When everyone is a fascist, is anyone a fascist?

Venezuelans on both sides of the political divide have spent the last frenetic days calling each other fascists. Nothing novel about this, other than the increased frequency. But banging on pots and pans (and now bumping salsa at full blast) in protest is one thing. Beating up opposition politicians and stripping them of their right to speak unless they recognize Maduro as president is quite another. Pictured above is William Davila, deputy of the National Assembly and former governor for Merida. His face was smashed with a microphone this week by others in the assembly. Then, President of the Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, refused to let opposition lawmakers speak and stripped them of their committee posts.

So does one side have a point? I refer to Merriam-Webster. Fascism; a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

Capriles Goes to the Powerpoint to Prove Fraud

Capriles presented these slides at his press conference today para destacar his fraud allegations. To me, the most compelling slide is number two, which shows that Maduro somewhat incredulously chalked up more votes on Sunday than Chavez did on October 7 in a total of 1,176 different polling places out of 13,638 . As a frame of reference, Chavez received about 600,000 more votes in October than Maduro's nearly 7.6 million votes. In some of these centers Maduro racked up 943, 530, and 493% more votes than "Cristo Chavez."

Opposition & National Guard Face Off in Merida Near Election Office

Credit: Jose Antonio Rivas Leone for noticias24.com

Capriles...

"Yo no pacto con la ilegitimidad."

Capriles...

"Usted es el derrotado, usted y su gobierno."

Is their a lightswitch for this?

Venezuelan VP, Jore Arreaza, explains just why the internet was shut off within the country, on election day no less, for several minutes. "Foreign conspirators." Is Anonymous sticking it to the Bolivarian Republic? Nevertheless, talk about awesome power. Right up there with the superhero power to be invisible.

Compatriotas no hay problemas con internet. Calma!! Fue una maniobra breve para impedir más hackeos conspiradores del exterior.

— Jorge Arreaza (@jaarreaza) April 14, 2013

'Se cayó el sistema'

Recuerda '88.

Para el pueblo venozalano

The Underdog: Latest take on Chavez v. Capriles

From Juan Nagel of Caracas Chronicles, via Foreign Policy:

"Let's recap: We have a 14-year incumbent who is favored to win but is barely campaigning. We have a strong challenger closing the gap, but not quite there yet. We have opinion polls giving wildly differing predictions, and a public sphere where unimportant things dominate the narrative while crucial issues are left by the wayside."

Para los intensos

The facebook backlash. Translated as "My facebook wall is not the Office of the Electoral Crimes Prosecutor, go complain somewhere else."

Televisa: what Soriana videos?

This morning I watched about a 10 minute election round-up on Televisa. The first segment was a really grating exchange between the PRD and PRI IFE representatives. The PRDista was accusing EPN and the PRI of massive vote-buying. The PRIista's strategy was to deny everything. Then they went to AMLO's press conference at PRD headquarters that was apparently constructed of Soriana gift cards. There he further accused the PRI of massive 'compra y coaccion.' Two sides, with a balance of the time given to the accusations of the izquierda. Finally, Televisa presented Soriana's letter attempting to explain just how they got caught up in this mess. Luckily for the integrity of Mexico's democracy, we're told, this was all a big mistake and the cards are nothing more than a customer/employee loyalty program.

Well, when is the last time hundreds of people showed up at la super clamoring to spend their gift cards after word spreads that the cards will be cancelled now that the gig is up? All Televisa had to do was show one of the many YouTube videos of person after person quite openly stating that the PRI gave them these cards in exchange for their vote in the packed aisles. But that would rock the boat too much. Much easier to keep the whole affair as a 'he said, she said' instead of actually presenting the evidence.

The worst thing is that although the PRI said the cards were worth 300-500 pesos, people are discovering when they get to their local Soriana that most of them are worth only 100 pesos.

The very next story involved a brewing PRD campaign finance scandal with a tapped phone call and on cue, ominous music.

Why (some) Mexicans voted

Fear the PRI

The view of Aguachile's blogger, worth reading in full:

"I don't share the optimism. I truly fear for Mexico's democracy. I may well be wrong and I hope I am, but one doesn't have to look very deeply at Enrique Peña Nieto's trajectory to find a man who represents every one of PRI's vices in the past: Collusion with the media, steamrolling of the opposition, blatant institutional engineering (Ley Peña-why on earth has the media forgotten about this?), cover-up of corruption, mediocre social programs, clientelism, and lest we forget, outright authoritarianism. There is much more, but this is only from the past few years of his Mexico State government. The past days, more and more stuff is simply seeping to the surface.

This is a man who went to Oaxaca in 2010 to actively stump for a murderous repressor and scoundrel, Ulises Ruiz, when he tried to impose his PRI successor, and on whose campaign trail in Puebla had the pedophile-protecting Mario Marín appear at his campaign events...

Yet it is not only about one man, Peña Nieto - and I hold him in a very low regard - but of a party as well, which has shown absolutely no indication it has changed. I don't think this is demagoguery; there are many good priístas just like there are good people in any party. But a party carries within it an imprint that it is very, very hard to rid itself of. And looking at how PRI and their thugs acted in the 2010 and 2011 state elections, I fear for Mexico's democracy should they return to executive powers, backed by legislative majorities. They won't be easily removed."

AMLO & Televisa

From The Guardian's investigative report about Televisa's concerted effort to take down Lopez-Obrador's 2006 campaign and boost Pena-Nieto and the PRI to victory in 2012:

"One of the documents is a PowerPoint presentation which explicitly states its aim of making sure "López Obrador does not win the 2006 elections". That bitterly contested election saw the leftwing candidate lose a commanding lead and ended with him claiming he had been cheated.

It was apparently created just after midnight on 4 April 2005, hours before President Fox was reported to have met the heads of Televisa and TV Azteca.

Fox was facing growing criticism for an attempt to get Lopez Obrador, then mayor of Mexico City, impeached over a minor planning dispute. The document outlines short-term measures for controlling the backlash, a period of national mourning for the recently-deceased Pope John Paul II to distract attention from the growing row. The next day Fox declared a day of mourning for the pontiff.

Longer-term strategies proposed to "dismantle the public perception that Lopez Obrador is a martyr/saviour," by boosting news coverage of crime in the capital and revisiting old corruption cases involving his former allies. The plan also envisaged "promoting personal stories of crimes suffered [in the capital] by showbiz celebrities" and "urging the inhabitants of the Big Brother house" to do the same. Some Televisa celebrities did just that, both on showbiz programmes and in the Mexican version of Celebrity Big Brother broadcast that May.

The document also advises that scriptwriters of a popular political weekly satire show called El Privilegio de Mandar should make the character who represented López Obrador appear "clumsy" and "inept." The final episode of the show, broadcast immediately after the 2006 elections – when the result of a recount was still pending – ended with a non-humorous speech by an actor calling on López Obrador to accept defeat."

'Mexico no es una telenovela'

Images from June 10 mega-protest in Mexico City.

The Mexican Election is 7 Days Away...Time to Catch Up!

I'm incredibly behind in covering this election and all the 'really important stuff' that has gone down in the last few months. There will be more to come on #yosoy132, AMLO's flirtations with further civil unrest should he lose the elections, Vasquez-Mota's flop, & the awesome 'more Romney than Romney' spectacle that is Enrique Pena Nieto.

But before all that let's revisit IFE's bizarre decision to toss a 'ring girl' into the May 6 debate mix. That was weird. Score 1 for Mexico's dignity! Leave it to the students to restore a little integrity with their own debate on Tuesday night that was ignored by Televisa and TV Azteca, ostensibly because Pena Nieto chose not to participate.

"The Walton Way?" How Wal-Mart became Mexico's largest retailer

Investigative journalism at its very best, making the complex and attenuated coherent. As a side-note, I always wondered how Wal-Mart was able to plant its flag so close to Teotihuacan. I think we can now assume that some part of the alleged $24 million in bribes played a part.

"Haz patria, retira propaganda"

Mexican civil society activist and NGO leader, Daniel Gershenson, removes ubiquitous political 'advertising' in his Mexico City neighborhood, gets arrested, and builds a movement to pull down plastic political pollution. And like any upstanding citizen's movement in 2012, there's a Twitter hashtag #quitaunanuncio.

Arnaldo Kraus of El Universal, was prompted by Gershenson's actions to ask some questions:

A vuelapluma enlisto 13 preguntas. ¿Cuánto cuesta la basura electoral?, ¿quién la paga?, ¿cuánta se recicla?, ¿sirve?, ¿modifica la opinión pública?, ¿cuál es el destino de los plásticos, alambres, madera y el resto de los materiales utilizados?, ¿es lícito escribir estupideces en las bardas de la ciudad?, ¿el Instituto Federal Electoral o los partidos políticos deberían contar con la autorización de la ciudadanía para invadir la vía pública?, ¿quién hace la basura electoral: amigos, compinches, socios, u opositores políticos transmutados en rivales vendidos?, ¿tiene derecho la ciudadanía de quitar la contaminación visual?, ¿tiene derecho la patrulla P92-30, SSP-DF de detener a Daniel Gershenson por retirar la propaganda que afea y enferma a su ciudad?, ¿tenemos derecho los ciudadanos que pagamos impuestos de remover la basura electoral?, ¿deben respetar los partidos políticos la veda electoral (del 15 de febrero al 29 de marzo) y quitar su broza?

Kraus finishes off: "La basura electoral comparte similitudes con la mayoria de los politicos mexicanos. No sirve y (casi) nadie cree ni en ellos ni en la propaganda."

Reigning in Mexico's Military

In a country where the military is still disappearing its citizens amidst the fog of the war on drugs, the Mexican Supreme Court's unanimous decision last week ordering military personnel to be tried in civilian courts, not secretive military tribunals, for human rights violations is a step in the right direction. The tribunals proceedings are hardly transparent and result in very few convictions. Allegations of serious abuses are also on the rise. Since the beginning of President Calderon's term, the National Human Rights Commission, CNDH, has received 4,772 reports of kidnapping, torture, and murder.

However, Mexico's civilian courts are rife with massive problems of their own. Endless detentions, due process, and witness intimidation are institutionalized. The documentary film, Presunto Culpable, demonstrates the depth of the challenges facing judicial reformers and the impunity that bad actors within the security forces enjoy. What's more, top military brass are grumbling in public about the Court's decision, pinning allegations of murder and kidnapping on drug gangs seeking to, in the words of Secretary of the Navy Admiral Mariano Francisco Saynez, "damage the image of our institutions."

The case of Rene Jasso Maldonado belies the Navy Secretary's assertion. Jasso's home in Monterrey was raided in June and he was taken from his family. He has not been seen since. The New York Times clearly states that it was the military who conducted the raid yet they, and the state police, claim they were not in the area and don't have their son. The family flatly denies that the raid and kidnapping could have been the work of a drug gang posing as the military. His brother claims that, "they would have wiped out the witnesses."

The Court's ruling is a first step. Beyond the massive reforms needed within civilian courts is a plan to quickly move existing cases out of the military tribunals and free up courts to open new cases. Apparently, a process has not yet been unveiled and the military's full cooperation is doubtful. President Calderon and Congress should move to create a special civilian court to hear cases of alleged violations committed against Mexican citizens by members of the military sworn to protect them. This though would be further than Calderon has been willing to move thus far. His military campaign has been mostly popular with Mexicans and his full recognition of the military abuses would cut against his strategy and public statements.

TransMilenio, To Thee I Sing

I can now die a happy man, for I've ridden TransMilenio, Bogota's bus rapid transit system. Not the first, but probably the best, TM covers over 80 km and makes Bogatanos swell with pride. In fact, our friend Carolina had two 10-trip passes ready for us when we arrived last week. Its fleet also appears on a clear majority of tourist t-shirts and postcards.

The system is so central to this city's future and urban development that the current mayor was sacked and suspended for 3 months due to alleged corruption involving bids for new lines. Nevertheless, TM can get you from the Norte to El Centro in half the time that a taxi would take and the system costs a fraction of what Medellin laid down for its subway system.