By RICARDO CASTILLO Sunday night television is never prime-time viewing in Mexico. But last Sunday, May 20, ratings were through the roof on a double-header featuring first the Mexican Soccer League championship game between the Torreón Saints and Toluca Red Devils, and, later, the second of three presidential debates, this time featuring the “Fantastic Four” hopefuls. In case you’re interested, the Saints became
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Independent presidential candidate Margarita Zavala finally gave up on her aspirations of becoming the first woman president of Mexico. Last Wednesday, May 16, she made the announcement during a TV talkshow where she was featured as the only interviewee. Her resignation caught nearly everyone off guard as the National Electoral Institute (INE) made it plain and clear
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Last Sunday, May 6, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) presidential candidate José Antonio Meade Kuribreña made a second launching of his floundering campaign. The change came perhaps too late, just 50 days before Mexico’s July 1 election. The fact is that until then, Meade – seen as an honest and indeed enthusiastic candidate – was one of a group of
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO It’s been more than one month of presidential electoral campaign and about the only thing that is certain is that the political trend of the candidates has not budged. But now voters are busy again as the campaigns for Congress, nine state governors and municipal mayors officially kicked off on April 28, so expect that the publicity lambasting
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO The good news is that more Mexicans are – at long last – interested in a presidential race. The figures for some foreign observers may not be impressive, but, locally, the audience participation results of last Sunday’s debate issued by the National Electoral Institute (INE) showed that 11.4 million Mexicans watched it and that two out of every
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO The one sentence that pops out of the first Mexican presidential debate on the evening of last Sunday, April 22, was from the oldest of the candidates, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) was forecast in my Pulse News Mexico column last week: “You’re ganging up on me” he told the other four presidential hopefuls. (“Me están echando montón”
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO The stage is set, and all of Mexico is listening. At the last minute, the country’s National Electoral Institute (INE) announced the format for the first debate among presidential hopefuls slated for the evening of this coming Sunday, April 22. The debate will be nationally broadcast on both radio and television. The INE was forced to make shifts in the
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Three issues are beleaguering the ongoing Mexican presidential election. One is the approval by the Electoral Court of the candidacy of now-fifth competitor Jaime “El Bronco” Rodríguez as an independent candidate on the presidential electoral ballot. Second is the 70th birthday party of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari last week, and, finally, third, the apparent demise of
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has been down in the polls for so long that he’d forgotten what it felt like being up. That sensation, however, somewhat eased last week as he delivered a speech politely calling upon U.S. President Donald Trump to reign back his egregious horses. The reaction to his speech was monumental. Immediately, every
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Tweeting Donald began his latest tirade against Mexico last Monday, April 2. when he warned that a new threat was impending over the poor, helpless USA because the Mexican government was allowing a “caravan of Hondurans” to cross into Mexico and that caravan was heading for the northern border. And, once again, POTUS threatened to cancel Mexico’s “milk cow,”
Read more