Blogging the democratic revolution
Boli-Nica at Boli-Nica blog has a humdinger of an item about how the Mexican Internet and all its youthful users have roared into life, slamming Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and all his absurd efforts to derail Mexico’s hard-won democracy. Among other things, the Mexican Internet-os are deriding AMLO for failing to learn English! They’re sending e-mails out, setting up Web sites at lightening speed to make fun of the guy and in a less classy move, some are hacking into AMLO’s site, re-directing it to a less flattering one. They are photoshopping AMLO like crazy and making mean little YouTubes…
Supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gather to protest in Mexico City Source: El Universal Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who lost Mexico’s July 2 presidential election by a narrow margin, has brought his supporters to the streets in a bid to overturn the election, on claims of fraud. The AMLO party, PRD, has yet to substantiate its claim that the election has been conducted in any way other than exemplarily. Observers from the European Union and other places have said it was clean. I was in Tijuana for the election and the AMLO party (PRD) observer also…
Mexico’s next president, Felipe Calderon Source: Agencia EFE, via Yahoo! Mexico Free-Market Felipe Calderon wins the race Source: El Universal Continued from this earlier Publius Pundit post here. El Universal has the final count here, along with AMLO’s statement that he won’t accept the result. Here we go again! It’s just like Monday! Mexican markets are going hog wild with happiness! Boli-Nica has an interesting essay on the election here and the need to pay attention to Mexico, here. Miami Herald is reporting that Mexico’s election agency is taking a lot of heat from AMLO people who don’t like the…
AMLO’s supporters out demonstrating in Mexico City Source: El Universal (Mexico) There’s no news link, just a wire report that’s not out on the Internet yet. AMLO is leading in the Mexican presidential election official count with 35% of the polling stations officially counted already. The first “quick count” results said that Felipe Calderon had won. Now, the PREP, or summary, results, which are being tallied now, say that AMLO is in the lead – and that lead is pretty big, three percentage points with 50% of the ballots officially counted. (Update: It’s diminishing to 2.42% with 64% of the…
Felipe Calderon and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! I drove to Tijuana today, the city in the greater metropolis of 4 million on the farthest northwest corner of Mexico, to witness one tiny piece of the most momentous presidential election of the year – Mexico’s. Seventy-one million Mexicans were qualified to vote, and based on the scene here in Tijuana, they took it seriously. Everyone voted. Many of those who forgot to register to vote from the consulates in the U.S. drove to Tijuana to vote – and there were polling stations right over on the other…
Boz at Bloggings by Boz did something a little different this week and focused on the biggest election in the hemisphere, Mexico’s, which will be held this Sunday. He’s got the final polls and lots of bullet-point analysis on the how that race is going. Want to know who is most likely to win in Mexico this weekend – a commie caudillo, or a free marketer? Go see what Boz has here. Meanwhile, Jonathan at the excellent Business & Politics in Bolivia has the final polls and analysis of the autonomy referendum which will be a turning point for Bolivia,…
Bolivia’s industrious, anti-communist Santa Cruz citizens rally for autonomy Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! News Not every Bolivian likes to be under the thumb of Hugo Chavez’s Marxist mini-me, Evo Morales. Residents of the eastern province, Santa Cruz, which is full of industrious immigrants and enterprising native-indigenous Bolivians who’ve moved there, want instead to have autonomy. They hate communism and want freedom. This weekend’s coming vote is seen by some as a first step toward secession, but that is probably going too far at this stage. The vote, for now, is just on autonomy, to decentralize an all too powerful and…
Earlier this week, Mexico’s election board nixed some campaign ads from the conservative PAN party as too fear-mongering, for their warnings about the danger of electing leftist PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador president of Mexico. Election day is July 2 in Mexico. The ads compared Lopez Obrador to Hugo Chavez, with big pictures of Chavez, Fidel Castro and Evo Morales, warning of the danger of populism. The ads were nixed from government-regulated television, but they’ve since gotten out onto the Internet, via YouTubes, and now everyone can look at them, and see for themselves. Miguel has found the links…
What do you do if you are a Venezuelan? Your country is ruled by a madman, a communist, a tyrant. You are steadily watching as all of your freedoms erode. Your country’s institutions are being rapidly politicized, the gears of your own power are being stripped and you are powerless to stop it. The U.S. is not going to invade to save you. What do you do? You fight. You fight for democracy even though you are deeply discouraged, knowing that not only is your opponent much bigger than you, he’s paid the ref to rule against you. You fight…
Less than TEN DAYS to go for the most important, as well as the very closest race of the entire year – MEXICAN ELECTIONS! As Mexican voters make up their minds, Boz has the latest poll numbers, showing a slight lead in many cases for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. But it’s not all of them – see Boz’s list of polls in this link here. He’s also got items on whom Guatemalans really respect, whether Peruvians will ever be fair to outgoing anti-Chavez Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, and whether Santa Cruz province will seek autonomy from the leftist grip of…
French Revolutionary Sabine Herold Source: Never Yet Melted La Margaret Thatcher of France? Source: The Telegraph, London Glenn at Instapundit has found the impossible, an authentic French revolutionary and Babe of Politics, Sabine Herold, 25, who takes it as a compliment when people call her Mlle. Thatcher. Mlle. Herold is a fierce free marketer who thinks Nicolas Sarkozy is a wimp and has begun running for office on a campaign ticket that says the French have got to stop going on strike all the time. Given the fact that the French are just northern Latin Americans, white-wine Latin Americans, deep…
Hates Free Trade: Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Source: EFE, via Yahoo! Mexico If polls are right, Mexican leftist presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has probably taken the lead in Mexico’s upcoming presidential election July 2. If he comes to power, we will have a leftist on our border who’s going to be causing us a whole lot of trouble. He hasn’t said anything openly anti-U.S. that I know about, but that is likely to be tactical. He hates free trade and foreign investment but he says he wants to build a bullet train all the way…
A new flavor Frito Bandito? Source: Venezuela Today Have you ever wondered whether leftist populist Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was really cut out of the same kind of cloth as his natural ally, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez? This informed essay by Gustavo Coronel, on Venezuela Today lays the two of them out, side by side, for your own comparison, well worth reading here. UPDATE: Real Clear Politics has found a second essay on AMLO on The New Republic, delving deeply into this issue, telling us what AMLO is really like, that’s well worth reading here. UPDATE: Two…
Alvaro Vargas Llosa, who is Peruvian, found himself unexpectedly pulled by the fate of the heavens back to Lima which he’d generally so wanted to be away from. By a further mysterious sleight of hand, it was election weekend. Vargas Llosa wrote – echoing something of what I had believed earlier – of the courage of Peruvians and the courage he felt coming to himself, as he joined the majority, in voting for the otherwise-dreaded Alan Garcia. It takes incredible courage to vote for a person like him, someone you hate, someone who’s done terrible things to you – to…
As the dust settles from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s spectacular reelection victory two weeks ago, there’s an ongoing and very interesting debate going on about whether he will amass too much power. It’s an important question, with implications for every revolutionary struggle on earth. How popular is too popular, and does absolute power necessarily corrupt absolutely?> Andres Oppenheimer at The Miami Herald wrote a column about it a few days ago, propounding the view that there are indeed dangers ahead for Uribe, based on his own stellar success. Will it entice him to undermine democratic institutions for the sake of…
Mexico held its presidential debate last night, and pundits are divided as to who won. Boz has some fascinating commentary here, and this Reuters piece here gives further reliable detail, as does this excellent longer EFE piece. Goldman Sachs summarizes it well: Calder????n Had a Slight Edge on the Second Televised Debate Yesterday, the five presidential candidates conducted the second presidential debate, which went on for two hours. The format of the debate was rigid, limiting spontaneous debates or fluid discussions. The debate covered six topics: governance, security, international affairs, immigration, Federalism versus regional government, and the reform of the…
Alan Garcia, probable winner, Peru presidency, and second-time lucky Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! … and his far-left Hugo-Chavez-style opponent, Ollanta Humala is trailing by about five percentage points. Assuming there are no surprises, this represents one of the greatest political comebacks of all time – the greatest comeback since …. Nixon. And it’s nothing to cry about either, we can be as happy as the people in the pictures, because although wilder things have happened in politics, it’s everyone’s victory this time. GOOD!!!!!!!!!!! Garcia savoring victory, happy he beat both Hugo Chavez & his own record Source: Reuters, via Yahoo!…
Communism or capitalism? It sounds a little stark, but it might come down to that. Today’s the second and final round of Peru’s election for president and Peruvians today are heading to the polls. Peru’s presidential ballotSource: UPI, via El Comercio Peruvians voting in the Inca city of Cuzco Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! They will decide whether to choose Alan Garcia, a former president, or Ollanta Humala, a cashiered ex-army officer, as their next president. Alan Garcia after casting his ballot Source: AFP, via Yahoo! The former, Alan Garcia, is a failed leftist ex-president from the 1980s who says he’s…
Today’s the Big One, Peru goes to the polls today. I’ll have something up on that in a minute but here is an important background topic I post as a sidebar: Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez’s political meddling in Peru during its election. At times, it’s been the central issue of the entire Peruvian campaign in the second round. Meddling is such a vague term. If a foreign leader expresses preference for a certain candidate in another country’s election, I don’t exactly consider it major meddling – I consider it really just dumb. After all, voters do not have to heed…
The Big One, Peru, is ahead tomorrow. Will it a Chavez pawn take power in Peru? Voters go to the polls about it in just a few hours… Boz has the last and latest polls on that, and more polls from around the Americas in this key election year. Go see if Hugo Chavez really is a goner in Peru or not. Boz has got it here.
Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! I never thought I would utter such words. A long time ago, Alan Garcia was Peru’s pain-in-the-ass leftwing president, from 1980-1985. He was only 35 then, and apparently not the same person he is now. He’s grown up. And he’s turned his spectacular talent to be a pain-in-the-ass to the guy it belongs on: Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Garcia’s reading Hugo Chavez precisely in bullseye language that resonates with Peruvians … and with me. He’s telling Hugo Chavez to his face exactly what a creepy tinpot dictator he is, which is something Chavez needs to hear.…
Celebrating democracy, with a great leader they voted for and won! You know what this means … I don’t have to explain a thing… Source: Reuters, via Yahoo!
Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! Colombia is headed for the polls today, and wonderful President Alvaro Uribe is likely to win in a landslide. He only needs to get past the 50-percentage point mark to avoide a runoff, and that’s likely to be a piece of cake for him. He’s got a 30-point lead in the polls over his nearest rivals. It’s not hard to see why. Uribe’s brought confidence, security and prosperity to Colombia, something it’s not seen in decades, something that looks so fresh, so beautiful, so different, so amazing … how could Colombians not pass up on such…
Why is this man smiling? And why should we smile back? This may shock you, but he’s happily, shamelessly taking credit for the U.S. House and Senate votes on immigration this week. He didn’t have all that much to do with it, except a little and except that it was none of his business. Nevermind. We gotta smile back. Fox’s political party is reaping big from these immigration reform bills being hashed out in Washington. And Mexican elections are around the corner. With World Cup headed at us like a freight train in June, something that will stop all political…
I have dreaded this topic, because I hate the revolting Jimmy Carter more than anything. The only good thing Jimmy Carter did was give back the Panama Canal and make me a flaming Reagan Revolutionary. In other words, he’s a perfect example of a stopped clock being right exactly twice a day. Everything else Carter ever did was not only bad, it was PROFOUNDLY bad. He’s a textbook example of what not, what never, to do. That’s why his Carter Center’s coming back into the news is so utterly repellent. But come back he is. He’s sent his emissaries back…