"Jefe Diego" still missing

Former National Action Party presidential candidate Diego Fernández de Cevallos went missing May 14 and remains missing. What became of the political and legal heavyweight known as "Diego the Boss" remains a mystery and the subject of speculation.

As of May 20, federal officials had released no plausible theories for his disappearance from his ranch in the state of Querétaro. Possible motives such as kidnapping, revenge and narcotics-trafficking cartels possibly sending a message by abducting a political figure - one with a close relationships to the interior minister and attorney general - have been discarded.

Others, ranging from the president to a rebel group to the family, have all publicly stated their bewilderment at what has shaped up as one of Mexico's most curious political mysteries and comes amid a nationwide crackdown on narcotics-trafficking cartels and organized crime that has claimed some 23,000 lives since President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006.

Calderón told CNN in a May 19 interview, "Until now, it's a mystery," and discarded suggestions the disappearance was the work of narcotics-trafficking cartels trying to send a message. "Criminals send me clear messages through other channels," he said.

The EPR rebel group also expressed mystery at the disappearance. The group - which claimed responsibility for pipeline explosions three years ago - said it was not involved in any possible crime.

The Fernández de Cevallos family, meanwhile, pleaded with any potential kidnappers to please contact them.

Politicians from all the political parties have expressed preoccupation with the disappearance of "Jefe Diego" - even though Fernández de Cevallos has cut a controversial path throughout his legal and political careers. The latter has been marked by his work as a PAN operative, presidential candidate, party leader in the Chamber of Deputies and, most recently, senator.

The 2008 book, "The Untouchables," listed Fernández de Cevallos as one of its 10 Mexicans operating with impunity (others profiled in the book included boxer Julio César Chávez, Cardinal Juan Sandoval of Guadalajara and discount-drug baron Victor González Torres).

Some in the PAN despise Fernández de Cevallos and Calderón has not been considered close with "Jefe Diego," although relations between the two men have reputedly have thawed in recent years as members of the PAN's "Diego faction" such as Interior Minister Fernando Gómez-Mont and Attorney General Arturo Chávez Chávez have assumed senior cabinet positions.

"The Diego faction has been wary of Calderón, but Diego has been placing some of his people so they're not completely out of it," said Federico Estévez, political science professor at ITAM.

"His best placement of course was Gómez-Mont ... although I'm not saying (Fernández de Cevallos) engineered it."

"Jefe Diego" - like much of the PAN establishment - didn't back Calderón in his run for the 2006 presidential nomination.

Fernández de Cevallos is best known for being the 1994 PAN presidential candidate and winning the first-ever presidential debate with PRD candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and PRI candidate Ernesto Zedillo - the eventual election victor. Despite winning the debate, Fernández de Cevallos mysteriously maintained a low profile throughout the rest of the campaign.

He previously served in the Chamber of Deputies, where, along with Gómez-Mont, he led one of the most successful PAN negotiating teams in party history and was able to broker deals in the early 1990s on such things as financial reform and the formation of the Federal Electoral Institute.

"They got big policy designed ... they changed the electoral system and got the reforms they wanted," Estévez said. "A lot of the economic policy was also very panísta."

But Fernández de Cevallos became especially controversial for - among other things - his 2000 - 2006 term in the Senate. While sitting as a Senator, he represented some of Mexico's most elite companies as they took legal action against the federal government and won large judgments. In a 2002 case, he won a case against Hacienda (the Finance Secretariat), forcing the return of 1.8 billion pesos to his client, Jugos del Valle.

His moonlighting prompted the introduction of the so-called "ley antidiego," which remains frozen in the Chamber of Deputies.

Fernández de Cevallos won other judgments after leaving the Senate, although he recently lost an especially large case in the Supreme Court. The court rejected arguments that his client, who had purchased a Banamex investment in 1987 at an interested rate of 91 percent, was owed 250 billion pesos (roughly $20 billion).

His political maneuverings won him the most controversy - especially with the Mexican left, a group for which Fernández de Cevallos and his protege, Gómez-Mont, have had an abiding dislike, according to many political observers.

That dislike was on display earlier this year, when Gómez-Mont resigned from from PAN over the party's decision to form alliances with the left-leaning PRD for the 2010 gubernatorial elections in states such as Oaxaca, Hidalgo and Puebla. For his part, Fernández de Cevallos, a long-time opponent of electoral alliances, blasted the deals, too.

His past wars with the left have been legendary. Fernández de Cevallos reputedly played a role in making the Mexico City video scandals public early in the last decade. Those scandals caught on film local PRD rainmaker René Bejarano - a former chief-of-staff to ex-Mexico City mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador - accepting cash from developer Carlos Ahumada.

After the close 2006 election - when Calderón narrowly beat López Obrador by less than a percentage point in the official vote count - the outcome was decided by a panel of judges known as the federal electoral tribunal, or Trife. In the Trife, according to the book, "The Untouchables," "It was considered that a majority of the members of the tribunal owed their position totally or partially to the then-still powerful PAN senator." Fernández de Cevallos led the PAN legal team in the electoral dispute.

Fernández de Cevallos had, over the past 18 months, become more relevant in national politics as Calderón opened up his tight inner circle to include figures such as Gómez-Mont - a result of the death of then-interior minister Juan Camilo Mouriño and electoral defeats.

It makes the disappearance of Fernández de Cevallos all the more mysterious.

PAN vs. PAN

The PAN losses suffered on July 5 extend beyond the disastrous performance in the midterm elections - and hit the conservative party hard in many of its heartland states. The party lost gubernatorial offices in San Luis Potosí and Querétaro. It lost the suburban corridor to the west of Mexico City in the State of Mexico that includes Naucalpan and Tlalnepantla. The PAN even lost municipal races in Guanajuato, the most conservative state in the Republic, as it dropped the state capital Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende.

Party president Germán Martínez resigned Monday, when he accpeted blame for the losses - and took gratuitous barbs from disaffected party rivals such as former PAN president Manuel Espino. But dissatisfaction with the party leadership goes beyond Martínez and the PAN National Executive Committee and has been expressed on the state level.

Take Jalisco, for example, where the Panistas in Guadalajara turned out in force to protest ... the PAN! (Pardon the Grupo Reforma-style headline.)

The PAN lost its majority in the state congress and all six mayoral races in the Guadalajara metropolitan area on Sunday - a reversal of the PAN sweep just three years ago. On Tuesday, the Mural newspaper reported that some 400 Panistas protested outside the party offices in Guadalajara's Col. Americana to demand the ouster of PAN Jalisco president Eduardo Rosales. A few colonias away, another group of Panistas armed with eggs protested outside the governor's official residence against the leadership of PAN Gov. Emilio González, who they blamed for the July 5 defeat.

Ironically, the local PRI had been rocked by internal conflicts that involved irate members taking over the party headquarters in central Guadalajara last April after the state PRI president - who eventually resigned - welshed on a deal for registering municipal councilors.

This week, it was the PAN's turn for conflict - not entirely unusual for Jalisco, where the party is split between a faction known as the "paquistas" that is loyal to former governor and former interior minister Francisco Ramírez Acuña - who won a seat in Chamber of Deputies and is being mentioned as the potential PAN leader in the Chamber - and González, whose PAN faction tilts decidedly in the conservative-Catholic direction.

The scorn for González is obvious. He courted controversy over the first two years of his term by mouthing off on contentious social issues - questioning if an AIDS prevention program that distributed condoms should also give away hotel vouchers and "un six de cerveza," for example - and pledging 90 million pesos of government money for the construction of a Catholic sanctuary in Tlaquepaque that would pay homage to the martyrs of the Cristero Rebellion. (The money was returned by the church; González made things worse by saying at an audience of business and religious types, "Me vale madre," which politely translates: "I don't give a flying ..."

But blaming González is not entirely fair. The paquista faction won the primary elections earlier this year. The losing PAN mayoral candidate in Guadalajara, Jorge Salinas, also happens to be the brother-in-law of Jalisco PAN president Eduardo Rosales. The runner up in the primary contest for the mayoral nomination - a former mayor of Guadalajara - alleged nepotism and quit the party. 

The PAN ran into other problems in Jalisco, most notably the mayor of Tonala being removed due to his alleged involvement in a homicide and the operation of an illegal slot machine operation.

Still, it must be said that this is far from being the end of the PAN in Jalisco, where it has governed since 1995. Six years ago, the PRI made gains in the 2003 Jalisco midterm and municipal elections, but the party was soundly thumped in 2006. The state also has a solid two-party political system in which the third-place PRD is divided and non-existent in places, the Green Party is on the rise and the PRI is said by some observers to be more conservative - and friendly with influential church leader, Cardinal Juan Sandoval - than the PAN.

Calderón's right-hand man resigns

Germán Martínez promised big things upon winning the PAN presidency by acclamation in December 2007 - a move that analysts say was ushered in by President Felipe Calderón, who wanted to wrest control of his party from rival factions, and had been friends with Martínez from their days as young Panistas in Michoacán.

Martínez promised unity for a party that was split among warring factions, and divided over the leadership of polemic outgoing president Manuel Espino, whose conservative and Catholic factions never warmed to the 2006 candidacy of President Felipe Calderón. Martínez also promised to put an end to an electoral losing streak that had cost the PAN state and local governments in places such as Yucatán, Aguascalientes and Mazatlán. He said that the continuation of such electoral calamities - blamed on party infighting over nominations - would ultimately result in the PAN losing the presidency in 2012.

The losing continued throughout 2008, however. Martínez attributed those electoral misfortunes to geography; local elections were held in such PAN wastelands as Baja California Sur, Hidalgo and Guerrero that year. But late last year, he promised that 2009 would be different. He promised that the PAN would retain its leading stature in the Chamber of Deputies and win many of the six governor's races being held in 2009. He pointedly promised to win Nuevo León back from the PRI.

He promised too much.

Martínez resigned as PAN president on Monday after leading the party to an election night debacle in which the PRI and its ally the Green Party (PVEM) gained a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Even worse, the PAN lost five of the six governors races, including Nuevo León. Other losses came in PAN strongholds such as Querétaro and San Luis Potosí, where the PAN was knocked from power. The party also was decimated in places such as the conservative heartland of Jalisco as the PRI took 12 of the 20 seats in the state congress and the four big municipalities that comprise the Guadalajara metropolitan area. The PRI also displaced the PAN in its State of Mexico strongholds to the west of Mexico City - most notably in Nuacalpan and the state capital, Toluca.

Some of the PAN's lack of electoral success could be blamed on external factors such as the global economic crisis, an economy weakened by the outbreak of swine flu, and public security problems. The PRI also got its act together after being humbled in the 2006 election.

But Martínez - who some PAN politicians acknowledge works closely with Calderón - both annoyed and alienated many party members with his tactics, which were branded undemocratic. The PAN National Executive Committee appointed the majority of PAN congressional candidates in 2009, along with gubernatorial candidates in places such as Nuevo León. The practice drew accusations of Martínez using the "dedazo," an old PRI practice of the president hand-picking his successor that had been decried by many Panistas during their days of being erstwhile members of the opposition.

Martínez also was the public face of a fierce PAN electoral offensive that accused the PRI of being a half-hearted participant in the war on drugs and blamed it for failing to tackle the cartel problem during the years that it ruled the country. That strategy may have worked; it perhaps prevented the July 5 vote from being a complete wipe out, but not much more.

That strategy angered many in the PRI, whose leadership largely responded to the attacks in a non-combative fashion. And now with the PRI wielding power in San Lazaro, Martínez became an obstacle to Calderón pushing any sort of reforms through Congress in the latter half of his administration. Martínez's departure became even more necessary since the lower house is entirely responsible for the passing the budget - the PAN-led Senate has no role in the process.

No replacement has been named for Martínez, who assumed full responsibility for the elections outcome in his resignation address. (Calderón surely deserves some of the blame, too.) Espino weighed in earlier in the day by calling on Martínez to humble himself. No doubt, many disaffected Panistas - those on the outs with Calderón, the conservative-Catholic Panistas in Western Mexico, and those loyal to former PAN presidential candidate and legal bigwig Diego Fernández de Cevallos, former president Vicente Fox and, of course, Espino - will no doubt be jockying for control of the party in the coming months.

And what about Sen. Santiago Creel? PAN presidents appoint the party's parliamentary leaders. Could he be in line for a comeback, or another run at the PAN nomination in 2012? Perhaps. But Calderón surely must go down as the biggest loser in this affair; Martínez was his right-hand man.

This article ran in The News last December, one year after Martínez became PAN president.

For right-hand man, time to get it right

By David Agren
The News

Monday marks one year since Germán Martínez took the helm of the governing National Action Party amid allegations that, instead of promoting internal unity and ending a string of embarrassing election defeats as hoped, he has purged rivals from the party leadership and presided over a disastrous year at the polls.

Back in the fall of 2007, Martínez was tapped by President Felipe Calderón to restore order in the PAN, which was rife with internal conflict and led by an executive at odds with Los Pinos. He was to guide the party into 2009, when anticipated success in midterm elections would facilitate the president's agenda of reforms.

The jury is still out on the effectiveness of Martínez's short reign as party president. Some analysts and PAN lawmakers say it is still too soon to pass judgment. At the end of his first year, some conflicts are still simmering - particularly a rift with the faction loyal to former party president Manuel Espino - and he has presided over a string of unsuccessful election results at the state and local level.

But everyone agrees that next year will test Martínez's mettle as he leads the governing party into midterm elections that come amid a sharp economic downturn, a bloody and increasingly difficult war on drug trafficking cartels and a revival of the previously downtrodden Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

"The acid test is next year, with six governorships at stake," said ITAM political science professor Federico Estévez.

SO FAR, NOT GREAT
The PAN's unimpressive local election results in 2008 have been received poorly in some circles within the party.

"It's evidently a reflection on the inner workings of the party at the municipal, state and federal levels," PAN Deputy Cristian Castaños told The News.

In spite of the losses - many of them in states that traditionally vote against the PAN, anyway - the lawmaker was quick to credit Martínez with taking necessary, if not universally popular, steps toward modernizing PAN policies, working cooperatively with rival political party leaders and keeping a lid on internal discord.

In April, the PAN loosened restrictions preventing non-members from running as party candidates in order to tap a larger pool of talent and avoid nomination squabbles in cliquish local committees.

Martínez also deepened relations with the presidents of opposition parties by striking agreements over how to keep illicitly gained funds out of election campaigns and issuing a joint condemnation of the Sept. 15 grenade attacks during Independence Day celebrations in Morelia.

Martínez even made attempts to reach out to some of the PAN's estranged factions - most notably, former President Vicente Fox, who was given an advisory position to the party's Strategic Planning Commission.

"The easiest path [for Martínez] was not to make any noise, not fight anyone, and don't pay any cost," said Castaño.

TIGHT CIRCLE
Martínez assumed the party presidency without a fight. No other PANista dared oppose Calderón's longtime collaborator and anointed candidate for deposing a regime headed by Espino. (Espino had fought Calderón's presidential aspirations and at times since 2006, had even hindered the newly elected president's ability to effectively wield power from Los Pinos.)

The ascent of Martínez, a Michoa-cán native like Calderón and a former federal comptroller, to the PAN presidency accelerated a process through which Calderón seized control of the party and began tightening the close inner circle of confidants he has depended on for governing during much of his second year in office.

Martínez adopted a similar style to that of Calderón. He renewed the party's National Executive Committee by appointing members close to the president, and sacked long-time Calderón rival Santiago Creel as Senate leader in June.

The move would give a "push" to the stalled energy reform negotiations, he said.

The changes spurred accusations that he was carrying out a purge, especially after the new PAN leadership in the Senate ultimately agreed to an energy reform deal that many analysts described as "watered down."

But then, the plan went awry. Calderón and Martínez were forced to open their inner circle with the Nov. 4 death of Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño in a plane crash. The factions loyal to former PAN presidential candidate Diego Fernández de Cevallos and former party president Luis Felipe Bravo Mena were brought back into the fold when Calderón appointed Fernando Gómez Mont as interior secretary, and Bravo Mena as chief of staff.

Those moves could ultimately undercut both Calderón and Martínez, according to UNAM political science professor Francisco Reveles.

"There's been a modification in the relationships between the PAN's internal groups that doesn't favor President Felipe Calderón or the president of the party," he said. "The president and his team is having to [make] an agreement with other groups."

Some disagree. ITAM political science professor Jeffrey Weldon, for one, said that cracking open the inner circle would not bring peril, explaining that Fernández de Cevallos still commands respect within the party and that Calderón has simply ended a needless spat. Thawing relations with Espino, often identified as a leader of one of the PAN's most conservative factions, was another matter.

"The Espino faction will stay on the outs for some time, although [they] still control a bunch of states," Weldon said.

Espino, a figure known for sharp outbursts and the current leader of an umbrella group of Christian Democratic parties known as ODCA, has continued being polemic even after having left office. He has questioned Calderón's tactics of working closely with the PRI, saying such moves would only discredit the party. Espino also announced last Thursday that he would once again become active in the PAN leadership - a right bestowed upon all former party presidents.

But the announcement of his return coincided with the PAN leadership's eviction of the ODCA and Espino from the offices they had been lent by the party.

PAN Deputy Gerardo Priego called the gesture "rude" - the offices had been vacant for nine years before ODCA arrived - and said the eviction was evidence of the contradictions in the party leadership's claims that it was eager to find unity. "The discourse is inclusive . [but] if you're pretending to be inclusive, you have to show it in your actions," said Priego.

LOOKING AHEAD
Espino told reporters last week that he was returning to the forefront of the PAN "so that this string of electoral defeats in our party doesn't continue."

Indeed, even though the election cycle appears to favor the PAN next year, with gubernatorial races being staged in its heartland states of San Luis Potosí and Querétaro, much is at stake in 2009, and no one is certain Martínez can do it alone. The party hopes to gain ground in states such as Nuevo León, Sonora, Campeche and Colima - and some say the pressure will really be on Martínez if the PAN fails to live up to expectations.

"If [Martínez] doesn't win Nuevo León, it would be a defeat for the party," Weldon said. "He has to hold his states, and ideally, pick up another one in either Sonora or Colima."

Priego is one PANista who expresses hope for 2009. But he also said that tactics needed to change. And, he said, Martínez would be better served by a different team of electoral advisors.

"Those who are directing the party don't have a history of working at the municipal or state committee level," the deputy from Tabasco said. "They don't know grassroots politics. They need to complement their [teams] with people [who have] this experience."

Mexico's drug war turns political

My latest for World Politics Review on how the Mexican government's war on drugs has become a partisan political issue.

At church conference, parties find religion

At church conference, parties find religion

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

CUAUTITLÁN IZCALLI, State of Mexico - National Action Party president Germán Martínez reminisced about a religious upbringing in Quiroga, Michoacán, while addressing an auditorium of Catholic prelates on Wednesday in this municipality on the northwestern fringes of the Mexico City metropolitan area.

Beatriz Paredes of the Institutional Revolutionary Party followed, speaking similarly about her childhood in the state of Tlaxcala, and of fond memories of the annual patron saint festival in the municipality of Huamantla that fetes La Virgen de la Caridad with predawn pilgrimages and streets carpeted with flowers. Democratic Revolution Party president Jesús Ortega, however, skipped the religious pleasantries and nostalgia and cut straight to politics.

The appearance by the trio of senior political leaders at the annual planning session of the Mexican Bishops' Conference - during which they outlined their platforms and fielded questions on the thorny issues of abortion and religious freedom - was not with without precedent; party officials from the PAN, PRI and PRD had met with senior Catholic prelates prior to the 2006 elections.

But the latest encounter - which also included the presidents of three smaller parties - came as the church has been criticized for wading into the public policy debate with pronouncements, running sharp editorials in church-run publications and lobbying political officials.

Some of the church's hierarchy have even urged Catholics to vote against parties that back policies such as liberalized abortion laws and civil union benefits to same-sex partners.

The encounter - and the recent criticism of the church's so-called meddling - come in spite of strict laws in Mexico that forbid preaching politics from the pulpit, a measure that some church officials want scrapped and say violates their freedom of religion.

"There's a church leadership that is convinced that the church should openly intervene in politics," said Ilán Semo, a political historian at the Universidad Iberoamericana. "[They] have a mentality from the 19th century."

In the mid-19th century, the Reform Laws of Benito Juárez removed the church from the political arena. The Constitution of 1917 reinforced the separation of church and state, along with measures such as prohibitions on the church owning property and priests not being able to wear clerical robes in public.

But reforms approved in 1992 softened many of the anti-clerical restrictions. The softening of the restrictions and the advent of the Catholic-friendly PAN, said Semo, emboldened church officials to opine on public policy and advance a political agenda.

That agenda includes discarding a ban on religious organizations owning radio and television stations and the implementation of religious education in public schools - which are constitutionally mandated to provide schooling that is both secular and free of cost.

The church also wants "freedom of religion" enshrined in the Constitution, which currently only guarantees "Freedom of worship."

Church officials deny allegations that they are attempting to steer parishioners toward preferred candidates or have prelates run for political office, the latter being a violation of cannon law.

They also deny any attempt at blurring the separation of church and state.

"The Catholic Church does not want a confessional state," Archbishop Carlos Aguiar of Tlalnepantla, president of the bishops' conference, said after the meeting with the party presidents on Wednesday.

"The church," he said, "will not be for or against any political party . [and] will promote the importance of the electoral process."

PARTISAN TIES?
The PAN's Martínez on Wednesday enthusiastically backed church participation in promoting democratic values and "fighting absenteeism"

"We're a party that for 70 years has said that there should be freedom, not only of worship, not only of the profession of faith, but rather . a broad and full religious liberty," he told reporters.

Martínez's party has long been accused of being too cozy with the church hierarchy. But church observers say that other parties and political leaders also pursue close church relations.

In Jalisco, for example, the PRI threw its support behind a constitutional ban on abortion after a meeting earlier this year between Cardinal Juan Sandoval of Guadalajara and state party president Javier Guízar.

"Cardinal Sandoval himself often says that PRIístas are the ones that visit him the most," said Víctor Ramos Cortés, a religious studies professor at the University of Guadalajara.

HOT BUTTON
Unsurprisingly, the abortion issue surfaced at the bishops' conference meeting this week.

Only the PAN's Martínez declared his party, "Pro-life;" his PRI and PRD counterparts said that they personally favored the decriminalization of abortion - especially in certain circumstances - but added that blanket positions on the issue would fail to work in their parties due to diverse views on the subject and differing regional sensibilities.

Social Democratic Party, or PSD, president Jorge Díaz Cuervo, whose party is running on a platform that includes the decriminalizing abortion in the states, was less diplomatic.

Díaz Cuervo demanded that the church stay on the sidelines and butt out of people's personal lives. (The PSD platform also calls for legalizing drugs and providing expanded rights for gays and other minority groups.) He cited scripture to make his point.

"As a Catholic, It suits me to pay unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's," he said. "As a Mexican, I back the Constitution of 1917 that separates church and state."

His comments were received with a polite, tepid response from the audience. Cardinal Sandoval, for one, did not applaud.

PUBLIC STATEMENT
It remains to been seen what the consequences of the church's interventions into politics will be.

The Interior Secretariat has dismissed several recent complaints over church actions, including one from the PSD regarding a list of "electoral sins" issued by the bishop of Cuernavaca that urged the faithful to vote against any party promoting abortion and gay marriage.

But while government enthusiasm for enforcing laws against church interventions into politics has been minimal, the public has been more enthusiastic in denouncing the blurring of church and state lines.

In Jalisco, a state government donation last year for the construction of a Catholic temple generated such public outrage that the money was returned.

Religious observers say that even though most of the Mexican population is Catholic - and the church ranks as one of the country's most trustworthy institutions - the public draws a line at a certain point when it comes to power.

"People are Catholic ... [but] they don't want priests running the country," Ramos Cortés said.

For PAN, win would restore pride, power

For PAN, win would restore pride, power

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

The National Action Party suffered through a miserable 2008, performing terribly in the five states that held local elections. But that hardly deterred PAN president Germán Martínez from going on the offensive and predicting a reversal of fortune in 2009, when the country holds midterm elections and six governor's offices are up for grabs. The turnaround, he said, would include victory in Nuevo León.

"I don't have the slightest doubt that we're going to recapture Nuevo León," he told reporters in December.

"The PAN is going to return to governing Nuevo León, and this nightmare of a local government that [the state] is suffering through will only be a historical footnote."

On July 5, Nuevo León voters will prove Martínez right or wrong. But the PAN president has repeatedly signaled that his party is betting heavily on taking back the northern state from the incumbent Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

The PAN faces a stern test in Nuevo León and has done itself few favors since Martínez first predicted electoral success.

For weeks, the party has been bickering over candidate nominations for elections in several key municipalities as well as the gubernatorial race. And a slumping economy - which is hurting the governing party in national polls, too - also threatens to dent PAN prospects in Nuevo León.

"They're probably not going to do so well in the [nationwide midterm] elections," said Jeffrey Weldon, a political science professor at ITAM. "But [PAN] can claim a moral victory if they win back a state."

The PRI captured Nuevo León in 2003 under similar economic circumstances to those today. That year, the centrist party took advantage of a troubled economy and a less-than-powerful rival to claim the governor's office and victory in the federal midterm elections.

But PRI Gov. Natividad González has since drawn underwhelming job performance reviews. He has taken a particular beating for his handling of security issues, said University of Monterrey political science professor Jose Luis Berlanga Santos. And in 2006, the PAN leveraged increasing concerns over rising insecurity in Nuevo León - and PRI divisions over presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo - to claim a majority in the state legislature.

Public opinion surveys showed continuing dissatisfaction with the PRI during the second half of González's administration due to a rash of drug-related killings in 2007 and the state's notoriety for auto theft and bank robbery.

"The governor has been viewed as weak," Berlanga Santos said. "Both [the economy and security] are the main issues, but here, people are definitely worried more about security."

TIGHT RACE

Still, public opinion polls show a narrowing of voter preference over the past six months. A February poll in the newspaper El Norte put the race in a statistical dead heat with 37 percent backing PRI candidate Rodrigo Medina and 35 percent opting for PAN candidate Sen. Fernando Elizondo Barragón. As a result, politicians from both sides have been hesitant to predict victory.

"It's very competitive," Nuevo León PAN Deputy Cristián Castaño told The News. "If the PRI boasts that it's going to win, that's wrong. If the PAN boasts that it's going to win, that's also wrong."

The unveiling of the candidates in February failed to sway public opinion, making it likely that campaign performance and party unity will decide the election.

STAYING UNITED

Unity has been elusive in Nuevo León for the PAN and to a lesser degree, the PRI.

The PAN originally split over the prospect of forming a coalition with the New Alliance party. (No deal was ever reached.)

The national PAN leadership then bypassed the primary election process and tapped Elizondo, a 60-year-old former interim governor, as the one and only candidate.

The three rival candidates for the PAN nomination scorned the process, but fell silent after the announcement.

Some have defended the process, which critics have compared to the old ways of the PRI.

Castaño, for instance, said that the selection process was necessary, in part, due to flaws in the PAN membership list. Analysts, meanwhile, say that the party mostly likely wanted to avoid the possibility of polemic Monterrey Mayor Adalberto Madero winning the nomination.

The PRI, by comparison, experienced less conflict in selecting a candidate. The party opted for Medina after the local PRI leadership brokered a deal. The party, according to PRI Nuevo León Deputy Francisco Rivera Bedoya, also wanted a young candidate. Medina is just 36, but he has already held the No. 2 position in González's administration.

Possibly the only internal PRI spat to go public was a dispute between several unions over the divvying up of candidates for municipal races outside of the Monterrey area.

With the race currently so tight, analysts say that the party that keeps a lid on internal conflict will most likely win. This applies particularly to the PAN, they say.

"The key for the PAN is to make sure that they don't split between now and the election," Weldon said.

Parties make big promises as Congress gets under way

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

Congress on Wednesday returns for its final session before the July 5 midterm elections, when the entire 500-member Chamber of Deputies is scheduled to be renewed.

In the upcoming session, the National Action Party, or PAN, has promsed to focus on public security, the economy and credit card interest rates. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, says it will fight for the "family economy" by freezing prices and introducing tax deductions. And the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, says it will propose an "emergency" law that would allow the federal government to spend money more easily, as well as push austerity measures like slashing lawmakers' salaries.

But the final session before the midterm elections seldom produces much in terms of meaningful legislation, analysts say. Deputies in the lower house - none of whom can seek re-election - often take leave to seek other elected posts.

This year is unlikely to be much different, analysts say, as most of the legislative agendas currently outlined by the eight registered parties focus on retail politics -and in some cases, veer toward populism. In some cases, parties are championing issues with little prospect of being approved. (The Green Party, for instance, is on a crusade to reintroduce the death penalty.)

"I expect to see a lot of grandstanding," ITAM political science professor Federico Estévez said.

But Estévez did admit that the economic crisis might spur cooperation that usually doesn't exist in the lead up to federal elections.

THE PAN MISSION
The PAN's congressional leaders have emphasized the importance of continuing with economic and security measures left unfinished during the last session.

The PAN's coordinator in the Chamber of Deputies, Héctor Larios, said his lawmakers will push for overhauls to laws regarding acquisitions, public works and expropriations. The overhauls, he said, will allow the government to more quickly build roads, prisons, schools and hospitals called for in the infrastructure programs presented by President Felipe Calderón as a means of pulling the country out of crisis.

"If we don't [spend] rapidly . then government action is going to be much less effective," Larios said while in Chiapas this week.

Other PAN goals include passing reforms to the Attorney General's Office, or PGR, creating a new federal police corps, and passing a law that targets the finances of organized crime.

PAN Senate leader Gustavo Madero emphasized that his party would also target banking practices considered to be predatory, particularly those concerning credit cards.

PRI POPULISM
The PRI pitched various populist proposals on Tuesday, including the sanctioning of those who hang "narcomantas," or banners with threatening, drug-crime related messages. The party also stole a page from the books of several state legislatures, urging that those who sing "narcocorridos," or drug ballads, be punished. Other PRI proposals for improving public safety include a new federal kidnapping law, although a constitutional provision still must be approved by 16 state legislatures before Congress can begin work on that issue.

PRI lawmakers also said Tuesday that they would push for a reduction in the price of diesel and electricity, make payments for medicine tax deductible, and encourage the federal government to present a labor reform package.

The PRI lawmakers offered few details, but said that after achieving the approval of an energy reform package last year, labor reform would be passable before the session ends.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST
PRD lawmakers have backed the idea of tackling labor reform. But they want it to target opacity in organizations like the heavily PRI oil workers' union and the SNTE teachers union, which has worked closely with Calderón.

"If [reforms address] the democratization of union organizations, transparency, and the electoral process inside these organizations, we'll certainly go for it," PRD Sen. Tómas Torres said.

The PRD will also present an alternative economic crisis plan.

What's Next for Andrés Manuel López Obrador?

The second anniversary of President Felipe Calderon taking power passed earlier this month - along with the second anniversary of the "gobierno legitimo" being founded by election runner up and the self-proclaimed "presidente legitimo" Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

World Politics Review ran a pair of good analysis pieces:

Mexico's Calderón Faces More Obstacles Ahead (By Patrick Corcoran) and What's Next for Andrés Manuel López Obrador? (By David Agren.)

Yunque bogeyman won't die

By DAVID AGREN
The News

In the aftermath of Mouriño's untimely death in the Nov. 4 plane crash that killed Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño, amid conspiracy theories of sabotage and drug cartel involvement, reports have emerged that a shadowy faction within the governing National Action Party known as "El Yunque," or the Anvil, was just as anxious to topple Mouriño.

"The Yunque was going to do everything in its power to destabilize the president" – which meant attacking Mouriño has a proxy – said former Puebla mayor and admitted ex-Yunque member Luis Paredes. Paredes added that the group was still smarting from being deposed from the party leadership by Calderón and his tight inner circle. Meanwhile, one of those deposed, Manuel Espino, denied that there had been a campaign to discredit and bring down Mouriño, saying it was the drug cartels who were the enemy, not The Yunque.

This PAN feuding in the press this past week has not only highlighted the divisions in the governing party, but also revived one of the oldest bogeymen in Mexico politics: The Yunque, a group characterized by staunch Catholic and conservative beliefs that reportedly has wielded enormous influence over the party throughout the past few decades – especially in the PAN heartland of Jalisco and Guanajuato.

But whether or not the Yunque even exists is disputed by analysts and members of the PAN – even if they won't deny that some in the party bring deeply religious beliefs and tilt sharply to the right.

"There are people [in the PAN] who are much more conservative than others," PAN Deputy Gerardo Priego told The News. "But this idea that they meet and bathe themselves in goats' blood, and do other strange things, is exaggerated."

The label, he said, "Is a way to easily tag adversaries."

Others, like PAN Deputy Obdulio Ávila Mayo, said the Yunque "exists," but not necessarily as a PAN-only group.

"Not all of the Yunque is part of the PAN, and not all of the PAN is part of the Yunque," he told The News.

ITAM political science professor Jeffrey Weldon said the Yunque label persists as way to describe PAN factions. The party's internal conflicts frequently simmer beneath the surface, but seldom erupt into the full-blown wars over wide ideological rifts, he said, due to the fact that the PAN's members share relatively similar core values.

Priego, a former National Executive Committee member from Tabasco state, who does not identify with the conservative factions of the party, expressed some discomfort with the use of the Yunque label – many non-Catholics are members of the PAN, he said, and in some states, they constitute a near-majority.

"In Campeche, half of the membership is Mormon," he said.

New No. 2 signals party push for unity

by David Agren
The News

With the sudden death last week of Juan Camilo Mouriño, President Felipe Calderón shelved his criteria for appointing Cabinet members on Monday, and reached beyond his inner circle to tap Fernando Gómez Mont as interior secretary.

Analysts say the move reflects a new style of governance being ushered into Los Pinos, and that the president is signalling his desire to advance his agenda of structural reforms in a divided Congress. This would require a shrewd negotiator and non-polarizing figure in the Interior Secretariat.

"This is a good signal because the president, governing with his inner circle, has been isolated and not really able to build bridges," said political analyst Jorge Zepeda Patterson. "Calderón's Cabinet [has been] characterized by people who have long futures, but short pasts."

The appointment also reached across current breaches in the National Action Party, or PAN, which has been plagued by low-level feuds between pro-Calderón groups and those that never warmed to his nomination for the presidency.

"[The appointment of Mont is] a strong signal for a unified party," said Jeffrey Weldon, a political science professor at the ITAM.

AN OLD HAND

Gómez Mont, the son of a PAN founder and close collaborator of former PAN presidential candidate Diego Fernández de Cevallos, brings a long political history to the Interior Secretariat. He previously sat in the Chamber of Deputies in the early 1990s and participated in commissions that revamped the electoral and judicial systems.

As a criminal defense attorney, he later defended both former President Carlos Salinas and the president's brother Raúl along with a former Pemex director implicated in the Pemexgate scandal.

He also helped create the tamper-proof voter identification card that most Mexicans carry in their wallets.

As an attorney, Gómez Mont developed a reputation as a shrewd negotiator - a key skill for an interior secretary, who acts as a liaison between the presidency and other levels of government, but who is also responsible for security matters.

"The main function of the Interior Secretariat is precisely that of a political operative," Zepeda said. "They didn't opt for a military man, or police official as many had speculated."

Mouriño drew posthumous praise for his political skills, but was derided through his 10-month term by left-wing lawmakers anxious to assail the president via a proxy. They demanded the interior secretary's resignation over allegations of previously steering business to a family company.

Zepeda said Gómez Mont would mostly like draw less fire, but could be "injured" by left-wing lawmakers who hold grudges against Fernández de Cevallos, a controversial figure for his decision to defend private companies as a lawyer against the government while serving as a senator.

"It's important for Calderón to be able to have a moderate left that is allied with him to pass reforms and not have to depend on the [Institutional Revolutionary Party]," Zepeda said.

PAN dumps Creel as Senate leader

PAN dumps Creel as Senate leader

David Agren
The News

Sen. Santiago Creel was sacked as the National Action Party leader in the Senate as the governing party tries to improve its chances of winning approval for a series of reforms to the state-run energy sector.

A Tuesday press release from the PAN national executive committee said, “The PAN is restructuring in order to give a new push to the reforms.”

Creel’s ousting comes as the Senate is holding a marathon session of 22 debates on energy reform – a key initiative in a series of overhauls to the federal government being undertaken by President Felipe Calderón.

The debates, an April takeover of Congress by opposition lawmakers and now a proposed public consultation on energy reform in Mexico City by the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, could further impede passage of energy reform.

Analysts were quick to note, however, that Creel’s exit also continued a purge of leaders with loyalties to the conservative wing of the party that was deposed last December by the ascent of Germán Martínez, a close confidant of Calderón, to the PAN presidency.

Pollster Dan Lund, president of the Mund Group in Mexico City, said that Creel, a former interior secretary, was not part of Calderón’s inner circle.

“This is a tightly controlled party, which is not pluralistic and everything functions at the direction of [Calderón],” Lund said.

Sen. Gustavo Madero, president of the Senate finance committee, was named as Creel’s replacement.

Lund described Madero as “one of the president’s men.”

Creel will continue serving as President of the Senate until Aug. 31, according to the Senate press office.

Héctor Larios, PAN coordinator in the Chamber of Deputies, survived Monday’s purge, but acknowledged that he was serving at the pleasure of the party president.

Both Creel and Larios were appointed by former party president Manuel Espino – a longtime Calderón adversary – during the period when Calderón was still waiting for the electoral tribunal to adjudicate PRD complaints from the 2006 vote.

Calderón – who Lund said is calling the shots in the PAN – moved against Espino last fall by having Martínez run unopposed for the party presidency.

Personal indiscretions may have also tripped up with Creel, who had gravitated toward the PAN’s conservative and Catholic factions earlier this decade.

He generated scandalous headlines earlier this month when it was revealed that he fathered a child out of wedlock with a soap opera star Edith González.

Sergio Valderama Herrera, political science professor at UNAM Xochimilco, attributed Creel’s fall to “political and personal shortcomings.

“He broke with one of the PAN’s traditional values: Family,” said Valderama Herrera.

Creel stumbled at times in his PAN leadership position – most notably when he accepted a challenge to debate energy reform with former PRD presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. PAN officials later quashed plans for the debate.

Ironically, Creel narrowly lost the 2000 Mexico City mayoral election to López Obrador.

He subsequently served as interior secretary and gained the backing of the PAN establishment, including Former President Vicente Fox, for a 2006 presidential run.

Calderón derailed those plans as he upset Creel in the 2005 PAN primaries, however.

Felipe Calderón gets his man

By David Agren
The News

Germán Martínez Cázares, a staunch supporter of President Felipe Calderón, assumes the presidency of the National Action Party, or PAN, on Dec. 8.

Officially, the 40-year-old former federal comptroller will head the governing party for the next three years and lead it into the crucial 2009-midterm elections.

Unofficially, his ascent will sideline the party’s conservative-minded old guard, which has frequently bickered with the president and enjoyed little electoral success over the past year.

Martínez’s rise to prominence also marks a victory for Calderón and his pragmatic stream of the PAN as the president finally wrests control of his center-right party away from his detractors in the PAN’s conservative-leaning Catholic wing.

“It puts someone in who is close to the president,” said Jeffrey Weldon, a political science professor at ITAM, who noted Martínez’s moderate political views.

CLEANING UP AFTER ESPINO

Martínez inherits a badly divided party rife with ideological and personality-driven feuds that has sputtered of late in state and local elections – most notably in Yucatán and Aguascalientes, where conflicts over candidate selection and forging alliances doomed PAN campaigns in traditional party strongholds.

And his party presidency, which ushers in a younger generation of leadership, comes at a time when the PAN is making the difficult transition from being an erstwhile opposition fighting the previously entrenched Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, to establishing itself as the governing party.

Martínez succeeds outgoing president Manuel Espino, a polemic figure identified with the PAN’s conservative-Catholic wing, whose term as party head ends three months earlier than scheduled. Espino frequently squabbled in public with Calderon, who represents a more moderate and pragmatic faction that until recently was not well-represented in the PAN leadership.

“[Espino] created this view of a divided PAN,” Weldon said.

The tension between Espino and Calderón dates back to before Espino became party president in 2005, when Calderón endorsed a rival candidate for the PAN's top position.

Later, the Espino-led party hierarchy, which included former president Vicente Fox, openly supported former interior secretary Santiago Creel for the PAN presidential nomination and never enthusiastically backed Calderón’s presidential bid.

Calderón responded to the lack of support by branding himself “the disobedient son” during last year’s campaign.

CALDERON’S COUP

Calderón and Martínez share many similarities, dating back their modest upbringings in Michoacán and later advancements into the upper echelons of the PAN.

“They’re both very much the same kind of person in terms of who they are and where they come from and what they’re seeking,” said Federico Estévez, a political science professor at ITAM.

Both men hail from from lower middle class backgrounds and were mentored by Catholic academic and former PAN stalwart Carlos Castillo Peraza. The pair, both self-starters, also climbed the ranks of the education system, won two terms as federal deputies, served in high-level party positions and showed sharp political instincts for advancing to the top and “staying there,” according to Estévez.

Martínez also brings less baggage to the PAN presidency than Espino, who claimed the party’s top job under cloud of controversy after being accused him of rigging the party leadership vote and employing corporatist practices during the contest.

Espino, who won with Fox’s backing, took active interest in the selection of local candidates, taking advantage of the influence wielded by the presidents of Mexico’s political parties.

“[Party presidents have] a lot of discretionary power,” Estévez said.

“You can’t get anywhere without the [party] president coming onboard.”

Relations further soured with Calderón after the July 2, 2006, when, according to Mexico expert George Grayson, “Espino became a thorn in the side” of the recently-elected president.

Grayson, a government professor at the College of William & Mary, said that Espino appointed PAN leaders in the new Congress affiliated with the party faction hostile to the president and dithered over forming an alliance with the PRI in last summer’s Chiapas gubernatorial election, which was narrowly captured by the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.

Espino’s tough approach to leadership also dismayed many in the PAN as internal conflicts dominated the headlines during his term. The federal Electoral Tribunal recorded complaints from 1,530 PAN members over the past year regarding the infringement of their party privileges – some 77.5 percent of all grievances filed.

It also led to mixed electoral results. The PAN successfully maintained its grip on the presidency and captured record pluralities in both houses of Congress in 2006 – accomplishments Espino frequently points out. But the PAN suffered some embarrassing losses in state and local contests afterwards, which Martínez addressed when he announced his candidacy for party president on Oct. 29.

“If we continue losing municipal governments we risk losing the presidency in 2012,” he said at the time.

According to Aldo Muñoz, a political science professor at Universidad Iberoamericana, Calderón and Martínez champion a pragmatic, “neoPANista” wing of the party, while Fox and Espino allegedly lead a religious-conservative “doctrinal” branch, which is influential on the state and local level in Western Mexico and is often referred to as “El Yunque,” or The Anvil.

Martínez recognized the PAN schisms during a campaign rally in his hometown of Quiroga, Michoacán and promised to include members from both sides of the party in the party’s executive committee. He also noted the challenge of incorporating new members drifting over to the PAN due to its proximity to power.

But pollster Dan Lund questioned whether Martínez and Calderón would be able to unite the party around themselves going forward.

Lund noted that the PAN has long lacked the underpinning of a policy agenda, which has made it more vulnerable to internal disputes and power struggles.

“I don’t think anyone has forged policy leadership,” said Lund, president of the Mund Group in Mexico City.

“And when you don’t have a plan you tend to get bogged down in personalities and fiefdoms.”

PRD: AMLO lost on July 2

Finally, more than nine months after the July 2 presidential election, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) acknowledged that its candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), lost the contest and recognized Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party (PAN) as the president of Mexico. Neither AMLO nor the PRD initially viewed Calderon's victory as legal and AMLO was declared "legitimate president" on Nov. 20. But for AMLO, it's been a somewhat lonely struggle. Several PRD governors have recognized Calderon and within the PRD, Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard is currently outshining his predecessor.

Having the PRD's president recognize Calderon - and in a sense, turn the page - can only hurt AMLO even more. This could also be the PRD trying to project an image to the public that it's more than just an appendage of its former presidential candidate. The party made handsome gains in the last senate and congressional elections and with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) now striking deals with the PAN - witness the ISSSTE pension reforms and the unseemly alliance keeping Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz in office - the PRD and its allies (the PT and Convergence) are functioning as the opposition.

The PRD also has other members harboring presidential aspirations for 2012. Ebrard would surely top that list. The next presidential election is still more than five years away, but he's the early favorite - or, at a minimum, being the mayor of Mexico City, the most visible. (This being Mexico, it's never too early to speculate, is it?)

Por Fin! Jalisco's new governor takes power

Nine months after besting the PRI in a bitter gubernatorial contest, Emilio Gonzalez Marquez finally assumed power in Jalisco, succeeding Francisco "Paco" Ramirez Acuña, who departed in December for a spot in President Felipe Calderon's cabinet. Gonzalez, the former mayor of Guadalajara, heads the conservative state's third-consecutive PAN government. Originally from Lagos de Moreno in the Los Altos region east of Guadalajara (and just across the state line from Vicente Fox's San Francisco del Rincon, Guanajuato,) he's long been linked the Yunque, a secretive conservative organization sympathetic to the PAN. (Gonzalez denies the connection.)

Gonzalez takes over a state that could best be described as middle of the road. While not especially corrupt, Jalisco is hardly an innovator on the national level. Guadalajara's sleepy elite-family-dominated business scene is prospering like always and the high-tech sector is making a nice recovery after a long slump.

Paco accomplished little over his term other than bring the 2011 Pan American Games to Guadalajara - a competition won by default - crack down on the globalifobicos at a 2004 summit in the state capital and take numerous foreign junkets of dubious value. Gonzalez's track record in Guadalajara was hardly stellar as he flip-flopped constantly and revved up a dormant publicity machine. During the election, he went negative early on and blasted the University of Guadalajara, an institution with prominent PRD members in top leadership positions. Perhaps most conveniently, the PGR, acting on old allegations of fraud in the Zapopan IMSS, showed up at PRI candidate and former Zapopan mayor Arturo Zamora's upscale Valle Real home mere days before the July 2 vote.

Perhaps Gonzalez will turn out okay. He's already won his battle for an audit at the U de G. But he'll probably turn in another lackluster term - the norm for Jalisco.

Paco heads for Gobernacion (Interior Ministry)

Former Jalisco governor Francisco "Paco" Ramirez Acuna collected on an imense political debt with his ascension to the interior ministry, perhaps the most prestigious spot in President Felipe Calderon's cabinet. Paco, who governed Jalisco from 2001 until a few weeks ago, gained a reputation as a no-nonsense character willing to have the police bust heads when necessary - principally at the May 2004 summit of European and Latin American leaders held in Guadalajara. Local and state police forcefully cracked down on globalifobicos (anti-globalization protesters) trying to enter a restricted downtown area. Human rights abuses were documented and some of the protesters were detained for months without being charged. When asked to explain things, Paco testily responded afterwards, "Nothing happened."

Few tapatios (Guadalajara residents) lost much sleep over those events as the city and region generally sees few protests and the local population is seldom enamored with causes viewed as radical.

That doesn't mean Paco was well regarded. He certainly never achieved the same levels of popularity as Alberto Cardenas, Paco's predecessor. Paco seldom spoke to the media, took numerous foreign junkets of dubious value - promoting tequila in Poland comes to mind - and accomplished little other than bring the 2011 Pan Am Games to Guadalajara. (No other cities made bids.) A fuss broke out in Chapala after the new malecon was named for the outgoing governor last month. (PAN was just voted out of city hall in Chapala after disastrous back-to-back terms and Lake Chapala has improved slightly in spite of government inaction.) New PAN governor Emilio Gonzalez Marquez won fewer votes in Jalisco than Felipe Calderon and only a deeply-negative campaign kept the state from going PRI.

Although perceived as a law-and-order guy, Paco willing broke the rules when it served his purposes. After a new transparency law was passed, he refused to show his paycheque - as required - to a constituent.

But Paco backed Felipe Calderon back in 2004, going against the PAN establishment - and Cardenas. And now Paco's collecting.

Oft Underestimated Calderon Could Accomplish What Fox Couldn't

Felipe Calderon isn't really the most inspiring figure, but the man shows good political instincts. He also seems to think before speaking - unlike President Vicente Fox. He might actually accomplish a few things in his sexenio - like work constructively with congress. I penned an article on the man and his ascent to power for World Politics Watch. Check it out here.