Blogging the democratic revolution
Relations have been strained between Mexico and Venezuela since the conclusion of the free trade summit of the Americas. The precise issue at stake: Free Trade. This Sunday, Chavez on his radio program launched a huge hurl of insults directed at President Vicente Fox, resulting in demands from Mexico for an apology within 24 hours: Academic Elephant puts it best here: President Fox has demanded a formal apology and threatened to downgrade diplomatic relations with Caracas. Good for him. Chavez should learn that not all of central and Latin America will roll over for his petrodollars and that his gross…
In the post-Summit-of-the-Americas, wake, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has lashed out at Mexican President Vicente Fox, publicly hurling a slew of insults at the unexpected star of the Argentina gathering. Fox was so brilliant and forceful in his advocacy of free trade for the Americas that he actually did manage to draw a few cameras away from the Argentina rent-a-mob smashing shops amid exhortations by Chavez, through his own considerable star power. That was a disaster for Chavez. Now, the Venezuelan dictator has struck back. Chavez does this as Mexico is in the throes of an election to be held…
Felipe Calderon’s entry into the Mexican presidential race for 2006 creates a whole new dynamic in the election. It’s something I’ve believed since the beginning. Calderon is from the right-leaning PAN party, same as incumbent President Vicente Fox, but he comes across as a different player because he wasn’t Fox’s choice as successor. Fox himself is viewed as a disappointment by many Mexicans for his failure to really reform the country. He’s not an utter disaster but there’s nothing worse than soured hopes from a man who was brought to office as Mexico’s first opposition candidate in over 70 years…
An international panel ruled that the Mexican government cannot prevent former foreign minister Jorge Castaneda from running for president as an independent in 2006. Castaneda is a former NYU professor who, although distinctively left-leaning, is on the DEMOCRATIC left, and more to the point, is not a muddlehead. He wrote the first scathing biography of Che Guevara to his great credit and for that, Castro has never forgiven him. If I were Mexican, I might not vote for him because of disagreements on ideology but I would appreciate the chance to vote for him as one candidate among many. I…
Boz has a fascinating collection of polls from around the Americas in several countries signalling the political temperatures in assorted hot spots like Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and others, all put together in a clean roundup of news. Don’t miss the weird Argentine soccer poll at the bottom. Well worth a click here.
A young Mexican politician, Gabriela Cuevas Barron, 26, is fighting the onslaught of Hugo Chavez-style communism in Mexico by opposing the candidacy of leftwing PRD presidential contender Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. She continually exposes his sorry record – the bribes, the payoffs, the padded invoices, the neglected police services, the welfare handouts, and the corruption. She dogs him with lawsuits, press briefings, photographs, inconvenient questions in congress – and anything else that will expose his way of business. What is she doing? Something called democracy. Mexico’s angry voters need to understand the extent of the existing corruption with AMLO so…
Nobody uncovers weird stuff like Boli-Nica, but this time, the weird stuff has left him flabbergasted. Subcommandante Marcos, the white-skinned, blue-eyed Latin American Idiot who says he’s really (deep down) an indigenous Indian from the Lacandon Rain Forest in Chiapas making 1960s-style ersatz commie ‘revolution’ has a new obsession, are you ready: Penguins. He’s slopped them all over his Web site and babbles endlessly about standing tall and straight like a rainforest penguin as he prepares to challenge the Mexican political establishment. Boli-Nica, for one, thinks the guy has gone Kurtz on us. Too much time in the jungle. Ate…
The words of Mexican communist novelist Carlos Fuentes. Coming from him, it’s pretty damning. Obviously, he can’t stand the guy, and among other leftists, he’s influential. Hugo Chavez, beware. Not even the communists are sticking up for you now. Read it here.
Miguel has an item out from a Mexican newspaper reporting that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez may have shipped weapons to Mexican Marxist guerrillas, bought with funds from Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s office, who is now running for president of Mexico. Via Havana. AMLO denies he knew anything about it, but that’s not impressive because he is not famous for accountability. If the news is true, it’s an extremely dangerous development. Read it here. UPDATE: Here is my own analysis on American Thinker here.
Under white-hot political pressure, Mexico’s attorney general dropped charges against Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, freeing the Mexico City mayor to run for president of the nation in 2006. The intent is to cap a flaming political crisis. They now say the Mexican standoff is over. Let’s see… Read it in the Spanish-language press here.
After hundreds of thousands protested in Mexico this weekend in defense of Obrador, Fox announced the resignation of the attorney general. MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s attorney general has stepped down, in an apparent attempt to free President Vicente Fox’s government from a controversial legal battle with a popular leftist mayor. Rafael Macedo de la Concha led a campaign that stripped Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of immunity so he could stand trial on charges that he defied court orders in a land dispute. If Lopez Obrador is found guilty, he could be blocked from running in next year’s…
The battle over the impeachment of Mexico City’s popular leftist mayor is heating up, with demonstrations planned for Sunday. They are hoping to get up to 400,000 people. A rally planned for Mexico’s capital city on Sunday could prove the defining moment in the complicated legal tangle involving Andr????s Manuel L????pez Obrador, Mexico City’s popular leftwing mayor and presidential aspirant. There are two possible outcomes. A big, non-violent ???????silent march??????? the mayor’s strategists hope for 400,000 protesters would show the nation that popular support is not waning for Mr L????pez Obrador, who faces arrest on a contempt-of-court charge. Demonstrations are…
Here’s a news editorial pointing out that the roots of Mexico’s revolution right now is not in the existence of the Marxist PRD but in the lack of leadership of President Vicente Fox’s PAN party. That’s what fuelling Mexico’s growing protests. Maybe Vicente Fox should wise up before the next Hugo Chavez mini-me steps in to take over. Read it here.
This just in from Mexico: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist populist mayor of Mexico City, unequivocally denies he is another Hugo Chavez. I don’t think he’s telling the truth, he is running for president after all, but how interesting it is, in his quest for votes, that he feels a need to deny any association with Hugo Chavez. Obviously, word has gotten around in Mexico. This corresponds to another story, seen yesterday about views that Chile’s OAS candidate has received the ‘kiss of death‘ by getting Hugo Chavez’s endorsement. Clearly some kind of critical mass is building in this…
Even if you don’t speak Spanish you can probably figure out what this cartoon, posted by Mexican blogger Cosme Hace says. I laughed when the cartoon comparison was made between Lopez Obrador and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Lopez Obrador was described as not another Chavez because he wasn’t ‘frivolous and stupid’ enough. Obviously, Hugo Chavez’s acquired a certain image around Latin America we all might not be aware of. Check it out here.
I wrote an essay on the political situation in Mexico for American Thinker this morning and I have never gotten a greater reaction to anything else I have ever written. I am stunned. This morning they put it on RealClearPolitics.com. It’s time to step up coverage of Mexico. Read it here or here. Reuters has quoted it here. And a California newspaper has it cited here. Oh my!
With elections next year, the U.S. faces the possibility that its next door neighbor, Mexico, may elect a Saguaro Chavez – bringing a far-left regime like Hugo Chavez’s of Venezuela right to our border. In which case, we will empathize more than ever with Colombia, but might not have much time for it. Because given the scope of already existing problems with Mexico (the border, the aliens, the drugs, the weak Mexican economy, the peso), their multiplication with a far-left regime whose leading candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a free-spending mayor of Mexico City, is almost too much to think…