By RICARDO CASTILLO The new Chamber of Deputies president, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, is a master of political discourse and parliamentary procedures. During the “installation” (to use the Mexican term for inauguration) of the two houses of Congress last Saturday, Sept. 1, Porfirio, at age 85, presided over the inaugural process of the 64th Legislature. And in so doing, he showed his experience
Read more
A Change of Face
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Keen insider observers consider that the first gathering of the disperse National Action Party (PAN) at its headquarters in Colonia Del Valle in Mexico City on Saturday, Aug. 10, looked more like a witches’ black sabbath than a political reunion. It became clear that “the spells” to bring “party unity” came from as many as six different
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO Slowly but surely, Mexico is preparing for the inevitable upcoming political transition. The surge of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) political party from scratch to the most powerful party in the country in a four-year period caught everyone by surprise. Suddenly, the political scene is confronted again with a one-party system, which has not been seen in Mexico since the 1970s,
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO It’s been barely a month since Mexican President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) won the July 1 election, and he is already raising eyebrows — not so much for his victory, but because some of the nominations he has made. Particularly grabbing attention are the appointments of several persons to his energy management cabinet. Definitely, the least
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO It may be an inexact science, but it’s in the air in Mexico these days. In colloquial Spanish, it’s called “rumorología,” which literally translates in English to “rumor-ology.” The flood of rumors preceding the upcoming Sunday, July 1, election is massive. The loudest rumor is that there is a mega-fraud in the making to put the “official”
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO This week before the Sunday, July 1, presidential election reminds me of the same period back in 2006. At that time, I had been appointed by the then-Federal Electoral Institute – now National Electoral Institute (INE) – to be second aboard in a populous booth located in Colonia Roma in Mexico City. Back then this same period of
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO In 2012, Enrique Peña Nieto won the presidential election representing the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), defeating Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) by a narrow, but credible, margin of 38 to 32 percent of the general vote count. Unlike in the aftermath of the 2006 election when AMLO lost to National Action Party
Read more
By RICARDO CASTILLO A small incident provoked by a well-known journalist highlighted a problem that is beleaguering the current Mexican electoral process. Over the past weekend, the news that political columnist Ricardo Alemán had been fired by two television stations was news. Curiously enough, Alemán was not fired for any content in his two political programs. He was fired for forwarding
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