By RICARDO CASTILLO AMLO and Governors Powwow Mexico’s 32 governors are giddying up to meet on Wednesday, Aug. 19, with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in San Luis Potosí. Previous to the in-person summit, a group of 10 governors known as the Federalist Alliance video conferenced on Saturday, Aug. 15, to outline a plan of discussion with the president.
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Three Executives Resign on AMLO After three women government executives resigned their posts on Friday, June 19, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) retorted: “All those who are not in agreement with the Fourth Transformation should consider resigning too.” AMLO also questioned the existence of some organizations that “sprouted like mushrooms” in past administrations, and now
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Officially, the calendar for Mexico’s 2021 midterm elections kicks off in October. But let there be no doubt that since President Andrés Manuel Lopez Abrader (AMLO) had his press secretary, Jesús Ramirez, read aloud the Broad Opposition Front (BOA) anonymous document, he either inadvertently or shrewdly kicked off the electoral year debate. For background, please read my
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Ever since Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) made public his receiving of the anonymous document BOA (initials in Spanish for Broad Opposition Bloc), talk about his suggestion that the country adopt a two-party political system has broke loose. As in all things, there are those in favor and those against, but most agree that the
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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 It was 30 years ago that Mexico took a veritable turn towards becoming a democratic system. At the time, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) still ruled the nation. Yet the man who became president on Dec. 1, 1988, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, noticed that the lights had changed and that the PRI had to let go of
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Three curious things happened during the first week of Mexico’s 64th Congress with the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM) known for short as the Green Party. The Green Party, or whatever’s left of it, is now administered by former Senator and now-Deputy Carlos Puente, who during the introduction of the new parties last Sept. 1 at the
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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
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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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