, taking in its tranquil garden, shaded by tall trees and dotted with cacti; modest study stocked with revolutionary tomes; three guard towers; and the chicken coops and rabbit cages, which housed the animals Trotsky lovingly tended to. The reappearance of the infamous murder weapon in 2005 captured worldwide headlines. (A secret police commander apparently lifted it from the evidence room and his daughter wanted to sell it. The museum, however, refused to pay.)

The hit 2002 movie "Frida" portrayed moments from Trotsky's Mexican sojourn, including his supposed affair with the film's namesake — an event Volkov doubts. He explained that the guards, who accompanied his grandfather around the clock, said it couldn't have occurred without their knowledge.

"I never found out until I read it in a book," he said.

He conceded, though, "(Kahlo) had a great capacity for seducing men.

"She was a little spiteful towards Diego (Rivera) because he often deceived her."

In his day, Trotsky, famous for his trademark round-rim glasses, disheveled hair and goatee, dominated one of the feuding streams of international communism. A disillusioned George Orwell wrote "Animal Farm," a stinging rebuke of revolution run amok, after barely escaping a purge by Stalinist thugs during the Spanish Civil War.

Like Snowball, the well-intentioned pig from Orwell's novel, chased off the Manor Farm by a ruthless rival, Trotsky went into exile after losing a power struggle with Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin, bouncing around Europe for nearly a decade, constantly staying one step ahead of ever-present assassins.

Mexican President Lazaro Cárdenas granted Trotsky asylum in the 1930s at the urging of Diego Rivera and members of the Mexican Communist Party. Upon his arrival, Trotsky found a country full of revolutionary fervor. During Cárdenas' six-year reign, he nationalized the Mexican oil industry, openly supported the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and redistributed millions of hectares of hacienda land. Trotsky initially lived with Rivera and Kahlo in the Casa Azul until ideological differences with Rivera — and not an affair with Kahlo — forced the revolutionary to move.

Volkov arrived in Mexico in 1939, having lost virtually his entire family. His father disappeared in a Soviet gulag. His mother committed suicide in 1933. A sibling was left behind in the Soviet Union. Because of his frequent moves, Volkov pretty much lost his ability to speak Russian.

He lived with his grandfather for a little more than a year, surviving a "well-planned" machine gun attack on the Coyoacán house led by famed muralist David Siqueiros, a Stalinist. Volkov survived by hiding under his bed. Some of the bullet holes still riddle the museum.

But Ramon Mercader, a Stalinist agent, infiltrated Trotsky's inner circle. He carried out the dirty deed as Trotsky reviewed documents supposedly penned by the attacker.

Volkov stayed in Mexico after the attack, living in Coyoacán and working as a chemical engineer, but he never became politically active. In his retirement, he's kept his grandfather's legacy alive through the museum. But decades after the assassination, some bitterness remains.

"In mere seconds, (the assassin) liquidated one of the best minds of the Marxist revolutionaries."

From the San Antonio Express-News

Santa Muerte offers hope to those on the fringes of society

By David Agren
The News

Alberto Jiménez considers himself a good Catholic.

The third-generation vendor at Mexico City’s Mercado Sonora, where stalls hawk everything from miracle herbal cures to witchcraft paraphernalia, believes in the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint. He also professes a liking for San Judas Tadeo, the patron saint of lost causes.

But perhaps more strongly than any other saint, Jiménez believes deeply in Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, a scythe-wielding skeletal figure that is not recognized by the Catholic Church as a saint.

“She isn’t a sacred figure for the Catholic Church, but for people that believe in her, Santa Muerte is sacred,” Jiménez said.

The Archdiocese of Mexico urged Catholics to reject Santa Muerte and has branded the figure as dangerous. And the Interior Secretariat still refuses to officially recognize a Santa Muerte-centered church, despite members’ recent efforts to make her appearance more angelic and less skeletal.

Yet despite the objections, Santa Muerte’s popularity has grown throughout Mexico in recent years – Director Paco del Toro, who in September released a the fictional movie “La Santa Muerte,” estimated she has two million followers nationwide.

And according to experts, those followers are most likely to be people who have been marginalized by the greater society or who operate outside of the law.

Death has been an accepted theme in Mexican culture dating back to pre-Hispanic times – the colorful Día de los Muertos festivities each November being perhaps the most vivid example.

But according to Sylvia Gutiérrez, an anthropologist at the Universidad Iberoamericana, the Santa Muerte phenomenon began much more recently – in the 1980s, and among prison populations. Then, as the inmate adherents were released, Santa Muerte worship expanded into the larger society.

“It began spreading and is now often found in poor barrios, where the locals sell drugs or produce pirated products,” Gutiérrez said.

Pilgrims to Tepito

Tepito, a run-down area in the capital’s historic center famous for its street markets brimming with pirated and stolen merchandise, serves as a sort of Mecca for Santa Muerte followers.

Vendors in the barrio, the setting for sociologist Oscar Lewis’s classic work on urban poverty “The Children of Sánchez,” peddle bootlegged CD’s, yet-to-be released Hollywood blockbusters and porno flicks, as well as stolen merchandise ranging from car parts to designer handbags. Legend has it Tepito has been the domain of outlaws since Aztec times, and a commonly told joke in Mexico City advises robbery victims to search Tepito’s markets for their missing belongings.

Tepito is also home to a popular Santa Muerte shrine, which sits outside a simple home. On the first day of every month, the shrine fills with followers who come bearing statuettes of the gruesome saint.

Some who arrive via the Metro subway system pass by a stall operated by Rocio Hernández, where they purchase chocolate coins, pink marshmallows, cigarettes and red apples dipped in honey and cinnamon. The items are then left as offerings in front of the Santa Muerte statues that line Calle Alfarería, the street leading to the shrine.

Hernández, a non-believer who acknowledged a purely economic interest in the death saint, also sells Santa Muerte candles, lotion and perfume, which adherents spray on their statuettes as they wait patiently for their turn to enter the small shrine. Others splash the figurines with liquor, and one follower placed a lit cigar in the mouth of his life-sized statue.

While much of Santa Muerte’s popular with current and former lawbreakers, not all who come to the Tepito shrine are seeking spiritual assistance for nefarious activities. Many are simply looking for intervention in their daily lives, Hernández said.

Followers often dress their figurines in colors corresponding to the type of help they are seeking. White generally represents spirituality and requests for protection, while red represents love and yellow or gold is used to attract wealth.

Black, however, is for harming an adversary.

Gloria Franco, a hairdresser from the Doctores neighborhood, stopped to buy an apple for her Santa Muerte figure. She said she hoped the apple would absorb the bad vibes that had been plaguing her salon.

Franco turned to Santa Muerte for help after police officers detained her son several years ago for what she believed to be dubious reasons. The youth spent some time in a holding cell before he was released without harm, which Franco attributed to Santa Muerte, whom she had discovered by chance on a trip to Tepito.

Borders and barrios

Beyond Tepito, Santa Muerte shrines have popped up in other parts of the Federal District, including three in Doctores, according to Franco. The saint’s appeal has also spread to the northern border region, where both migrants and drug runners ask her for help before crossing illegally into the United States.

In recent years, elaborate shrines dedicated to Santa Muerte have sprouted up along the lonely highways leading toward the border.

“It’s the narcos that are putting up the money for the roadside chapels,” said James Griffith, a retired University of Arizona folklore professor and author of the book “Folk Saints of the Borderlands.”

U.S. immigration officials report noticing an increased number of smugglers bearing images or tattoos of the Santa Muerte.

“Often times when we bust a smuggled load, we’ll see a Santa Muerte image,” said Vincent Picard, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Phoenix.

Despite Santa Muerte’s increased popularity in Northern Mexico, many narcotics dealers still believe strongly in Jesús Malverde, a pseudo saint that reputedly stole from the rich and gave to the poor a century ago in Sinaloa.

The Catholic Church has condemned the worship of both Malverde and Santa Muerte, but that hardly matters to Julia Huerta, a resident of the capital’s gritty, working-class Ixtapalapa neighborhood. She still brings her meter-tall Santa Muerte statue to Tepito every month.

“The [Catholic] Church asks you for money. The Mormons ask you for money. The [evangelicals] ask you for money,” she said. “Santa Muerte doesn’t ask for anything, only what you want to give.”

Like many Santa Muerte followers, Huerta attributes miracles to the unofficial saint, whom she discovered eight years ago after kidnappers abducted her son. She credits Santa Muerte for his safe return, although he was both beaten and robbed.

Ironically, said Gutiérrez, the Iberoamericana researcher, many kidnappers also request intervention from Santa Muerte.

“She protects those that fall into the hands of kidnappers, along with the kidnappers too,” she said.

Many Santa Muerte followers also believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe, but Gutiérrez said that for people working in the informal economy – essentially outside of the law – Santa Muerte covers large parts of their lives that official saints can’t.

“You have the Virgin of Guadalupe to help you with the part of your life that’s regulated, but in addition, Santa Muerte helps you with things that are outside of that,” she said.

"The News" hits the street

After a five-year hiatus, The News reappeared on newsstands across the capital and in select markets around the country. Unfortunately, the web edition has yet to launch, but it is apparently in the works.

I should mention that I now work for The News as a national reporter, meaning I cover the presidency, the chamber of deputies and senate. I also head off into the states to cover things from time to time.

I'll leave critiquing the first day's edition to others, but I would say our product looks pretty good.

While AMLO cries foul, his opponents spend big

In the months leading up to last year's presidential election, wealthy Mexicans sat on their wallets, putting big-ticket purchases on hold. Now they're spending again - and spending big.

German automaker Mercedes Benz reported an 83-percent increase in Mexican sales during June 2007 when compared to the same month last year - which just happened to precede the July 2 vote.

A Cox News feature on Mexico's ultra wealthy described how the luxury car business was impacted by the political cycle:

Just off of Avenue Presidente Masaryk, the Rodeo Drive of Mexico, sits the Mulsanne luxury car dealership. Inside is the crown jewel, a bright yellow Lamborghini Murcielago that sells for $300,000.

The manager, Jeronimo Irurita, says the luxury car business is tied tightly to the whims of the daily news: a rash of kidnappings will send sales plummeting (although his fleet of bulletproof cars do better in those times).

But worse, he says, is the threat of a left-wing government.

"If the left had won, many of my clients would have moved to Miami," he said. "This business would have disappeared, or it would have changed to cheaper cars."

With Calderon's victory, business picked up nicely, and the yellow Lamborghini sold quickly to a Mexico City businessman, he said.

It's not just fancy cars. I recall speaking with the organizers of the EduCanada expositions, who reported robust attendance at this year's events in Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey after experiencing a substantial decline in 2006. The reason: Election uncertainty. One school division superintendent told me that just as many students came to his city as before, but that their parents opted to pay the entire tuition up front, forgoing the monthly payment option.

Anyway, this Mercedes Benz news comes during the same week as Mexico's "legitimate president" Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador held a rally in the Zocalo to mark the one-year anniversary of the July 2 election he says was fraudulent.

Unfortunately, an El Universal poll showed that if Mexicans were to vote today, Felipe Calderon would win by a 15-percentage-point margin. AMLO would still receive 30 percent, though. Thus, writing him off as a spent force would be premature. Yes he shed roughly 15 percent of his support, but 30 percent of Mexicans still back him. Many of them believe the election results were not legitimate. AMLO will persist, but his biggest problem is perhaps a lack of PRD unity. As Sergio Sarmiento pointed out in his Grupo Reforma column this week, none of the PRD governors attended AMLO's July 1 rally in the Zocalo. And look no further than the strife in Zacatecas for proof of problems in the PRD. The PAN has unity problems too, but they seem to close ranks when it matters.

The Legend of Jesus Malverde, Patron 'Saint' of Narco Traffickers, Grows in Mexico

The Legend of Jesus Malverde, Patron 'Saint' of Narco Traffickers, Grows in Mexico

David Agren | Bio | 28 Jun 2007
World Politics Review Exclusive

MEXICO CITY -- Alejandro Ruiz Rodriguez, a Mexico City law student, lost a stack of important legal documents last year. Despite searching everywhere imaginable, they never turned up. As a last resort, he asked Jesus Malverde, an unofficial saint beloved by narcotics traffickers, for intervention. Inexplicably, the documents surfaced shortly thereafter.

"I don't know if it was just by chance or if Jesus Malverde was responsible," the 26-year-old said at a monthly gathering of Malverde adherents in Mexico City.

"Either way, I'm here every month to give thanks . . . it was absolutely miraculous."

Like an increasing number of Mexicans, Ruiz believes in the legend of Jesus Malverde, a mustachioed bandit from the hills of Sinaloa state that, like Robin Hood, reputedly stole from the rich and gave to the poor until his death by hanging in 1909. Narcotics traffickers claim him as their own and donate heavily to maintain a shrine in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, a western state notorious for smuggling activities and home to a powerful drug cartel of the same name. Even with narcotics-cartel violence flaring across Mexico, Malverde's legend is growing and seeping into the broader popular culture. In addition to the Culiacan shrine, a smaller shrine was recently built on a sidewalk in Mexico City's tough Doctores neighborhood. A martini bar in the capital's chic Condesa district adopted the narco saint's name and a piece inspired by Malverde recently won acclaim at a major art fair.

In Doctores, Maria Alicia Pulida Sanchez, who makes a modest living by running a mom-and-pop store, erected the Malverde shrine after her teenage son recovered from an automobile accident more quickly than expected -- something she credited to her praying to the unofficial saint, who she insisted "wasn't a narco.

"He was a thief, but at the same time, he was a thief who helped his community," she said.

Like Robin Hood, "He was a thief who would steal from the rich and give to the poor."

As dusk fell on a quiet Sunday in Mexico City's Colonia Doctores, a group of men in blue jeans loaded a life-size statue of Jesus Malverde along with a similar statue of San Judas, the patron saint of lost causes, into the bed of a Ford pickup truck for a spin around the neighborhood. On the third day of every month, some 30 to 70 adherents gather at the sidewalk shrine to pay homage to the bandit-turned-unofficial saint, whom they attribute miracles to and in many cases ask for intervention.

A similar scene is carried out in Culiacan on a regular basis at the Jesus Malverde shrine, which stands near the state legislature and a McDonald's restaurant and appears on maps distributed by the municipal tourism board. On May 3, the supposed anniversary of Malverde's death, the shrine throws a party complete with banda groups playing narcocorridos -- songs glorifying narcotics traffickers -- and despensas (giveaways) of food, household items and toys. Throughout the year, the shrine reportedly funds charity projects -- like paying funeral expenses for those lacking money. According to some of the shrine's visitors, narco donations underwrite almost everything.

"Narcos pretty much sponsor this place," said Alfredo Aguilar, a sugar cane farmer from rural Sinaloa.

Like many at the shrine, he insisted Malverde was for all people -- not just narcos.

"All sorts of people come here . . . famous people, important people, poor people, rich people," said Doña Tere, an elderly woman, hawking Malverde busts at the shrine.

Visitors to the Malverde shrine often leave Polaroid photos with pithy notes. Wealthier visitors, including some from the United States, sometimes pay for permanent plaques, which usually give thanks for "favors received" and "success in business."

Drawing on Malverde's notoriety is now becoming a good business for entrepreneurs beyond Sinaloa. The Malverde Bar in Mexico City attracts the fresa crowd (young monied set) with $7 martinis and an ambiance drawn from the tacky side of Mexican pop culture. Bartender Luis Mondragon insisted, "This place isn't about glorifying narcos."

Beyond the trend of Mexican youth indulging the naco (low class) side of their pop culture, researcher Arturo Navarro Ramos of the ITESO university in Guadalajara described most of Malverde's followers as marginalized people.

"He makes it possible to live life on the margins," he said, pointing to narcotics traffickers as prime examples.

"Malverde facilitates the view that people can be saved while not giving up their improper activities."

Due to the sketchy accounts of Malverde's life -- even details of his death are disputed -- Navarro figured Malverde would never be recognized as an official saint by the Catholic Church, which only in the past few years promised to start better scrutinizing the sources of large donations that may or may not be coming from narcotics traffickers.

Regardless of Malverde's shady reputation, law student Alejandro Ruiz Rodriguez, who insists he'd never engage in illegal activities, said he would be returning to the Doctores shrine every month.

"It's pure faith," he commented.

The Mexico City News returns

The Mexico City News was published in English for some 50 years until it folded in late 2002. (What was the exact date? Please comment if you know.) Now with the Miami Herald Mexico Edition shutting down, the News will reappear in the late summer - if everything goes as planned.

While things are still in the planning stages, buzz in Mexico City media circles has the paper returning with an O'Farrill family member involved. (The O'Farrill clan originally owned the paper and were also longtime shareholders in Televisa.)

As a reporter, I obviously find this delightful news. Let's hope it works out.

UPDATE: Kelly Arthur Garrett, a former reporter and columnist with the Herald, launched a new blog: http://kellyarthurgarrett.blogspot.com where he provided an interesting analysis of what the old Mexico City News was and what the paper could become. To my knowledge, he has no inside scoop on what's going on with the new News, but since he toiled for the old one, his insights are pertinent.

I used to read the News while living in Colima during the winter of 2002. It would arrive around 3 p.m. from Mexico City and was sold at an excellent newsstand in Los Portales, which fronts the Zocalo. I liked the old News, although since my Spanish was pretty sketchy at the time and I wanted something in English, the News fit the bill.

Garrett commented, "Most English-language efforts have chosen -- or been forced — to fill up their pages with whatever they could get their hands on. They’ve had no journalistic purpose other than to be in English."

He added, "For some reason, there's an assumption among media heavies that English speakers, because they are less well-versed about Mexican society, need to read at the level of six-year-olds. Newspapers by definition are published for the common reader, but the common Anglophone reader in Mexico is not necessarily the boob that these publishers think."

Very true. Most editors have no clue what their readers want. As an example, the Guadalajara Colony Reporter, where I worked for 18 months, puts out a hit-or-miss product. Some of its stuff is gold, but the owners truly believe that few, if any, expats living in Mexico (read: Chalapa, Guadalajara and the places the Reporter is sold) have any interest in Mexican affairs. I visit Chapala on a regular basis, and would disagree.

The Herald was read out in the provinces - when people could actually find it. Circulation was a disaster, though. I could quibble about the Herald's editorial faults - mainly in the community pages - but not being able to purchase a Sunday edition on a regular basis in Mexico's second-largest city was an even bigger problem. I wrote for the Herald and found the editors to be genuinely interested in putting out a quality product - even though there were considerable constraints. That's more than could be said for many English papers that simply need to fill pages. If the Herald lacked anything, it was perhaps a stronger personality. (The Reporter has that with some of its columnists and headlines, although it's an editorially-incoherent publication.)

The News is at least gauging what interests its potential audience. Let's hope it succeeds.