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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Guerrero Elects Leftist Governor |
| 2011-02-01 |
| For a map, click here. For a map of Guerrero, click here by Chris Covert In a stunning reversal for the Partido Revolucionario Institutcional (PRI), voters in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero voted in a leftist coalition candidate as governor Sunday, according to various news accounts. Angel Aguirre Rivero for the Nos Une coalition won 56 percent of the vote, leading its nearest competitor by nearly 13 percentage points. The Nos Une coalition consisted of the Partido Revolucion Democratica (PRD) and the Partido Trabajadora (PT), while its competitors included a coalition of PRI, Partido Verde Ecologista de Mexico or Green Party of Mexico (PVEM) and Partido Nuevo Aliance (PANAL). The PRI under the national leadership of Beatriz Parades Rangel last year scored a huge string of electoral victories in several Mexican governor races, holding 75 percent of seats, while only losing two and swapping two. Parades Rangel steps down as leader of the PRI, to be replaced by current Coahuila governor Humberto Moreira next week, who is expected to lead the PRI in retaking the Mexican presidency in 2012. Aguirre received 667,383 votes, or 56.08 while the PRI's Tiempos Mejores coalition candidate, Manuel Añorve, won 507,362 votes, or 42.61 percent. The Partido Accion Nacional candidate, Marcos Efren Parra, received 15,998 votes, or 1.34 percent. In several southern Mexican states in the past the PRD has entered into coalitions with local PAN organizations. Such coalitions, as the argument goes, makes the PRD candidate more competitive with the much stronger PRI in elections. The leader of the PRD, Andres Manuel Lopez Orbador, the PRD's candidate for president who came within a hair's breadth of defeating Felipe Calderon in 2006, has recently been critical of such arrangements, arguing that PRD is strong enough to win against PRI without combining with other parties, especially PAN. A leftist win in Guerrero is no surprise since the state is long known as a center of small leftist and communist guerrilla movements since the 60s, and such insurgencies are likely to receive support from the local population. The Zapititstas, for example, have helped the PRD win in local races simply by demonstrating an alternative to guerilla warfare. Two rebel groups currently operate in Guerrero mostly engaging in kidnapping and armed robberies to find their operations. A leftist government in Guerrero is much more likely to accommodate drug cartels than a PRI or PAN governor. Lopez Obrador nas been constantly critical of Calderon's war against the cartel mainly by pointing out that resources to aid the poor have been diverted to fighting cartels. This strategy mirrors much of what PRI did during the growth of the Mexican drug business in the 80s and 90s before the start of the 2006 war. Very little of the feared disruptions of the voting took place in Guerrero Sunday, most activity confined to the usual trading of charges of support by the drug cartels, usually by "narcomessages" placed on blankets in different parts of the state. In other news, the leader of the PRD, Luis Sanchez Jimenez, said that PRD's Guerrero victory presages a defeat for the PRI in Mexico state this coming July. Enrique Peña Nieto, governor of Mexico state, is PRI's leading candidate for the presidency in 2012. Sanchez Jimenes said that Peña Nieto has been sending resources into the state since last August in an effort to influence the vote. A defeat of PRI in Mexico state would be devastating to the presidential aspirations of Peña Nieto. The governor recently hedged his bet for his drive for Los Pinos by outlawing coalition arrangements in Mexico state, a law that was recent affirmed by the Mexican supreme court. Critics of the ruling call it a "wedding gift" to Peña Nieto, who was recently wed to Angelica Rivera, a Mexican soap opera star. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #3 Thank you, badanov. Your comments illuminate the original piece. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-02-01 19:24 |
| #2 The issue is of reallocation of resources. Lopez Obrador has made that much clear. Funds taken from security and goes to traditional forms of support for the poor such as tortilla price supports, can't be used to monitor or fight cartel operations in Guerrero. That task then calls to the Policia Federal and the army. Cartels already have the upper hand in Guerrero because of Acapulco. Beltran-Leyva and Sinaloa drug gangs already have operations in Acapulco. Other cartels have no reason to move in since drug sales are to tourists. It is not a major source of income for any drug gang. The most likely affect of the new leftist government is that if it decides to reallocate resources, that pressure on those drug gang operations will lessen. Guerreo is a poor state. 21 percent illiteracy and it as the highest outmigration rates in Mexico. Poverty is grinding there. PRD will take full advantage of those facts for the next six years. It sure did in the elections. |
| Posted by: badanov 2011-02-01 17:32 |
| #1 A leftist government in Guerrero is much more likely to accommodate drug cartels than a PRI or PAN governor. Does this mean the -- or some -- cartels will move there, where they're less likely to be hassled by the Mexican army? Or that the cartels already based there will thrive relative to the others because they will have a lower cost of dealing with threats, simply due to the luck of their location (Darwin always wins)? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-02-01 17:00 |
