By RICARDO CASTILLO A Call to Civil Disobedience TVAzteca anchorman Javier Alatorre in the station’s nightly newscast “Hechos” (“Facts”)created a humongous scandal on Friday, April 17, after claiming the following: “As every night, Health Undersecretary Hugo López-Gatell led the (press) conference on Covid-19 in Mexico. But his figures and his conferences have become irrelevant. Furthermore, and to put it plainly,
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By RICARDO CASTILLO There are two ways of looking at Mexico’s 2021 midterm elections: On the one hand, there will be the anticipated participation of the country’s seven existing political parties. On the other, there are still-undetermined organizations seeking registration with the National Electoral Institute (INE), and it is not clear whether they will get in or not. According to
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Additional Tag-ons to the USMCA No sooner had U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to the House of Representatives for a vote on Friday, Dec. 13, than Democratic Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MA) introduced initiative HR5430, which tags five U.S. inspectors to oversee union elections in private companies in Mexico. Immediately, Mexico’s USMCA
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By RICARDO CASTILLO AMLO Throws Himself a Party Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) attracted over 70,000 cheering fans at Mexico City’s main square, El Zócalo, on Sunday, Dec. 1. They all came to hear him review his first year in office, as well as see how he has managed to comply with 89 of his 100 electoral campaign
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By RICARDO CASTILLO There’s an old Mexican adage that says that it is cheaper to make a poor deal than to fight a great fight. This might seem to be exactly what happened in the negotiations headed by Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) Director Manuel Bartlett Díaz and seven gas pipeline companies that signed contracts for gas ducts with the
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By RICARDO CASTILLO The frictional mood at Mexico’s majority political party, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), became evident on Monday, Aug. 19, as current Senate leader Martí Batres Guadarrama lost his bid for reelection to Mónica Fernández Balboa by 33 to 29 votes. Should all go well, Fernández Balboa will be confirmed next week and begin her position as Senate
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By RICARDO CASTILLO There are two facts of life about Mexican democracy: One, it is run and operated by an autonomous organization, the National Electoral Institute (INE), and two, it is one of the most expensive government-subsidized democracies in the world. At this time of year, it is relevant to take the above-mentioned facts into consideration because at the
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By RICARDO CASTILLO The candidates of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO)National Regeneration Movement (Morena) for the states of Baja California and Puebla, Jaime Bonilla Valdez and Miguel Barbosa Huerta, respectively, walked away with resounding victories over their competitors for the gubernatorial races on Sunday, June 2. In Baja California, a state that had been governed by the conservative
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By RICARDO CASTILLO After a long and weary debate on the night of Wednesday, April 24, that extended into the wee hours of Thursday, April 25, Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies voted to abolish the Education Reform “imposed” by former President Enrique Peña Nieto in 2013. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) celebrated the backing he received from this house of Congress
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Ninety years ago today, on March 4, 1929, Mexican history took a turn to become the nation it is today. Modern Mexican history began with the foundation of the National Revolutionary Party (PNR), a political organization that would change name in 1940 to the Party of the Mexican Revolution and in 1945 to what it is today
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