By RICARDO CASTILLO “Iron Lady” Named Tax Collector Raquel Buenrostro Sánchez was appointed as Mexico’s new Tributary Administration Service (SAT) director on Thursday, Dec. 18, by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). She replaces Margarita Ríos-Farjat, now the 11th member of the Supreme Court of the Nation. Buenrostro (whose last name literally means Good Face) was promoted to the
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Everyone was expecting a second upstaging of Mexican President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador by the former teachers’ union leader Elba Esther Gordillo on Sunday, Aug. 19, and Monday, Aug. 20. The first upstaging came on Aug. 8, when Elba Esther was exonerated by a judge of all charges that had kept her a prisoner in a federal
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By RICARDO CASTILLO With the Mexican elections now fully underway in a race for a total of 3,416 different posts, it is worth taking the time to look back on history and see how the country got this far into democracy, as well as reviewing the odd shape of the political alliances of nine parties into three separate
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By RICARDO CASTILLO It is said in Mexican political jargon that if the river is making noise, it’s because water is running. In this case, the rumor bouncing around everywhere in Mexico is that the President Enrique Peña Nieto administration is preparing to commit a “mega-fraud” in the traditional style of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) for the upcoming July 1
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By RICARDO CASTILLO In the ongoing Mexican election campaign battle, it’s supposed to be time for the lull before the storm. Except, it isn’t. During this intermediate period between the pre-campaign that came from Dec. 14 to Feb. 11, pre-candidates made known their intentions of running for office. Right now, in the “inter-campaigns” period, the now officially nominated candidates are not allowed to
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Some Mexicans just don’t like the way the electoral procedure is being carried out by the National Electoral Institute (INE). The problem is that those disgruntled Mexicans are blaming the INE for what they perceive as irregularities in the process, but the procedure was designed by Congress, and the only way out of this long and
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Just five months away from Mexico’s July 1 presidential election, the contending hopefuls are pretty much well-defined. Nevertheless, it’s worth a recap on the ongoing procedures as outlined by the National Electoral Institute (INE) to know the order of things and the rules of the game at hand. The INE programed the electoral calendar to take place in
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In a nine-party political system like Mexico’s, the entire process for the 2018 presidential election is quite sui generis
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