La Corte Suprema se apaga la luz en el SME

The Mexican Supreme Court has finished off Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LyFC), the bloated utility that provided middling service to millions of Mexicans throughout DF, EdoMex, and portions of surrounding states. The Court's opinion, reached unanimously, states that Calderon's takeover was constitutional and within his powers to disband a "decentralized entity" when it ceases to be economically viable.

As reported last October, on the same evening that Mexico qualified for the 2010 World Cup, President Calderon sent in hundreds of troops to shut down LyFC and transfer operation to the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE). In doing so, he took on a weakened and unpopular political nemesis, the Sindicato Mexicano de Electristas (SME) and its 44,000 LyFC electricians. Many hoped, he would be so brave as to take on the corrupt teachers' union (SNTE) leadership and the drug cartels with the same degree of success. But Elba Esther Gordillo, head of the SNTE, has proven to be too valuable of an ally. The cartels are another story.