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Re: Mexico

Post by blindpig » Sat Mar 23, 2024 2:49 pm

Gap between Mexican presidential candidate Sheinbaum and rivals widens

With three weeks of presidential campaign, Sheinbaum’s voting intention grew to 58%, four percent more than in December

March 22, 2024 by Eder Suárez

Image
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexican presidential candidate.

Only three weeks after the start of the presidential campaign, a survey by Mexican newspaper Reforma shows that Claudia Sheinbaum, the candidate for MORENA’s “Together we will make history” coalition, has increased her lead over the other two candidates, now with 58% in voting intentions, that is, 24 percentage points above her closest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez, of the “Goes for Mexico” alliance.

Sheinbaum skyrockets in the polls

This is the third opinion poll carried out by the newspaper and one can see the clear increase in favor of the MORENA candidate: first scoring 53% in August, then 54% in December last year, during the period of internal elections in her party and pre-campaign. Now, three months later and with three weeks of campaigning, her electoral preference has grown by 4 more percentage points.

The second in electoral preference, Xóchitl Gálvez, has also had changes in voter intention. In August 2024 she started with 33%, only 20 points below Sheinbaum, but by December she dropped to 29%, and has now rebounded to 34% for this month, that is, one point above where she started her race.

The variations of the opposition candidate have a possible explanation in the changes of candidate by the Movimiento Ciudadano party, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, who went from 14 to 17% in the first polls (when Samuel García, governor of Nuevo León, was the candidate) to only 8% in the most recent one. However, it is noted that the 9 points lost by the orange party did not go to the opposition candidate, but were distributed widening Sheinbaum’s advantage and allowing Gálvez to return to the preference she had at the beginning of her unveiling.

Gálvez asks for illegal support to her campaign
In view of this unfavorable panorama for the proposal represented by the PRI-PAN-PRD, candidate Xóchitl Gálvez has avoided talking about her performance in the polls. Recently, during an event called “Dialogues for Democracy”, organized by the Employers Confederation of the Mexican Republic (COPARMEX), the former PAN senator limited herself to say that the poll does not keep her awake at night, besides affirming that it does not represent the reality in terms of voting intentions.

However, during the same event, and contrary to the electoral laws, Galvez asked the businessmen gathered there to “fight, to get their act together” in favor of her campaign and even urged them to take two and a half months off from their companies so that “they can convince their employees, the people of the community” to vote for her.

This call to influence from the business sphere is prohibited according to Articles 159, 414 and 447 of the General Law of Institutions and Electoral Procedures, reason why José Medina Mora, president of said confederation, has already rejected Gálvez’s exhortation since his organization is “highly political, but totally non-partisan” and that they can only “promote that citizens go to vote”.

Citizen perception
Among the other data provided by the survey is that 65% believe that Claudia Sheinbaum will win the election on June 2. On the contrary, only 15% consider it possible that Xóchitl Gálvez will win the election, a percentage far below her declared voting intention. 36% of those polled stated that they have not yet decided their vote yet.

Within the survey, the other candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Movimiento Ciudadano party, registers a voting intention of 8% and a perception of 2% about his possibility of winning.

Along with these results, another one that calls attention is that before the question “What is more likely in the presidential election?”, 61% responded that the MORENA candidate will surpass the votes obtained by López Obrador in 2018, who won the Presidency of Mexico with more than 30 million, which represented 53% of the votes cast.

This perception maintains a correlation with the current approval of López Obrador, who only six months after leaving office maintains a historic popular approval for a Head of State with 73%. This represents an increase of 11% compared to the December survey.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/03/22/ ... ls-widens/

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Communist Party of Mexico

Communist Electoral Platform #EligeLuchar
Communist Party of Mexico 04 March 2024 Visits: 1404

COMMUNIST PLATFORM

FEDERAL ELECTIONS 2024

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A New Power

Who and how should the country be governed?

Or Workers Power or Monopolies Power

Regardless of the cosmetic nuances, the trivialities, the styles, administrations, colors, names and surnames, the power of the monopolies governs six years after six years, president after president. In each government the situation of the working class worsens with respect to the enormous wealth and development that it produces for others; and not because the president or government in power is worse than the previous one but because it is the system itself that is worse. It is the system that neither Morena nor the PRIAN question, on the contrary, it is the one they preserve, the one they retouch, the one they defend. Only the Communist Party proposes that the working class take the destinies of this country in its hands, the country that it builds daily but that it builds for others. We communists propose that the power and economy of our country should be in the hands of those who work in it . We call to return Mexico to a country for workers.

Today, in this campaign, we illustrate to the opinion of our class brothers, to the rest of our people, what we mean by a New Power and a New Economy. We address the great national problems head-on, speaking without lies, without false dilemmas, without false illusions; We point out the urgent and necessary solution to barbarism, to tragedy, to collapse, to disaster. Before, during and after the campaign we will persist in grouping our class under this key; Therefore we will see each other again in every factory, in every school, neighborhood or town. The struggle requires a General Staff, we do not run only as communist candidates for the presidency, for the governorships; We present ourselves and we will remain the unyielding head of the left-wing opposition, as tribunes of the people.

Legislative power

The current system of parliamentary representation is corrupt in its essence, legislators do not represent the will of the voters of the working class and the popular sectors, but rather their own interests and those of their financiers: businessmen, drug traffickers, bankers, etc. Through this mechanism, when a legislator approves a measure against the people, there is no option in the current system beyond waiting 3 or 6 years and voting for someone else. But when all legislators offer the same thing and change from one Party to another, like changing clothes, there is no way to influence legislation with such a mechanism. For legislators to not be a group of millionaire courtiers, but truly popular representatives, the political system requires a radical change.

Therefore, we communists propose:

Drastic reduction in the salaries of deputies. They will earn what a specialized worker earns, so the increase in their income can only come from the increase in the income of the entire working class.
Revocation of mandate of any legislator by his voters and at any time.
Disappearance of the current bicameral system of Senate and Congress, fusion of the legislative and executive powers in a single National Assembly.
Elections not only by territorial demarcation but also by workplace, to guarantee that those who work rule. Elimination of multi-member deputies.
The major constitutional reforms must be presented and discussed in assemblies by workplace and among the working people, in the various territories. The deputies will be obliged to comply with the resolutions issued by the majority constituted in their respective assemblies.
Call for a New Constituent Assembly to prepare and approve a new Constitution based on social ownership over the means of production and Workers' Power.
Executive power

For decades the bourgeoisie in Mexico has engendered and maintained a deformed version of the Republic, where the presidential figure is practically that of a six-year monarch – and sometimes beyond his own period. The President is the great legislator, the extrajudicial executor, the finger that names his successor. The democratic task of eliminating this monstrosity was not assumed decisively by the bourgeoisie and became one of its mediating elements. With assassinations, all types of fraud, sabotage and terror, the bourgeoisie decides which of its political-business groups will place its representative and, therefore, will take the lion's share in the administration of the wealth of this G20 member country. Once the replacement has been resolved and the rivalry has been limited, the presidential figure fundamentally serves the interests of the bourgeoisie.

The military apparatus is subordinated, through this leadership, to the interests of the imperialist bloc of which the domestic bourgeoisie is a part; without any effect on the sources that give rise to crime, on the contrary, the military scoundrel of the high command is mired in scandalous corruption while the statistics of those killed by crime rise through the air to an official figure of 350,000 dead and 72,000 missing . The army takes to the streets and against the people as a recurring bloodthirsty resource, as witnessed by the massacre of Tlatelolco, Corpus Thursday in 1971, the Dirty War, the massacres of Acteal, Aguas Blancas and El Charco or the disappearance of the 43 normalistas of Ayotzinapa in 2014. It is alarming that already in the period from 2007 to 2021 the military usurped 127 originally civilian functions, and from 2021 to 2024 the figure reached 246 functions. In that same period, its budget went from 0.6% of the GDP to devouring 2.22% of the total, and a rearmament was carried out that had not been seen in terms of economics and volume since the Porfiriato. All this without any external conflict being confirmed in the same period of time, which suggests a preparation to subjugate the people.

Therefore, we propose:

Dissolution of the figure of the president and his replacement by a Council of Ministers, appointed by and subordinate to the National Assembly.
Elimination of the figures of municipal president/mayor, trustee and councilors in the administration of the city council. Replacement by a Local Council that will administer the municipal government.
Severe punishment for former presidents and army commanders responsible for state crimes.
Dissolution of the Army, the National Guard and other state and parastatal repressive bodies. And its replacement with a popular militia focused in its doctrine and operation on the defense of territorial integrity, the deterrence of imperialist aggression against the peoples of the world, etc. The popular militia will not be able to repress the majority of the population for having members of such a majority integrated into its tasks, for having their rifles pointed at the exploiters and their accomplices. The popular militia will not squander resources on the extravagant expenses of the current military scoundrel, nor on internal repression or on a prolonged war of mere façade against drug trafficking, but will use them efficiently to increase the defensive capabilities of the Workers' Republic. .
Real and universal military training of the population.
The work of surveillance and suppression of the enemies of the people will be done in combination with community surveillance bodies, in charge of safeguarding the populations from which they emanate.
Foreign policy of friendship with all the peoples of the world; opposition to blockades, sanctions, imperialist aggression, etc.
Cancellation of anti-immigrant policy; solidarity with migrant workers in their path. Granting full citizenship rights to all migrants in Mexico who contribute with their work to social production.
Power of attorney

The legal system of our country, as an expression of the crystallized will of the possessing class, is absolutely focused on preserving and regulating private property, as well as its acquisition, purchase, sale, transfer, succession, etc. The high courts are filled by members of oligarchic families, with stipends that are an affront to the working population. Like NAFTA before, now the USMCA becomes the supreme law and reforms the rest of the legal apparatus under its demands. The judiciary functions as a parapet for the power of the monopolies: due to formalities it leaves the major embezzlers of the public treasury unpunished; as well as impunity for those responsible for massacres and state crimes; It restricts, violates and criminalizes the people's forms of struggle; sanctions dispossession as valid, labor and agrarian trials languish bureaucratically for years; Trials against members of indigenous nationalities are an offense by not recognizing the language of the defendant; and only when the crimes affect members of the bourgeoisie does the supposed expeditious nature of the administration of justice become a reality; Meanwhile, crimes against working women and young students from popular sectors, or against proletarians on the street, on public transportation or in their homes, surely remain unpunished. The discredit, distrust and rejection of such power is not surprising. For the law and the courts to be at the service of the people, and enjoy their confidence, they must emanate from a New Power.

Therefore, we propose:

The elected nature of the Courts as organs of the National Assembly.
Public nature of all trials to allow popular scrutiny.
The core of the New Law must be the safeguard, as a crystallized will of the working class, of the social property of the socialized means of production, of its inviolable character, as well as the elimination of the economic basis of all political power of the classes. exploitative.
Search for the truth and reparation for damage caused by state crimes. Prioritize the search for material truth rather than formal truth.
Establishment of an urgent plan for the search and rescue of the missing.
Possibility of appealing a higher court ruling if it is believed to be unjust, and without the exorbitant cost of today's protection.
Ensure the right to be tried in the mother tongue and/or with an interpreter of the accused, something currently non-existent for the 15% of the population that speaks indigenous languages.
Create a Professional Career Service for defense attorneys, with adequate salaries, to ensure the right of all workers to have a free, quality public defender.
Transformation of prisons into compulsory labor colonies. Prisons must stop being the current centers of barbarism, training and expression of criminal power, and become colonies of social reintegration. Work and collective discipline must be a central point of this reintegration.
Corruption will be considered a general attack against the people, since it would significantly harm the achievements of the National Development Plan; A severe punishment must be proportional to the dimension of such an attack against the population.


Drug trafficking

Drug trafficking is a criminal business that has grown rapidly in our country in the last 30 years. It has become inextricably intertwined with businessmen, the military and the parties of the bourgeoisie. This illegal industry resorts to violence, weapons and corruption to ensure its operations. It subjugates thousands of farmers to grow drugs and has an army of sellers, hawks and hitmen to ensure its distribution. This business is mainly export; It supplies the United States, the main drug market in the world. The secret of drug trafficking is not in its strength, but in money. It is the billions of dollars generated by the export and sale of drugs that ensure their availability to weapons, people and political support. The military power of drug trafficking cannot be reduced and abolished without first ending its economic power.

To face this serious problem, we propose:

Expropriation of banks to form a state banking system. This would nip the possibilities of money laundering in the bud.
Centralization of foreign trade and exit from the Mexico-United States-Canada Treaty (TMEC). This would significantly limit the export capacity of drug trafficking.
Expulsion from Mexico of the United States police and intelligence agencies, which currently operate in the country, since their links with drug cartels are historically documented.
Frontal combat against drug trafficking using both the massive popular militia, the intelligence gathered by popular informants, and its combination with measures that extirpate all good and wealth from these groups through the Popular Courts. Particularly fierce combat against those that directly affect the population: human trafficking, addictions, forced disappearance and kidnapping, robberies, child pornography, etc.
Policy of ideological combat against drug consumption from a public health perspective, prioritizing early rehabilitation, and not criminalization of consumers.
Indigenous villages

Indigenous peoples have suffered several centuries of oppression. Neither the victors of the War of Independence, nor those of the Reform or the Mexican Revolution have granted recognition to these peoples as full nationalities. This national subjugation adds to the exploitation that indigenous workers and peasants already suffer. The emergence of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) in 1994 marked a before and after of the indigenous struggle for their liberation. However, from that moment to date, the different governments have betrayed all efforts to achieve political recognition of the indigenous peoples, the main example being the betrayal of the San Andrés Larráinzar agreements, and the current military, paramilitary harassment and drug trafficking against indigenous territories.

Therefore, we propose:

Recognition of the San Andrés Larráinzar agreements and respect for the autonomy decisions of indigenous peoples.
Full right of indigenous peoples to self-determination as nationalities, to decide their forms of political and territorial organization, public administration and language.
The ownership of natural resources, such as water, forests, soil and subsoil in the territory of indigenous peoples, originally resides in each of them.
A New Economy

Who owns the wealth?

National Development Plan

The production of wealth in Mexico is fundamentally oriented towards increasing the profits of the large monopolies; it is based on the bloody exploitation of the working class; and the current government management is no exception to this rule. Statistics show that salaries in Mexico are one of the lowest on the planet and the smallest among the OECD economies, even with the notable increase in the national minimum wage. There is no correspondence between salary growth and the economic growth of the country, which has surpassed countries such as Australia, South Korea or Spain in terms of GDP, and generated some of the richest tycoons in the world such as Carlos Slim. The accelerated increase in the wealth of the wealthiest and the misery of the workers are not a failure of the system; It is the result of its very essence, it is its success in relation to its interests and characteristics. Let us also add that the production of wealth in capitalist society is carried out in an anarchic, chaotic manner, leading us to crises and cataclysms, to the destruction of the foundations of wealth itself, which are nature and work force. In the particular case of our country, an important element of the formation of such monopolies was the privatization of state companies built on the basis of extracting the effort of the entire Mexican society; and at this point none of the bourgeois parties, not even those that call themselves anti-neoliberal, have proposed reversing those decisions.

Therefore, we communists propose:

Requisition, expropriation, nationalization and socialization of the 1,100 companies previously privatized and handed over to monopolies. These will become the core of the social sector that will produce in accordance with a National Development Plan.
Expropriation of all companies that have or have had links to drug trafficking and money laundering.
Incorporation into the social sector of other centralized, concentrated, strategic companies, etc., as required by the National Development Plan and as the National Assembly orders and executes it.
The fundamental objectives of the National Development Plan are to progressively accumulate greater productive capacities for the growing satisfaction of the material and cultural needs of the workers in the country; as well as ensuring an ecological balance with the environment. As well as implementing technological developments under the control of society, to overcome the narrow frameworks of production focused on profits.
The National Development Plan must ensure the reduction of the working day to 35 hours and the elimination of unemployment, taking advantage of the automation of mechanical, risky or alienating tasks. The purpose is to take advantage of all the capabilities installed in the country, but without the shackles imposed by the USMCA and other imperialist treaties.
Promotion of the nuclear industry for the generation of electrical energy; since it is scientifically proven that it would reduce the environmental impact compared to other sources, such as thermoelectric or hydroelectric.
Prohibition of planned obsolescence, which generates higher costs for consumers and large amounts of waste.
No worker should be thrown onto the street. When a job becomes unnecessary, the New Economy should consider training you for another job as your new salaried job.
Promote and support the transition of small businesses, small producers, self-employed workers, artisans, etc., to cooperatives. Favoring those who advance in such a process with inputs from the social sector and at preferential prices.


Health

The health system is in a state of abandonment. The IMSS, the ISSSTE and the other social security institutes have been dismantled and embezzled in the last 30 years, which has resulted in their current inefficiency and saturation. Privatization, lack of investment and corruption have eroded the capacities of these institutes. They are saturated, getting a medical consultation, studies or an operation can take several months of waiting. Six-yearly occurrences, such as Seguro Popular or IMSS-Wellbeing, which supposedly sought the universalization of health, did not achieve their objective and instead created a financial and logistical crisis in the health sector. The shortage of medicines and vaccines is proof of this. Meanwhile, pharmacy clinics have sprung up throughout the country, reaching more than 18 thousand, and alleviating the ailments, but without providing follow-up and continuity to the most serious ones. The sad losses of the COVID-19 pandemic showed the fragility of the health system in Mexico.

We communists believe that workers should have guaranteed access to a free, efficient and quality health system. But this is not possible as long as health is a business.

Therefore, we propose:

The absorption or incorporation of all private practices, owned by large pharmacy chains, to the first level of care of the public health system. The number of these offices is 12 times larger than the current IMSS Family Medicine Units. This expansion would allow the current health services to be decongested and reach the majority of the inhabitants of the working-class neighborhoods and towns.
The incorporation of hospitals and large private clinics into the public health system. This would imply a proportional increase to the 70% of beds currently available at the IMSS, which would quickly improve care capacity.
Expropriation of the large pharmaceutical industry to ensure the supply of medicines and vaccines.
Basification of all hospital staff, salary increase and improvement of working conditions for health workers; which, together with less hospital saturation, would improve the quality and efficiency of care.
Reproductive and sexual health, including the interruption of pregnancy, will be free, safe and free, ensuring psychological support.
Prioritize preventive medicine, particularly in the face of chronic-degenerative diseases, to save costs and avoid health complications. Ensure health care and education, particularly mental health, in educational and workplace centers.
Labor protection, pensions and social security

The same situation that permeates Health-Business, as the antithesis of Health-Law, exists in the other aspects of Social Security. The pension situation is especially dramatic. This right has been pulverized both by postponing the retirement age, turning workers into a workhorse of capitalism to the grave, and by converting social funds into funds managed by private financial groups. Our pension funds, risked in the stock market lottery, are transformed from a right to a source of capital for the exploitation of our own class. The elimination of daycare centers and other elements that socialized domestic work are a setback in the rights and advances of proletarian women. On the basis of social production and the accumulation of capabilities of the New Economy, an increasingly broad and multifaceted Social Security System will be financed.

Therefore, we propose:

Recovery of a Central Social Security Fund, financed both with workers' contributions and with the wealth contributed by the Social Sector, and which will tend to grow. The management of the Central Social Security Fund will be one of the issues that the National Development Plan must regulate.
Return to the retirement system and general reduction of the minimum retirement age to 60 years. This age may be lower in the case of jobs with a greater effect on health, such as mining, masonry, handling of chemical products, etc. Retirees will have the opportunity to continue working voluntarily with reduced hours and mainly in training tasks and transmission of their work experience; Their pensions will be free of encumbrances. Retirees will have social institutions for specialized care.
Organization and construction of daycare centers by work center, with dining services and comprehensive care (medical, dental, psychological, etc.)
Transfer the functions that currently make up domestic work to social industries; provide food and care for all members of proletarian families through canteens, washing industries, cleaning, home maintenance, etc., accessible to workers through a percentage of their salaries.
Heavy work, overtime and night shifts are prohibited for minors.
Inspections of working conditions, safety and hygiene carried out by councils elected by the workers.
Participation of the work assembly in hiring and dismissals.
Expropriation, socialization and/or construction of new spas, rest centers, rehabilitation, etc., to guarantee that well-deserved rest is a right and a reality for the producers of wealth and not a privilege of social parasites.
living place

Getting your own home today is an almost impossible dream to achieve for our class. Real estate speculation increases prices and pushes workers to live in the periphery. Mortgage credit has become a lifelong debt that bleeds the salaries of those who manage to obtain it. Builders are increasingly making smaller, less safe and more remote homes. The lack of coordination for the establishment of housing and work centers pushes workers to the periphery of cities and forces them to spend several hours a day on public transportation. Banks, real estate companies, construction companies and tenants get rich from the lack of decent housing for the working class. We communists think that the State must ensure that all working families enjoy decent housing. This cannot be achieved while the construction and acquisition of housing remains a business.

Therefore, we propose:

Control of land and real estate prices. This will depend on technical factors, such as its characteristics, position or equipment, and not on the fluctuations of the market.
Elimination of property tax for those who have 1 property. Strongly progressive tax on those who have more than 3 properties. This measure, together with the previous one, would root out real estate speculation.
Expropriation of the construction industry.
Expropriation and/or regularization of land ownership to guarantee housing as part of the popular heritage.
Replacing mortgage loans with state loans. The State will provide loans to workers to buy, build or remodel their home without charging interest, beyond inflation.
Establish a five-year plan for state and cooperative housing construction that responds to the needs of the population. These homes must ensure a decent space, not like the current “social interest” housing projects.
Homes built by the State must implement measures to care for the environment, such as the use of solar panels and heaters, rainwater collection, etc. In addition, it must contemplate the construction of social integration elements such as parks, sports spaces, among others.
Education

The idea of ​​education in Mexico is sold as a mechanism for social mobility, but in practice it works as a workforce training machine in accordance with market needs. Study plans and programs are a field of ideological dispute between the different visions of the bourgeoisie, while pressure from the bourgeoisie as a whole increases to eliminate scientific and critical criteria due to educational obscurantism. These issues are decided bureaucratically, leaving the teaching profession relegated. The schools are saturated with groups that exceed 50 students, in many places the students do not have minimum conditions to study, they arrive without breakfast or lunch. This means that schools cannot adequately meet the educational needs of children and adolescents. Faced with this, duckling private schools proliferate that do not have infrastructure or pedagogy, but are enriched in part by saturation and selection criteria in the public educational system. At a higher level, universities and public institutions face a financial and corruption crisis. They increase tuition and administrative costs that make it difficult for the children of the working and peasant classes to study at that level. We communists think that the educational system should contribute to the formation of the new man and woman, the integral development of people, from a scientific and critical point of view, as well as the elevation of technical, human, cultural and scientific capabilities. of the population.

Therefore, we propose:

Ensure food, transportation, school supplies and clothing for all students at basic levels.
Creation of Student Houses for the accommodation of foreign students of higher level, with dining rooms and insured transportation.
Support the democratization of Universities and Higher Education Institutes, which must be carried out autonomously by their community.
Ensure free public education at all levels and up to postgraduate education.
Socialization of the field of private education; train and integrate its staff into the organized teaching profession with full rights, which would immediately guarantee access to education for nearly three million more students and the relative relief of saturated classrooms.
Basicization of subject workers with more than one course in two successive periods, both at basic, upper secondary and higher levels.
Development of new study plans and programs at all educational levels from a scientific and critical perspective, where teachers must play a central role; and where the inclinations and capacities of each individual must be encouraged, cultivated and used for society through early guidance. These plans must include artistic, sports and productive training.
Eliminate the figure of “hourly contract” in a new Federal Labor Law for academic workers of Universities and Institutions of Higher or Higher Education that are dedicated exclusively to teaching, who must be hired without exception for full-time or half-time .
Higher level students must provide professional services in activities substantially related to their studies, in the productive sector or the government. This will be considered a temporary job and they will receive a salary for it.
Recovery and expansion of the educational project of rural normal schools throughout the country. Reopening of all closed rural normal schools. Ensure food, housing, art, culture, recreation and science on each campus.
Science

In Mexico, science is completely forgotten and relegated. There are many women and men dedicated to science and highly trained, but there are not enough positions for them to carry out Research and Development. The current stimulus system favors serial publication, without worrying about the impact. Scientific research in the private sector is focused on increasing profits and reducing costs. The usefulness of scientific potential to address serious problems in society and the environment is completely ignored. None of the last three presidents has complied with the decree to allocate 1% of GDP in science and increase it progressively. The AMLO government reduced the already scarce investment in science to transfer resources to pharaonic works, the army and clientelistic programs. Science must be mandated to contribute to satisfying the needs of the people and solving major problems, but only scientists themselves could decide how to achieve this. We communists think that scientists, researchers, engineers, technicians, etc., can better develop their creative potential under another way of producing and organizing society. However, for this to be the case, it is necessary for science to stop being a business and take on a central role in the country's productive forces. Therefore, we propose:

Increase in the budget in Science and Technology, from the current very poor 0.41% to 3.0%
Disappearance of the current CONAHCYT and creation of an Academy of Sciences and Technology that brings together all the scientists and researchers in the country. This organization will direct the scientific development of the country, linking its objectives to those of the National Development Plan.
Transform the SIN, moving from an economic stimulus to a salary income that ensures job stability for researchers.
The National Academy of Sciences and Technology will provide consulting to all public companies and cooperatives in society; will guide, train and guide proletarians, employees, peasants, workers, etc., who propose technical innovation in their production area; It will seek to generalize inventions, technical improvements, the development of new productive forces, etc.
The National Academy of Sciences and Technology will be in charge of elevating, among others, the energy industry, implementing the country's great capabilities in the use of renewable energy (wind, hydraulic and solar) as well as nuclear and geothermal energy. In addition, research must be done for energy efficiency and the reduction of the use of fossil fuels.
Research must be done on how to apply new technologies, such as Big Data, the Internet of Things, quantum computing or Artificial Intelligence, to improve the technical and operational aspects of the National Development Plan.
Land and food

Economic policy in Mexico, subordinated to imperialist treaties, has condemned the Mexican countryside to its non-viability, its destruction, its aging and even the depopulation of rural settlements. The extension of crops and the volume of production of basic foods has been significantly reduced, they are no longer able to cover some necessary products; In turn, the extensive production of some export products is carried out in an unsustainable manner, with the only beneficiaries being a layer of large capitalists, middlemen, coyotes , etc. The average peasant is ruined, even though he has land, the market crushes him through the double pressure of the excessive costs of his inputs and the insufficient prices of his crops. The ruin of the countryside is becoming the ruin of the city, where all workers find increasingly critical and unsustainable conditions. In Mexico, the imperialist political economy is preparing a famine for us, which if it occurs will be extremely painful and difficult to overcome given that the continuity of the human factor with knowledge and skill in this regard is even lost.

Therefore, we propose:

Safeguard the collective nature of land ownership, which preserves its ejidal or communal character, complementing it with the promotion and financial and technical support for collective production through cooperatives that attend to the specific agrarian vocation of each nucleus.
Socialization of large agroindustrial companies, incorporating them directly into the National Development Plan.
Promotion and support for the formation of cooperative and mixed agro-industrial companies in agricultural centers.
Policy for a more harmonious redistribution of the population through material and economic incentives. Society requires and will require food, the countryside requires workers, and workers require medical, educational, cultural services, etc. The countryside, under the New Economy, can even offer more comfortable housing conditions, pace of life, etc., than the city itself.
Formation of warehouses that make machinery, supplies, seeds, breeding stock, tools, etc. accessible in an accessible manner. The problem of contamination from fertilizers such as glyphosate is not solved by the artisanal production of biofertilizers by producers, but by establishing a state industry that produces them massively.
The National Academy of Sciences and Technology will have as one of its orientations to return cooperative farmers and farm workers to the collective owners of land and technology. Materials science, nanotechnology, drones, automation, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, etc., must become mechanisms to allow a more comfortable life for farm workers and full food security for the country.
Water

Water management has become one of the great national problems and a stark facet of the class struggle. Capitalist irrationality is the root cause of climate change; of the disproportionate concentration of the population in a few cities; the use of most rivers as waste channels for mining, industry, real estate, etc.; of the widespread disinvestment in public drinking water networks to redirect that wealth to the needs of capital and encourage its privatization; of the hoarding of concessions and water volume quotas by the large combined companies. In such a way that in cities like Monterrey, Guadalajara, etc., the entire population of the city is deprived of the vital liquid, descending into an inhuman situation, while companies such as breweries, wineries or the so-called hospitality industry do not They do not flinch, they do not paralyze and they use 100 times more water than is required by millions of inhabitants.

Therefore, we propose:

Preserve in an unrestricted manner the public and social nature of water, as well as its control by the Workers' Power. Suppress any commercial form thereof, expropriating bottling companies, pipe companies, etc.
Local water management must be supported by organizational forms that encourage active community participation, such as drinking water committees or assemblies.
The National Development Plan must take into account factors such as climate change, water stress, drought, etc., and therefore increase the efficiency of production processes that use water resources in each branch; dedicate environmental engineering efforts to recover forests, runoff areas, etc.; carry out urban reengineering works to incorporate the use of rainwater, the same in the state housing industry.
The National Academy of Sciences and Technology will study and implement the use of water sources such as desalination, condensation of ambient humidity, etc.


local governments

What do the communists who run for local and municipal elections propose?

Since radical transformations require resolving the main question of the revolution, namely, the question of power – In the hands of what social class is it? – it is natural that where the program is best expressed is in the field of elections. federal. The communists who run for local elections, supported by the grouping of social forces that express the anti-capitalist, anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist front, must answer what conception guides them to compete to occupy those positions.

First of all, the campaign itself must be used to reflect the national program in local priorities, since it must be grouped in that key. Communists conceive the occupation of such local government positions not as the panacea or the root solution to the great problems that require a revolutionary transformation; but as centers or trenches of resistance or offensive against the power of the monopolies, as they continue to accumulate the forces of the Party and such alliance.

For the communists, each locality, colony, municipality and state where they head the administration represents a position that must be defended against the existing social order until the revolution is achieved in Mexico. To defend this position we can only trust in the organization of the workers. For the communists the main objective of local administration is essentially to open channels for the participation of the people in the administration, as they increasingly understand their organized stance. Workers who can access more opportunities and platforms will be more conscious of protecting this position against the capitalist social order. Wherever the communists obtain a position, the people will have a voice in local administrations through channels such as representations of neighborhoods, districts, schools and workplaces, thus the formation of Workers' and Popular Councils.

The communists aspire to the well-being and prosperity of the popular sectors in local administrations. Local governments in this social order focus on the accumulation of profits. The communists will begin by dispersing the mafias that surround local governments around profit. No employer or contractor will be able to use local governments led by communists for their advantages and interests. The only objective is to increase the standard of living of workers. All activities of local governments will be planned according to the needs of the people. Even if it were a penny that is administered, that penny must be subject to the principles of planning with popular participation, transparency and accountability to the people.

All available means will be used for workers' access to healthy and contemporary conditions of housing, transportation, education, culture and recreation. The main goal is to provide workers with healthy and safe housing conditions, educational facilities, safe public transportation and opportunities for recreational activities and vacations. Only with the struggle of the communists in local administrations can green areas be protected and improved against speculators.

The government of communists in local administrations means the development of a culture that strengthens collectivism and solidarity. One of the main tasks of communists in local administrations is to create environments where children, young people and adults can improve together. A wide network with easy access to libraries, science centers for children and young people, theaters for plays that we will write and perform together, choirs and orchestras where we will learn and sing our songs, lecture series that will explain how to use science for the benefit of workers , and collective sports activities will be the instruments of this culture of collective life.

The jobs of communists in local administrations will also be a barrier to the expansion of drug consumption. The communists will take measures to protect our youth against the corrupting attacks of this anti-worker social order, against drug use and any type of degeneration.

Facilities will be created for equality and freedom of women. One of the responsibilities of communist local administrations is to establish kindergartens in workplaces and neighborhoods; support women's participation in public life outside their residences and protect them against violence. The communists have a decisive importance in creating additional possibilities for the employment of women as workers with equal rights.

We will work to protect and promote health. The basic health problems of the people, the safety of drinking water and food, school health, sports health and the issues of recycling and waste can only be solved if the communists gain influence in local administrations.

The establishment of consumer and production cooperatives will positively catalyze the lives of workers. Only communists can stimulate producer cooperatives in accordance with the characteristics of consumption and related localities against the rise in prices driven by large commercial chains and free market relations.

Communist local governments will not be “corporations” that behave towards workers like an employer. There will be no contradiction between communist bosses and workers who work for local governments; workers will participate in decision-making processes in a position where they will fight for common goals in the name of the emancipation of humanity.

The communists must put an end to the mechanism of subcontracting and precariousness imposed on local administrations under the guise of service, which only seeks to fulfill the interests of the capitalists. The communists will reject the subcontracting mechanism imposed on local governments during the last decades; as well as they will put an end to all the implementations that have turned the works into a field of profitable exploitation for the benefit of large and small capitalists.

The communists will not allow racism, religious fundamentalism, sectarianism and other forms of inequality in local administrations. Communist governments will have no place for approaches that classify workers as second-class citizens because of their languages, ethnic roots, sex or beliefs. The communists will not allow the abuse of religion in local administrations, but will adopt a secular model of administration and organize brotherhood, peace and unity.

In local administrations a relationship will be established with the social idea based on freedom and equality. No matter in which city, district or town the communists take the initiative, they will always keep in mind that they are responsible to the entire country and all of humanity; that everything they do has meaning as part of the fight to illuminate the future of our country and the world; that their local decisions have an impact on the scale of the national and international struggle.

http://www.comunistas-mexicanos.org/ind ... ligeluchar

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Re: Mexico

Post by blindpig » Mon Apr 22, 2024 2:19 pm

Continuing Mexico’s Fourth Transformation (Interview)
APRIL 21, 2024

Image
Poster of United World's interview with Mexican leftist Congressman Pedro Vázquez González. Photo: United World International.

Mexico is heading to elections on June 2. Ahead of these, United World International’s Yunus Soner spoke to Pedro Vázquez González, member of the National Coordination Committee of the Labor Party (Partido del Trabajo) and federal deputy in the Mexican Congress.

YS: Thanks for taking the time. Elections are coming up in Mexico…

Vázquez: Indeed, we have the largest election in the history of Mexico because not only will the presidency of the republic or the Federal Legislative Branch, which is the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of Senators, be at stake, but we will also have elections for nine governorships and 31 local congresses, local deputies, municipal presidencies, mayors’ offices and municipal boards. We are talking about more than 20,000 posts that will be contested this year.

YS: And what do you think, who will win? The Labor Party (PT) goes together with Morena and the Green Party, right?

Vázquez: Indeed, the three parties have already agreed to maintain the coalition now with the Green Party. Before, it was only PT, Morena party, and another party that was the Party of Social Gathering.

Now in this new type of coalition, Morena, the Green Party, and the Labor Party are going in the presidential election. It is undoubtedly the most representative left-wing bloc. The right is pulverized. The National Action Party, which is the right-wing party, is in decline. And so is the Institutional Revolution Party, since it has lost most of its positions. They have a small group in the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of Senators.

And well, the PRD is a dying party, unfortunately. It attached itself to that right-wing block, and we don’t see they have any perspective. They could even lose their registration.

So the only party that is loose is the Citizen Movement party, but the left bloc is defined, and I believe that without a doubt at this moment the electoral preference, the preference of the Mexican people in relation to the president’s exercise of government is in the 78%, in such a way that there is no doubt that he has governed, and he has governed well and the people of Mexico know it.

Hence, the continuity of the fourth transformation will undoubtedly be the challenge to overcome, and we have a great prospect of victory because the right is practically non-existent, is minimized.

In the latest opinion polls, our candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, was at 68 points, 62 in other surveys, 60—the one with the least electoral preference, while 24% for the right-wing candidate Xóchitl Gálvez.

So there is a lot of optimism, but undoubtedly the campaign forces us to go to the territory, to get the vote from each home, speaking with each citizen, because it would be the only way to guarantee that the Fourth Transformation has continuity, has greater development, and that the preference of the Mexican people translates into a favorable vote for the Together We Will Make History coalition.

YS: There is a new candidate Claudia Sheinbaum who presents a different image compared to the current president. The current president comes from established Mexican patriotism, from the patriotic nationalist left. The new candidate seems a little different. What will change and what will follow?

Vázquez: Well, she has a leftist profile, undoubtedly. It is true that her first political participation was in the student movements, progressive movements in favor of the university not being made into an elitist institution, that it is not expensive, that there be opportunities for all Mexicans who want to study and that the economic issue is not a limitation.

It was also, of course, to substantially improve all the programs and study plans. This is a demand from the students that she supports, along with other colleagues, as was the case of our pre-candidate, PT Congressman Fernández Noroña. They come from a current that in our opinion is left-wing and progressive and that, though it is a different track than López Obrador’s, has all the information, is clearly aware of what the president’s transformative project is, and guarantees continuity.



YS: President López Obrador also insisted a lot on the issue of energy sovereignty.

Vázquez: Exactly. Mexican sovereignty. Sovereignty, independence are issues that the president has handled since his first campaign back in 2006. And of course, the Labor Party maintains the position that we are a free, independent people, that we must govern ourselves, that we do not need of the interference of the United States, which has always been hand in hand with the presidents, except for López Obrador.

Sovereignty is not only the defense of the territory and our form of government, but above all we need energy, oil, food, production, and I believe that the Fourth Transformation and Claudia Sheinbaum undoubtedly guarantee that there will be more development, greater opportunities for employment, more jobs and better salaries, and development of manufacturing production. There is an entire project to transform the country that has to go through these aspects, and she guarantees it. As the Labor Party, we dedicate ourselves to the left of the Fourth Transformation.

We are the only party that has declared its socialist character since our foundation, and we are going to push hard so that the next government led by Claudia Sheinbaum moves further to the left, goes more towards the most progressive positions and greater social development.

YS: What challenges do you see for Sheinbaum in relations with the United States? Now that the US Congress is debating an intervention…

Vázquez: Well, if Mexico maintains the firm position of being an independent, free, sovereign country, the United States will have to understand that position, that it does not lend itself to ambiguities, and that they know that the relationship with the Mexican people and their government will have to be of respect within the framework of international law, and that they do not try to get involved in the political, economic and social affairs of Mexico, because there will be rejection, not only from the one who heads the government of the republic but also from all the forces and the people in general due to the very harmful historical experiences that we have had in military interventions of the United States. We will reject that, and this anti-imperialism is very solid and very strong among the Mexican people.

So, we do have concern about the temptation of the US government and the power elites in the United States to try to change the course of our country by force. We are not going to allow it.

https://orinocotribune.com/continuing-m ... interview/

On the one hand ALMO and his cohort are 'left' in only the most marginal way, as the Communist Party of Mexico will tell ya. OTOH, his administration is very insistent upon national sovereignty(short of inciting the violent hostility of the USA), which history and China have shown as absolutely necessary to make real progress possible.
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Re: Mexico

Post by blindpig » Fri Apr 26, 2024 4:04 pm

Mexican Economy Faces Its “With U.S. Or Against U.S.” Moment
Posted on April 26, 2024 by Nick Corbishley

“What the US is really interested in is ‘security shoring,’ not nearshoring,” as it begins to place national security concerns above all other considerations in its relationship with China.

This week, Mexico’s government announced hundreds of “temporary” tariffs on imports from countries with whom it does not have a trade agreement. The tariffs have been imposed on 544 imported products, including footwear, wood, plastic, electrical material, musical instruments, furniture, and steel, and range from 5% to 50% in size. They have one clear target in mind: imports from China, Mexico’s second largest trade partner, though the word “China” is not mentioned once in the decree.

The latest round of tariffs — which took effect on Tuesday — will apply for two years. They come on the heels of a package of tariffs imposed by the Economy Ministry last month on steel nails and steel balls from China. Mexico’s Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro, speaking at a Council of the Americas event in Mexico City, said the tariffs were necessary to “prevent unfair competition”:

“We have seen a lot of products coming [into the country] … at a very low price and displacing our national producers… The prices for the public don’t go down, but [cheap imports] are displacing textile makers, footwear makers [and other manufacturers].

The move has received plaudits from some Mexican industry bigwigs. The president of the Confederation of Industrial Chambers of the United Mexican States, Alejandro Malagón Barragán, said the move was necessary “to provide fair market conditions to domestic industrial sectors that face situations of vulnerability, especially in the face of the serious non-oil trade deficit with China, which in 2023 reached $104 billion.” The tariffs, he said “are not a protectionist measure, but are necessary to create a level playing field, since they combat unfair practices such as dumping and subsidies that have seriously harmed Mexican companies.”

But while protecting domestic industries may be one of the many reasons behind this fresh raft of tariffs, the main reason is to assuage Washington’s concerns about Chinese companies taking advantage of its nearshoring strategy by setting up shop in Mexico. As the decree itself notes “due to the growing implementation of new trade models at the global level, such as the case of relocation (nearshoring), … it is necessary to implement concrete actions that allow a balanced interaction in the market, to avoid economic distortions that could affect the relocation of productive sectors that are considered strategic for the country.”

Mexico’s imports from China in the first two months of this year alone totaled $19.6 billion, accounting for roughly one-fifth of all of Mexico’s imports, according to El Financiero. That’s up from around 15% in 2015. During the same period, the US’ share of Mexican imports has fallen from 50% to 44%, even as the US and Mexico last year became each other’s largest trade partner, for the first time in 20 years.

China’s share of Mexican imports could reach as high as 29% by 2035, according to some forecasts. The major products imported include telephones, LCD devices, computers, integrated electronic circuits, computer parts, auto parts, TV parts, and printed circuits. Real world data suggest that one possible effect of US tariffs on Chinese goods is that many of the countries that saw faster export growth to the US in strategic sectors also had more intense intra-industry trade with China in those same sectors. In other words, as we’ve seen in Mexico, US dependence on Chinese goods is simply being displaced further down the supply chain.

A High-Risk Strategic Foothold

As I noted in a piece a year ago, the recent surge in trade and investment with China gives Mexico an obvious strategic foothold between the world’s two economic superpowers, but it is not without risk, especially as Washington begins to place national security concerns above all other considerations in its relationship with China:

On the one hand, [Mexico’s] economy is benefiting handsomely from North America’s nearshoring trend, which is seeing a wave of global companies relocate some or all of their operations from China and other parts of Asia to Mexico in order to serve the US market. Last year, it attracted $35.3 billion in FDI, its highest level since 2015. The sectors attracting most interest among companies relocating to Mexico include automotive assembly plants and suppliers, telecommunications, electronics, pharmacochemical and textile industries.

On the other hand, many of the companies relocating to Mexico are apparently Chinese. Alarmed by the recent shipping chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and growing geopolitical fractures, they are hoping to skirt North American trade restrictions, including USMCA’s rules of origin, by setting up factories in Mexico, as the New York Times reported in February:

[D]ozens of major Chinese companies are aggressively investing in Mexico, taking advantage of an expansive trade deal with North America . Following a path forged by Japanese and South Korean companies, Chinese firms are setting up factories that allow them to label their products “Made in Mexico,” then truck them duty-free to the United States.

The interest of Chinese manufacturers in Mexico is part of a broader trend known as nearshoring or close relocation. International companies are moving production closer to customers to limit their vulnerability to transportation problems and geopolitical tensions.

The participation of Chinese companies in this change shows the deepening assumption that the divide between the United States and China will be a lasting feature of the next phase of globalization. However, it also reveals something fundamental: Beyond the political tensions, the trade forces that bind the United States and China are even more powerful.

As I noted in that article, China’s overtures toward Mexico have not gone unnoticed by DC-based lawmakers and lobbyists.

“China increasingly sees opportunity in Mexico, and the investments are increasing,” Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, a business lobby group whose members include 200 blue chip companies representing the lion’s share of US private investment in Latin America, told Fox News [2]. “It’s convenient to try to circumvent sanctions … by going to Mexico and then producing in Mexico and then trying to get into the U.S. market.”

China’s ramping up of its commercial and investment activity with Mexico has raised concerns in the Washington beltway that Beijing may be seeking a financial and political upside as tensions between the US and Mexico rise over a whole raft of issues, from energy to GMO foods, to the fentanyl trade (which also involves China) and the Mexican government’s ongoing refusal to endorse sanctions against Russia. According to Farnsworth, the spike in Chinese investment boils down to two main contributing factors: Beijing’s attempts to bypass Washington’s sanctions and deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Mexico.

Steel, EVs and Fentanyl

Since then, the US government has escalated its war of words against both China and Mexico over the illicit fentanyl trade that is killing tens of thousands of US citizens a year. It has also been pressuring Mexico to prevent China from selling its steel to the U.S. through its southern neighbor, and has even threatened to impose tariffs on Mexican steel if it doesn’t take tough enough action.

The latest cause of friction has been the growing presence of Chinese carmakers in Mexico. Over the past three years brands such as Changan, JMC, Chirey, Jaecoo and Jetour have set up operations in Mexico. BYD, China’s — and now the world’s — largest EV manufacturer, currently has six dealerships in Mexico, but it plans to have 50 (with a presence in all of Mexico’s 32 states) by the end of this year. BYD Americas CEO Stella Li recently told Reuters the company was looking to build a plant in Mexico with a production capacity of 150,000 units annually.

Suffice to say, that did not go down well in the US. A White House spokesperson said the Biden administration will not allow Chinese automakers to flood the market with vehicles that “pose a threat to national security.” According to a recent article in the Mexican newspaper Reforma, citing three unnamed Mexican officials, the Mexican government, under sustained pressure from the US, is keeping Chinese automakers at bay by refusing to offer them incentives, such as low-cost public land or lower taxes, for investments in electric vehicle production. The officials also said they would suspend any future meetings with Chinese automakers.

The growing deployment of protectionist measures in Mexico, largely at the behest of the US, has elicited rare criticism in the Mexican business press. The online financial newspaper Expansión.mx featured a fiery op-ed from Jonathan Torres, a former editorial director for Forbes Media LatAm, titled “US to Mexico: You’re Against China or Against Me”:

Since 2022, US officials Janet Yellen (Treasury Secretary), Jake Sullivan (National Security Advisor) and Katherine Tai (Trade Representative) have repeatedly reiterated that the China threat is one of the most delicate risks in their national security strategy, so much so that they have deployed a range of measures to prevent Chinese investments from entering their territory, including through their trading partners. Reading between the lines, the message is blunt: “you are with me in my strategy against China or, otherwise, you will suffer consequences in terms of trade, investment, etc.”

The United States, given these circumstances, is not necessarily looking at the nearshoring phenomenon in the same way as the rest of the world… For the Biden administration, global supply chains are strategic but only under certain conditions; that is, as long as they do not threaten US national security. In other words, what the US is really interested is “security shoring,” not nearshoring.

The irony is stark: the superpower famed for its promotion of the (NC: so called) free market is attempting to impose its own legislation on trading with China on third countries. In Mexico, for example, the Chinese automotive industry is rapidly accumulating market share and therefore finds itself in the crosshairs of the US government.

There is no dispute, says Torres: “We are facing an illegal act.”

Two’s Company…

In an opinion piece titled “For China, With Dislike: 544 tariffs,” El Economista’s editorial director Luis Miguel González likened Mexico’s strategic partnership with the US to a marriage, in which “there is no room for a Chinese lover.” He also warned that Mexico’s main trading partner is becoming “increasingly possessive”:

She asks us to prove out love over and over again. She offers us nearshoring as a reward.

The metaphor of marriage and the lover may be crude, but it is true. The same can be said about tests of love. The United States has become very demanding. In December of last year, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen asked Mexico to create a body to review foreign investments arriving in Mexico. What they are concerned about is a possible under-reporting of China’s investments in our country. In February, White House Trade Representative Katherine Tai raised her voice over the possible introduction of Chinese steel to the United States “disguised” as Mexican steel. Last month, Donald Trump threatened to prevent the entry of Chinese cars if they are produced in Mexico.

Regardless of who occupies the White House next year, Mexico’s commercial ties with China will come under increasing focus — and strain — north of the border. The primary focus of the upcoming review of the Mexico, United States, Canada Agreement (USMCA), will be making the necessary adjustments to position the North American region vis-à-vis China, says Ildefonso Guajardo, a former Economy Minister who headed Mexico’s negotiating team for the USMCA and is currently a coordinator of international issues for presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez.

“The real underlying problem for the upcoming review of USMCA in 2026 is neither rules of origin nor transgenics. The problem for 2026 is called China,” Guajardo said this Tuesday, also at an event organized by the Council of the Americas. Guajardo describes China as both a trading partner and a competitor to Mexico. As such, the Mexican government should prioritize its integration with the United States.

But not everyone in Mexico is quite so blasé about the prospect of Mexico’s government throwing all its weight behind the US, to all intents and purposes a declining superpower, in its wider geopolitical struggle with China.

Caught in the Middle

“The old rich guy in town, the US, is having problems with the new rich guy in town, China,” says Enrique Dussel of the Centre for China-Mexico Studies at the National Autonomous University in Mexico. “And Mexico — under previous administrations, and this one — doesn’t have a strategy vis-à-vis this new triangular relationship.”

And that makes no sense given the risk Mexico runs of being caught in the middle of this titanic duel between two superpowers. But according to Mexico’s outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO), Mexico has little choice in the matter:

We cannot shut ourselves off, we cannot break up, we cannot isolate ourselves. It is a fact that we have 3,800 kilometers of border, for reasons of geopolitics (presumably in reference to the US’ invasion, occupation and appropriation of more than half of Mexico’s territory in the mid-19th century). With all due respect, we are not a European country, nor are we Brazil. We have this neighborhood and, furthermore, if we agree on things, as we have done, we can help each other out… Our economic integration is already well advanced.

In fact, in the same speech AMLO actually called for an intensification of North American integration, along the lines of the European Union, while somehow preserving Mexico’s status as a “free, independent, sovereignty” country:

The important thing here is how to strengthen that integration and commitment that is in the interest of both nations, the United States and Mexico, to strengthen North America and subsequently strengthen the entire American continent, just as in the beginning the European Community was created that would go on to become the European Union.

It is baffling to hear a Latin American head of state — especially someone of AMLO’s stature — calling to replicate the success of the European Union. Over the past two years the supranational bloc has not only dynamited Europe’s economic future through its disastrous sanctions against its largest energy provider, Russia, it has been actively complicit in Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza. It also has zero regard for national sovereignty and basic democratic principles, and is doing everything it possibly can to undermine the two.

Ironically, AMLO said the above words in a speech titled “The United States Must Learn to Respect Mexican Sovereignty,” in which he blasted the US State Department for singling out Mexico for “significant human rights issues” in its “2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.” As Mexico’s outgoing president asked, what gives the US government the right to judge other countries on their human rights record, given the hostile way in which it has acted toward so many other nations over the past 200 years:

“How can they talk about human rights if they allocate billions of dollars to war for the death of innocents in all the countries in the world where there is confrontation?… [W]hy don’t they release Assange? Where is the freedom and free manifestation of ideas?

But deep down AMLO appears to believe not only that Joe Biden has a “policy of respect toward Mexico” but that the US can actually be reformed, which brings to mind (or at least my mind) the Scorpion and the Frog fable.

“We have insisted a great deal — and will continue doing so — on wanting to change US foreign policy,” said AMLO. In return, he asks that the US-Mexican bilateral partnership be “based on cooperation, integration and respect for sovereignty.” We need each other, he said, “we complement each other, you just have to learn to respect us.” Will that leave any space for Mexico to continue forging ties with the US’ largest geopolitical rival, China, as well as other strategic partners? AMLO seems to think so; I am not so sure.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/04 ... china.html
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Re: Mexico

Post by blindpig » Thu May 30, 2024 2:21 pm

Mexico Goes to Polls Amid Dirty War and US Interference (Part 1)
MAY 29, 2024

Image
A poster of MORENA and allies’ presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum next to a poster of Xóchitl Gálvez, right-wing Broad Front for Mexico coalition’s presidential candidate. Photo: France 24.

By Saheli Chowdhury – May 27, 2024

Mexicans will elect their president and almost 20,000 other public officials, including parliamentarians, state legislators, some state governors, and mayors and councilors of thousands of municipalities on June 2, in an electoral process that has been termed “historic” due to both sheer size and the high stakes involved. Although most interest is focused on the presidential election, given Mexico’s significance in the American continent, the other elections are no less important, as their results would signify to what extent the next president can implement government policies.

In addition, the fact that Mexico shares a long border with the United States brings with it the interventionism of the most belligerent superpower in the world. Over the last five plus years, Mexico has had a president upholding national sovereignty for the first time in almost four decades, if not more, and the US empire seems anxious to return to the status quo of controlling Mexico as a sort of neo-colony, by imposing a servile head of state by any means possible. This is a major—and perhaps the most significant—factor behind the dirty war that Mexico is experiencing as it nears the election day.

US-led media smear campaign: “narco-president” and “narco-candidate”
Hegemonic media of both Mexico and the United States have been against Andrés Manuel López Obrador almost throughout his political career, since years before he became the president of Mexico. However, they turned particularly vicious after 2018, especially Mexican mainstream media, having lost their chayote, the so-called financial aid provided to private media conglomerates by the Mexican government, which in reality were bribes paid to media in exchange of positive coverage. Moreover, Mexican mainstream media is controlled by private economic interests, a de facto power in the country that is linked to the interests of transnational corporations based in the United States, Canada, and various countries of Europe.

Mexican mainstream media is also closely linked to the US mainstream media and US state interests, and there is ample evidence that it is fed tidbits of information by US intelligence agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which have been operating in Mexico freely for years, as if Mexico was not a sovereign country, until AMLO put limits on their power. Currently, while the electoral process is underway, this media-corporate-US intelligence nexus is carrying out a dirty war against AMLO, the ruling party Movement for National Regeneration (MORENA), and its presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, and taking it to unprecedented levels with the use of social media bots and evidently hundreds of millions of dollars.

Over the last five years, AMLO has been the target of the Mexican elite media-intellectual complex, a group of journalists, intellectuals, and artists who have accused him of everything: polarizing the country (because with the rise of alternative media outlets, the people’s opinions have become visible); giving money to “lazy people” so that they vote for him and his party (social programs such as pension for the elderly, scholarships for students, financial assistance to single mothers with minor children and to families with disabled children, etc.); handing over the country to organized crime through the Abrazos, no balazos principle (“hugs, no bullets,” as AMLO maintains that attending to root causes such as poverty and lack of opportunities is better than brute force at eradicating crime); militarizing the country (by giving the military the task of administering customs, and participation of the armed forces in public works, things that are common in various countries), and several other unforgivable “offenses.” However, the current dirty war surpasses all that.

A coordinated media attack began on January 18, 2024, a month into the presidential pre-campaign, when the think tank Baker Institute’s Center for the US and Mexico released a report titled Mexico Country Outlook 2024. It alleged that in the upcoming election, “criminal organizations may even become an important electoral ally” of the ruling party, without providing any evidence for this claim.

On January 31, three international media, namely, ProPublica, Insight Crime, and Deutsche Welle, published the same news, citing DEA sources, claiming that narco-trafficking gangs contributed money to López Obrador’s 2006 presidential campaign, an election he lost because of a documented fraud. ProPublica’s Tim Golden, a Pulitzer winning US journalist, titled his report as a question, “Did Drug Traffickers Funnel Millions of Dollars to Mexican President López Obrador’s First Campaign?,” and claimed that the Beltrán Leyva brothers, associated with the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, had funneled $2 million to López Obrador’s campaign. The meager sum—according to narco-traffickers’ standards, as well as the total lack of hard evidence, raised eyebrows in Mexico. Meanwhile, the Deutsche Welle piece was penned by Mexican journalist Anabel Hernández, known for her investigations and books on Mexican drug cartels, and alleged by some to be a DEA asset. Both these reports were primarily based on allegations made by a DEA informant and former lawyer of the drug lord Édgar Valdez Villarreal alias “La Barbie,” Roberto López Nájera alias “Jennifer.” López Nájera had been used as a “witness collaborator” by the former “president” of Mexico, Felipe Calderón (president in quotes because he did not win the 2006 election but was imposed by fraud), to fabricate allegations against police and military officials who would refuse to do Calderón’s bidding or who had discovered his corrupt activities. Interestingly, this had been revealed by Anabel Hernández herself, more than a decade ago, in a report for Proceso magazine. She had also said, in an interview several years ago, that she had thoroughly investigated AMLO for organized crime links during several years and found nothing. Yet, during AMLO’s presidency, she has exhibited an 180° turn, and has thus single-handedly destroyed the credibility that she once enjoyed.

Two weeks later, on February 15, the portal LatinUs, belonging to the media conglomerate Televisa, openly opposed to López Obrador, published an interview presumably with Celso Ortega Jiménez, leader of another criminal gang, Los Ardillos, that operates in the mountains of Guerrero state and is involved in a violent territorial war with two other gangs (Familia Michoacana and Los Tlacos). In that interview, Ortega claimed that in 2006 the narco gang Los Zetas financed the electoral campaign of López Obrador’s former party, Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), on the national level. To reinforce his allegations, Ortega added that Los Ardillos, which is a breakaway group of Los Zetas, still maintains contact with AMLO’s current party, MORENA, and especially its operatives in Guerrero: Congressman Félix Salgado Macedonio, his daughter and current Governor Evelyn Salgado, and Norma Otilia Hernández, mayor of Chilpancingo, epicenter of the inter-gang war.

Several Mexican political analysts quickly pointed out numerous inconsistencies in the interview, the chief among which was the allegation that two different narco-trafficking gangs financed the same presidential campaign, something unprecedented and considered impossible in Mexico. Moreover, according to Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, long-time researcher on drug cartels and author of the book Los Zetas, the group did not exist as a standalone gang in 2006; it was the armed branch of another older gang, Cartel del Golfo. Others questioned how Carlos Loret de Mola, Latinus’ editor and “star reporter” who conducted the interview, “happened to be contacted” by the leader of Los Ardillos while he “happened to be traveling” in a violent zone (claims made by Loret de Mola). Some others wondered how it could be possible that a presidential campaign financed by multiple gangs did not win the election, or rather lost due to a fraud, and yet none of the gangs set cities on fire, something they regularly do for far less important reasons.

AMLO alleged that the Loret de Mola interview was a “montage,” which may not be wrong, as the journalist is branded as “Lord Montajes” for having launched several montages throughout his career, some of which destroyed innocent people’s lives, such as Israel Vallarta, who is spending 18 years and counting in “preventive detention” without a sentence, for a crime he did not commit. Loret de Mola openly colluded with Gennaro García Luna, Calderón’s secretary of Citizen Security and an operative of the Sinaloa Cartel, currently in a US prison for drug and weapons trafficking charges. However, there might be some truth to Celso Ortega’s claims, though his gang did not provide support to either AMLO or PRD on the national level, but possibly to his own brother, Bernardo Ortega Jiménez, a PRD politician who is currently a member of Guerrero state congress, and was formerly mayor of Quechultenango, precisely in a zone controlled by Los Ardillos. Although Bernardo has claimed many times that he “chose a different path” from his brothers, the allegations and rumors remain.

Barely a week after the LatinUs montage, the New York Times continued with the narco-narrative, with a report by Alan Feuer and Natalie Kitroeff titled “U.S. Examined Allegations of Cartel Ties to Allies of Mexico’s President,” which made claims about López Obrador’s 2018 presidential campaign being allegedly financed by the Sinaloa Cartel. This report provided even less evidence than the former ones which had at least named their sources, while this one was based on the claims of three unnamed sources and archived DEA reports that Feuer and Kitroeff failed to cite. They even admitted that “much of the information collected by US officials came from informants whose accounts can be difficult to corroborate and sometimes end up being incorrect. The investigators obtained the information while looking into the activities of drug cartels, and it was not clear how much of what the informants told them was independently confirmed.” On reading the piece, it becomes evident that the two reporters repeated hearsays and blatant fake news disseminated by Mexican hegemonic media on a daily basis.

Simultaneously with these reports, there exploded a social media campaign designating AMLO as “narco-president” and presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum as “narco-candidate.” The hashtags #narcopresidente, #narcopresidenteAMLO, #narcocandidataClaudia and similar ones were republished millions of times on X and other social media platforms. However, a large fraction of the accounts that spread these hashtags all over social media were revealed to be bots, created by troll firms based in Mexico as well as outside, in countries such as Argentina and Spain, as revealed by social media researcher Julián Macías Tovar. The Spanish journalist connected these troll firms to the opposition coalition formed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), National Action Party (PAN), and PRD, and its presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, whose campaign is supported not only by the US authorities (through National Endowment for Democracy funding of NGOs that back her) and US media but also by the Spanish neo-Nazi party Vox.

Macías’ allegations are reinforced by the fact that NYT published its report just after Gálvez’s visit to the United States. During her trip she even met with NYT editors, as well as with Luis Almagro, secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), who is well known for promoting coup attempts in Venezuela and Bolivia. She also visited Spain, where the welcome that she received was, albeit, much less warm than in the United States.

The narco-president/narco-candidate smear campaign is still ongoing, although the US National Security Council confirmed that there is no investigation into the Mexican president, and that a former investigation, based on López Nájera’s claims, had been closed in 2011 due to lack of evidence. According to AMLO, the media dirty war is a soft power tool that substitutes the brute force of the empire. “What helps the oligarchs the most, the ones who think they are the owners of the world, in controlling, dominating, are media wars—discrediting popular leaders and those who oppose hegemony,” he commented in this regard. “In the end, it is a return to the maxim of Goebbels, Hitler’s head of propaganda, that a lie, when repeated many times, can become the truth.”



Simultaneous media montages that ended in farce
Late April-early May brought two more montages involving one of the most serious issues that Mexican authorities are yet to resolve—forced disappearance. This is a very delicate issue in Mexico, where from December 31, 1952 to May 1, 2024, there are 104,496 missing persons registered nationwide, according to data from the National Commission for the Search of Disappeared Persons. The montages were launched at the same time, and mainstream media blew them out of all proportions, intending to inject some oxygen into the struggling Xóchitl Gálvez campaign by taking advantage of an issue that has caused immense tragedy to Mexicans, but it all ended in farce.

The first one involved a supposed clandestine mass grave in Mexico City that turned out to be a place where people dumped and burned trash. On April 30, Ceci Flores, founder of the collective Madres Buscadoras de Sonora, and a well-known activist who has been searching for her disappeared children, reported on her X account that she had discovered an alleged crematorium/mass grave in the municipality of Iztapalapa, in the east of Mexico City, where she found women’s voter cards and children’s notebooks and a school ID. She also posted photos of the site, which held a large mound of ash, and photos of herself holding what appeared to be a charred piece of bone.

Soon after the publication of the photos and videos, Mexico City authorities deployed forensic teams to the site, and did report the discovery of identity documents of a woman and a boy, but both persons were found to be alive and well, at their respective homes. The woman, a resident of Estado de México, reported that she had lost her voter credential last year when her mobile phone was snatched from her, and the document was inside the phone cover; meanwhile the child’s parents claimed that they had mistakenly thrown away their son’s school ID with some of his old school notebooks. Forensic examinations revealed that the bones at the supposed mass grave did not belong to humans but to animals, mainly dogs, while the ash came from burnt trash. Yet, most mainstream media outlets continued to distort the matter and sow doubts about the veracity of the official forensic investigations.

Marti Batres, interim chief of government of Mexico City, called the clandestine crematorium story a “montage” aimed at staining the image of the authorities and at impacting the elections at both national and local levels. The governorship of Mexico City will also be decided on June 2, and Clara Brugada, mayor of Iztapalapa, is MORENA’s candidate for the election. Since the fake mass grave was found in Iztapalapa, Batres conjectured possible political motives. Similarly, collectives of mothers searching for their disappeared children, based in Mexico City, criticized Ceci Flores for not informing them at all about her investigations in the city, as they came to know about the issue only after media had made it viral. The founder of one such group also called out Flores for trying to “profit from people’s pain” by lending herself to Xóchitl Gálvez’s electoral campaign and thus “harming a just cause.” While mainstream media did not contact these mothers, they gave space to Ceci Flores even after the mass grave allegation was discarded, where she went on to accuse the Mexico City government of “cover up.”

The other fake disappearance story was launched at the same time but in Morelos state, and it involved the Catholic Church of Mexico. On April 29, the Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM) filed a complaint about the disappearance of the emeritus bishop of the Diocese of Chilpancingo-Chilapa, Salvador Rangel Mendoza, aged 78. Although the diocese is in Guerrero state, and specifically in a zone of decades-long inter-gang territorial war, the bishop has been living in Jojutla in the neighboring state of Morelos (also impacted by narco-gang wars) since his retirement three years ago. This case assumed a serious dimension as Rangel Mendoza had been working as a mediator among the warring gangs in order to pacify the region, and had brought about a “ceasefire” between two aforementioned gangs, Los Ardillos and Los Tlacos, both vying for control in Chilpancingo. He is even rumored to be friends with Celso Ortega, leader of Los Ardillos. He is also a vocal critic of the government of President López Obrador, whom he accused of allowing “organized crime to win,” and has openly backed the right-wing opposition in the past, although AMLO said on different occasions that he supported the bishop’s work for peace. After the bishop’s disappearance, the CEM insisted that he had been a victim of organized crime, and held AMLO, Guerrero state Governor Evelyn Salgado, and the authorities of Morelos responsible for it. Hegemonic media repeated and inflated the CEM’s claims, without scrutinizing the curious facts surrounding the matter.

Rangel Mendoza left his home on the morning of April 27, and throughout the afternoon and evening of that day there were recorded small withdrawals from his bank accounts and payments at convenience stores and food shops. Thereafter there was no trace of him until April 30, when the CEM reported that he had been found in the General Hospital of Cuernavaca, a public hospital in a different part of Morelos state. Within a short while, the attorney general of Morelos state, Uriel Carmona, commented to the press that the bishop had been victim of an “express abduction,” but that version was later discarded by the state commissioner of Public Security of Morelos, José Antonio Ortiz Guarneros.

In statements to the press, Ortiz Guarneros revealed that his office was in possession of videos that showed the bishop entering a motel in Ocotepec (a municipality in Morelos state, close to Cuernavaca) out of his own volition, “without anyone forcing him. We have some evidence, and we already gave those to the Attorney’s Office; as far as we know, the bishop voluntarily entered the motel with a person of the same sex and later that person left.” The interim governor of Morelos, Samuel Sotelo, corroborated Ortiz’s statements, and added that the last time the bishop had been seen (before ending up in hospital) was on April 27 at a pizza shop, where he met with one of the employees of the establishment.

On May 2, Rangel Mendoza’s toxicology reports were leaked, showing that he had consumed cocaine and “other drugs.” The bishop has not given any statement to the police, and the CEM no longer wants an investigation. Thus, what started as an alleged case of grave insecurity in Mexico ended up in a scandal for the Church as well as unmasking mainstream media’s yellow journalism.

In the opinion of sociologist Bernardo Barranco, this incident also indicates a “serious and unprecedented interference” by the Church authorities in Mexican politics and state affairs “in favor of the right wing,” even though constitutionally Mexico is a secular state. There are allegations all over the country that church officials are promoting extreme-right candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, and asking parishioners to vote for the right. According to official census data, more than 70% of Mexicans are followers of the Catholic Church, therefore, given the gravity of the situation, the left’s candidate Claudia Sheinbaum has already met with the CEM top officials. However, “the Mexican Episcopate defends the interests of the most recalcitrant right,” commented José Manuel Guerrero, a priest and liberation theologist, in an interview with journalist Julio Hernández López “Astillero.” He stated that since the time of the presidency of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the Catholic Church of Mexico totally abandoned Liberation Theology, which before that was a minority progressive and socialist current within the church system. Currently, the Church is on a “crusade” against AMLO and Sheinbaum, although their political project, the Fourth Transformation, which “puts the interests of the poorest and the most vulnerable above all, is most aligned with Christ’s doctrine.”

The interference of the de facto powers—national oligarchy, mainstream media, transnational corporations, US empire—against the left in elections in Latin America has been the order of the day since the First Pink Tide was ushered in the region with the triumph of Hugo Chávez as the president of Venezuela in 1998. In addition, the judiciary, the branch of the state that is most difficult to reform even if a left-progressive government can properly establish itself in any Latin American country, is known to intervene not only in elections but also in administrative functions in favor of the right or the “status quo.” In Mexico, the judiciary severely curtailed the work of the government of López Obrador throughout his term, and is now intervening in the electoral process. This issue will be discussed more in detail in the next part of this series.

Special for Orinoco Tribune by Saheli Chowdhury

https://orinocotribune.com/mexico-goes- ... ce-part-1/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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