By RICARDO CASTILLO

Debt Restructuring Plan

The Mexican Treasury and the National Banking and Stocks Commission (CNBV) launched a national debt relief package to help borrowers and banks alike during the covid-19 pandemic-provoked economic crisis.

The plan includes a downsizing of the agreed-upon interest rate and reduces the monthly amount borrowers are currently paying.

All news arrangement will have to be agreed upon between lending banks and borrowing customers.

The plan, which went into effect Wednesday, Sept. 23, is aimed at Mexico’s nearly 9 million bank debtors who registered last April to participate in the first leg of this program, which includes credit cards, financing for small- and medium-sized businesses and mortgages, among other types of debt.

The relief may also include downsizing the negotiated interest rate by as much as 25 percent, as well as the size of monthly payments to accommodate borrowers’ payment capabilities.

said the first Mexican program to provide debt relief, which included payment postponement periods, has met its goal.

With the new restructuring, banks are offering relief to customers and preventing delinquent accounts.

Herrera said this is not the end of the line in the growing debt crisis, which endangers the entire Mexican banking system.

“We still have to think of additional measures that will allow for a reordering of the upset Mexican financial system,” he said.

Two Mexicans Make Time’s Top 100

Time magazine included two Mexican women among its most influential personalities list this week.

One of them was Veracruz feminist Arussi Unda, who leads a group called Brujas del Mar (Witches of the Sea).

On March 8, Unda successfully convoked “a day without a woman” stoppage that rallied most Mexican women under the motto “if we stop, the world stops.”

Indeed it did.

The second woman on the Time list was chef Gabriela Cámara, described by the magazine as “a culinary diplomat” due to her robust personality, as well as her classic, but updated Mexican recipes.

FRENA at the Zócalo

Several hundred members of the National Front to Stop AMLO (FRENA) were allowed to move their occupation of Avenida Juárez to Mexico City’s main square, the Zócalo, on Wednesday, Sept. 23.

FRENA leader Gilberto Lozano said that the group was forced to take over Avenida Juárez Avenue – where it spent five days – because it was not allowed to take the Zócalo by city riot police.

“Our plans were to take the Zócalo, not to occupy a street,” Lozano told reporters.

“Now, with the support of federal judges, we have manage dto make it to this public square.” 

The FRENA protestors were permitted to set up their tent city at the Zócalo, but far away from the National Palace, where Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) lives.

No other visible leaders were present but Lozano, when asked about how long they would stay, he answer “until López Obrador leaves power, even if it is until 2024” when the President finishes his six-year mandate. (For more on the issue check out my article Have a Coke and Watch AMLO vs the Devil.)

Anaya, Under Surveillance

No sooner had former National Action Party (PAN) presidential candidate Ricardo Anaya Cortés announced his return to politics last week than Mexico’s Finance Intelligence Unit (UIF) Director Santiago Nieto announced that Anaya was under fiscal and criminal investigation.

Nieto explained that Anaya’s name popped up in the accusations made against some 70 individuals by former Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) Director Emilio Lozoya for allegedly having received a 6 million-peso bribe to support, as a federal deputy, former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s Energy Reform.

“We’re checking him out,” Nieto said.

Morena Holds First Poll

The incumbent National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party began its arduous process to select a president to lead it through the 2021 midterm elections.

The National Electoral Institute (INE) hired several professional pollsters to carry out 4,500 interviews with party militants.

The objective was to bring down the number of 51 current hopefuls who registered to run for the post to just six in order to have a final ballot.

The polls are carried out in the midst of a battle of disqualifications among the hopefuls. 

A second poll will be held starting Oct. 6.

The INE allotted a 20.9 million-peso budget to finance the Morena internal election.

The current poll is due to end on Monday, Sept. 28.

Governors Meet in CDMX

Ten state governors, all members of the Federalist Alliance, met in Mexico City with the sole purpose of pressuring the Treasury Secretariat to sue in case their pleas for increased funds in the 2021 federal budget go unheeded.

Michoacán Governor Silvano Aureoles pointed out at a press conference after the meet that all the governors expect “a favorable response” from Treasury Secretary Arturo Herrera.

If not, he said, “we’ll take him to court” because “we are not panhandling” for monies that belong to each of the states.

AMLO Will Name Names

On a separate issue at the Federalist Alliance gathering, Chihuahua Governor Javier Corral announced that the federal government “broke away” from collaborating on state security with his government.

Corral said the move was “a reprisal” because of his unconformity with delivering water stored at the La Boquilla reservoir to the United States, as stipulated in the binational 1944 Water Treaty.

About the water, on Thursday, Sept. 24, AMLO said that the following day he would make public the fact that about 100 people occupying the reservoir’s main gate have destroyed the federal facility.

AMLO said he would make public the name of “the one family” hoarding the bulk of the reservoir’s water for their pecan tree plantations.

Corral has declared himself in open rebellion against the federal government.

…Sept. 25, 2020