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

From World Politics Review

By David Agren

MEXICO CITY – Federal officials used the word, “Historic,” to describe the May 26 detentions of 28 public officials, including 10 mayors, in the western state of Michoacán for having alleged links to La Familia, a drug cartel known for running extortion rackets, producing methamphetamines and corrupting municipal governments.

Opposition politicians and some political observers, meanwhile, expressed disquiet with the destitutions and questioned the timing of the federal action, which claimed mayors from the three main parties – including a pair from President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party (PAN) – and came barely five weeks before the July 5 midterm elections. They also noted the arrests coincidentally took place in Calderón’s home state, where the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) wields power and the president and the PAN have yet to establish an electoral powerbase.

For his part, PRD Michoacán Gov. Leonel Godoy, who objected to masked federal agents bursting unannounced into state government offices to arrest senior judicial advisers, called the actions, “A hostile act.” He would later say that the federal government never informed him of the crackdown – nor even gave him a courtesy call.

Such is the politically charged state of Mexico’s war on narcotics-trafficking cartels – which has claimed more than 10,000 lives since Calderón took office in December 2006, seen soldiers sent into the streets and left parts of the country virtually ungovernable – that the arrests of allegedly corrupted local officials and the disruption of a cartel-operated influence network descended into a partisan matter.

The arrests continued a string of recent high-profile arrests that have nabbed regional cartel leaders and severely weakened La Familia, a cartel suspected of infiltrating many of the 113 municipal governments in Michoacán. It also followed the arrests of several senior officials in the PAN government of Morelos state for alleged ties to organized crime.

But the Michoacán arrests came during a federal election in which the PAN is gunning for an improbable majority in the lower house of Congress that would allow Calderón to expand on his agenda of economic and public security reforms during the latter half of his six-year term. It would also allow the president to depend less on the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has played kingmaker during the three-year legislature the ended regular sessions on April 30 and will be replaced on Sept. 1.

“The president would like to close his administration with more political capital to negotiate with the other parties,” said Pedro Isnardo de la Cruz, a security expert and political analyst at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

But a weak economy appears to have severely diminished PAN political fortunes over the winter. In February, a poll published by the newspaper El Universal gave the PRI a 15-point advantage over the PAN and suggested that the PRI – which has sold itself as an experienced operator in times of economic and public security crises – on the cusp on gaining a majority. Shortly thereafter, the public security issue surged to the forefront, compliments of a series of blistering attacks on the PRI from PAN president Germán Martínez.

Martínez, a close Calderón collaborator and Michoacán native, portrayed the PRI as a half-hearted partner in the war against organized crime for not embracing legislative initiatives presented by the president that included measures for seizing the assets of those affiliated with organized crime, creating a unified federal police force, and making law enforcement at all levels responsible for cracking down on small-time drug dealers. (All three initiatives were eventually approved, but with modifications to address PRD concerns over potential human rights violations and PRI concerns that the federal government was infringing on the jurisdiction of state governments, which are overwhelmingly run by PRI governors.)

But Martínez went further by blaming the escalating drug violence on previous PRI governments that he said had failed to crackdown on narcotics-trafficking cartels and possibly brokered deals to either co-opt the cartels or keep a lid on drug violence.

PRI officials rejected all the allegations of unseemly relations with narcotics-trafficking cartels, but the PAN strategy has revived the governing party’s fortunes and may stop a potential runaway PRI victory. Political science professor Federico Estévez of the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) says the PAN attacks hurt the PRI because “the [PRI] National Leadership is wishy-washy on this issue,” and “has talked out of both sides of its mouth.”

The PRI still tops most public opinion polls for the July 5 election, but the race is competitive. A poll published June 9 by El Universal gave the party a five-point advantage over the PAN, while the left-wing PRD ran a distant third at just 11 percent.

It remains to be seen how the politicizing the public security issue plays out, but de la Cruz says the president’s strategy could prove “counterproductive” if state governors from opposition parties shy away fully backing federal initiatives.

“Some governors have let it be known that they’re no longer willing to fight [the war on drugs] with the federal government,” he said.

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.

Independents frozen out of elections

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

Elisa de Anda wanted to run for a Chamber of Deputies seat in the July 5 midterm elections as an independent candidate. The recent law school graduate and Coyoacán native met many of the prerequisites: she was of legal age, a Mexican citizen and no criminal record. She says that no skeletons could have come tumbling out of her closet ahead of election day. She even drafted an electoral platform that touched on issues such as the re-election of lawmakers.

But on May 2, her candidate application was rejected by the local office of the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, in District 23. Apparently, she lacked one thing: the backing of one of the country's eight registered political parties. The IFE also rejected at least 15 other independent candidacies from other parts of the country, according to de Anda, who has now taken her fight for inclusion on the ballot to the electoral tribunal. A ruling is expected within days.De Anda's fight to be an independent candidate highlights the enormous influence that political parties wield over the electoral system and the unwillingness of the political elite to permit the participation of potential wildcard candidates who could bring their own resources and personal popularity to election campaigns.

Her struggle also highlights another potential shortcoming of the 2007 electoral reforms, which technically allow for the participation of independent candidates, but makes such candidacies all but impossible.

"It's a party cartel system," said ITAM political science professor Federico Estévez."

It has been the case from the outset of the political reform in electoral matters . [that] independent candidates in federal elections are not allowed. They must be nominated by a party."

Only the southeastern state of Yucatán allows independent candidates in gubernatorial, legislative and municipal elections. And one independent candidate, Adonay Avila Sierra, captured the May 2007 mayoral race in Yobaín. Some indigenous villages, particularly in Oaxaca, employ traditional governance system based on "usos y costumbres," or uses and customs, that often doesn't involve mainstream political parties - or any party at all.

Writing in a non-registered candidate's name is also possible, but the IFE never divulges who receives the most informal support. Estévez suspects that electoral officials might be embarrassed to acknowledge how many votes telenovela stars and figures such as the pontificating television clown Brozo receive.

PARTY POWER
The eight political parties enjoy enormous economic and legal power in Mexico's political system, which has only become competitive over the past 20 years with the loosening of the Institutional Revolutionary Party's grip.

Competition came, in part, through electoral reforms that included the introduction of lawmakers being elected through a proportional representation system known as the "plurinominal" in the late 1970s. The mixed political system - having 300 members elected from districts to the Chamber, while having another 200 members elected through the plurinominal - makes independent candidacies difficult, according to ITAM political science professor Jeffrey Weldon. "Proportional representation is designed to be distributed among parties," he said.

The electoral reforms approved in late 2007 only strengthened the parties even more. The new rules gave exclusive access to the radio and TV airwaves for promotional purposes. Advocacy groups and individuals cannot buy airtime to promote public policy issues because that could be interpreted as an attack on a registered party.

Even if independents like de Anda could register, her ability to promote her candidacy would be limited. And the parties, which receive all radio and TV airtime free of charge, have another advantage: money. The eight parties will split more than 3.5 billion pesos in public funding this year.Still, de Anda finds no issue with having strong, well-funded political parties; she only objects to the current electoral rules, which she says violate Article 35 of the Constitution."

Parties are fundamental pillars of our democracy, but they should be the vehicle for citizen participation," de Anda said.

NOT THE FIRST
Article 35 states that all citizens have the right to vote and to "be elected." But aspiring independent candidates have been frozen out of the political process in recent years - even though such candidates were common in the first half of the last century.

Discount pharmaceutical baron Víctor González Torres, better known as Dr. Simi, launched an unregistered independent candidacy in early 2006 after the Federal Electoral Tribunal, or Trife, denied him the presidential nomination of the party then known as Alternativa. (It is now called the Social Democratic Party, or PSD.) Even with his vast personal resources, Dr. Simi failed to make much of an impact; it's unknown how many people wrote his name on the ballot.

More prominently, former Foreign Relations Secretary Jorge Castañeda attempted to run as an independent candidate in the 2006 presidential election. The IFE denied his request in 2004, so he petitioned the Supreme Court for an injunction known as an "amparo" against parts of the electoral code. The Supreme Court ruled against him, saying, in part, that it lacked jurisdiction to rule on the matter.

Castañeda ended up without his desired candidacy in 2006, but he took his case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which is based in Costa Rica. The court ruled last summer that his rights had been violated, but, according to a Foreign Relations Secretariat press release, the court also said that the 2007 electoral reforms had rectified some of his initial grievances.

Still, the court asked that some laws be modified to clarify jurisdictional issues on the subject of independent candidacies and that Castañeda receive compensation for his legal expenses. No laws have been modified since the ruling, and Castañeda told reporters in January that he was still awaiting compensation.

DIFFERENT APPROACH
De Anda says that she has not been in contact with Castañeda and has found some faults with his legal strategy of pursuing an amparo. Instead, she has taken her case to the Trife, which acts as a final referee in political and electoral matters."

For the first time, the electoral tribunal is going to have to rule if the [electoral code] is violating a constitutional or human right, than any of us can be voted for," she said.

Analysts differ on de Anda's prospects for success. ITAM's Weldon has his doubts because the Constitution also gives rights to political parties and the nature of the tribunal, which only adjudicates electoral and political matters and interprets the electoral code. "They're really not supposed to make major constitutional decisions," Weldon said.

Mining union rocked by dissent

BY DAVID AGREN The News

The nation's mine and metalworkers union on Thursday announced the five-year suspension of a former political affairs director and two state-level directors for "treasonous acts" that threatened the leadership of its exiled secretary-general Napoleón Gómez Urrutia.

The union's National Executive Committee, or CEN, branded former political affairs director Carlos Pavón - the union's ex-spokesman and previously the most vocal defender of Gómez Urrutia - and the state directors in Chihuahua and Zacatecas as "traitors" for supposedly using money from mining companies to organize meetings in an attempt to split the labor organization. Pavón was also accused of having cozy relations with officials from the Labor Secretariat and mining giant Grupo México.

Union spokesman Juan Luis Zuñiga failed to provide proof of the allegations at a Thursday press conference, but said that "sources" inside of unnamed firms provided the information. Zuñiga called Pavón's supposed actions "an attempt to destroy the union from within."

Pavón has denied any disloyalty and has demanded the union back up its charges. But in an interview earlier this week with El Financiero he acknowledged having had differences with his former union colleagues, whom he accused of putting the interests of Gómez Urrutia and the union boss' political and legal struggle ahead of the interests of miners.

He called Gómez Urrutia, who has been residing in Canada in self-imposed exile for more than two years, "a burden on the union."

The purge reflects the ongoing dissent over Gómez Urrutia's leadership that threatens to tear the labor organization apart. It also follows a string of unfavorable court rulings, the arrests of senior officials - including Pavón, who was charged with fraud - and the filing of a petition to have Gómez Urrutia sent back to Mexico to face fraud and embezzlement charges pertaining to the management of a $55 million trust fund. He denies the charges.

Chapters in Chihuahua have already broken away from the union, which Pavón says is cash-strapped and being asphyxiated due to the government freezing its assets.

The miners also have lost battles with the Labor Secretariat over the leadership of Gómez Urrutia, whose authority it refuses to recognize - and a 20-month strike at a Grupo México copper mine in Cananea, Sonora.

Gómez Urrutia has long accused the federal government of attacking both him and the union at the behest of Grupo México. Grupo México has rejected those assertions.

According to labor expert Aldo Muñoz at the Universidad Iberoamericana, the struggle between Gómez Urrutia and Grupo México dates back to earlier this decade, when Gómez Urrutia inherited the union from his father and began winning large contracts for his members that mining companies found objectionable.

The federal government developed a dislike for Gómez Urrutia after he helped derail possible labor reforms, Muñoz said.

He said he expects the union-government struggle to continue for about a year or maybe longer. But eventually, he said, "It's most likely that [the government] will twist the union's arm. It's a very unfair fight."

Are rules about flu illegitimate?

Most campaigns called off large rallies due to the flu outbreak, but not AMLO, who is receiving IFE scrutiny for this gathering in Tabasco ...

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

Andrés Manuel López Obrador hit the campaign trail on Wednesday, holding rallies that appeared to violate recommendations issued by the Health Secretariat regarding large public gatherings.

The Web site of López Obrador's "legitimate government" reported that 2,000 followers attended an event in Tamulté de las Sabanas, Tabasco, where the left-wing firebrand politicized the flu issue, pressed the flesh and opted not to wear a mask.

"The usurper government has abandoned the people and for that simple reason, these epidemics affect the Mexican population," López Obrador said. President Felipe Calderón, he added, "Alarmed people through the media and spread fear among Mexicans."

By convening campaign events this week in Tabasco and Chiapas and blaming the federal government for the impact of flu outbreak, López Obrador is once again courting controversy with electoral officials, political rivals and even members of his own Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.

The Health Secretariat has established rules for campaigns: no large gatherings and only small events, to be held between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. But López Obrador brushed off suggestions from reporters that he was being reckless during a health crisis, telling them, "I only came to pass out pamphlets."

The rules may not technically apply, as López Obrador is not actually running in the July 5 midterm elections that will renew the 500-seat Chamber of Deputies and see municipal and gubernatorial changes. Instead, he plans to hold rallies and broadcast advertisements across the country - except in Mexico City and Tabasco, from which he hails - for candidates from the Labor Party/Convergence party coalition known as Let's Save Mexico.

In the capital and Tabasco, he plans to campaign on behalf of the PRD.

César Yáñez, a spokesman for López Obrador, told The News earlier this week that the current campaign was launched to ensure that the coalition parties win at least 2 percent support, enough to maintain registration with the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, and ensure subsidies of more than 1 billion pesos over the next three years.

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.