Thursday, May 24, 2007

We have a winner!

Just in case you are completely uninformed, Yucatan will soon sport a new governor, a woman, whose name is Ivonne Ortega and she is from the formerly (70 years) ruling party of Mexico, the PRI. Everyone that knows her and is on her side insists she is very charismatic and just a wonderful person.

The PANistas are quite upset, especially the ultra-right catholic chest beaters in Merida; how this could have happened is beyond them. But, as someone pointed out as a possible exclamation: The PRI governments stole everything they could, but also helped a lot of people especially in the poor, rural areas of Yucatan, while the PAN government just helped itself to everything without giving anything back.

My candidate, Cholo, didn't fare very well, but I suppose he served his purpose, which was to distract voters and votes from some of the other candidates. Ana Rosa, who would have won had she been the candidate for the PAN party, also fared poorly. The logic among the Ana Rosistas was that while they supported her, she had no chance so they voted for someone else, mainly Ivonne Ortega. If everyone who preferred Ana Rosa had actually voted for her, and not copped out, she would have probably won.

Conspiracy theories abound: The PRI was 'given' the Yucatan in exchange for less antagonism at the federal level where the PRI controls the Congress and generally opposed the president; Ana Rosa was forced out of the PAN party by the PRI who knew they could not beat the PAN with Ana Rosa and offered her a deal - in exchange for her dimission from the PAN governor race, a hueso, or political appointment within the PRI government.

As I hear more of these charming theories, I will be sure to post them for your amusement.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi William, I'm mystified over why the PRI continues to exist. Maybe you can explain. It seems to have two distinct wings, one conservative, one populist, but its people seem mostly closer to PAN than PRD. I would have though the lesson of the last national election was that PRI needs to merge into PAN if the mainstream doesn't want to let a party split give the PRD control. What am I missing?

William Lawson said...

Well, I am no political analyst and therefore would not recognize a distinct wing if it flapped me in the face.

That said, I might comment that the PRI exists because it has been around for so long that it is ingrained in the Mexican mindset. While some might think that it should be dead as a political party, there is still much ignorance that can be exploited and the PRI has an enormous infrastructure that can be used for that purpose.

Perhaps idealogically, the PAN and PRI are not that far apart. It is only in the rhetoric where any difference can be perceived, I think. The only really 'out there' party is the PRD which bitches and moans about everything and seems to attract the most radical and socially disenfranchised individuals out there.

Does this help or shall I go on?

Thanks, W.

Anonymous said...

No, that explains it. I'm not surprised, actually. One sees it in trade unions as well, where two or more unions represent essentially the same class of workers. A single union would have much more clout, and the existence of rival unions means that the industry can play one against the other, but rarely do such unions merge, because that would mean that one set of union bosses would be out of a job.

Glad to see the restaurant reviews carrying on, by the way.