Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has won the Mexican presidential elections with a plurality of 37 percent of the vote, returning to power the party which ruled Mexico as an authoritarian one-party-state for decades. Peña Nieto defeated the left-of-center Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) who got 31 percent of the vote and Josefina Vázquez Mota of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) who received about 26 percent.
Place: Mexico
On the Eve of the Elections: The Impact of the New Student Movement
As Mexicans prepare to vote on Sunday, July 1 in the national elections, two presidential candidates have pulled ahead and each claims that he will win. Enrique Peña Nieto, candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that ruled Mexico for over seventy years, is ahead in all of the polls, buoyed up by the PRI’s political machine and the corporate media.
Populist candidate Lopez Obrador moves up in polls in Mexico as his Keynesian impulses give way to appeals to business
Mexico’s voters face an increasingly murky choice in the rapidly approaching July 1 national election between three conservative, pro-business candidates and a populist candidate who until recently offered Keynesian solutions to the country’s endemic problems of inadequate economic growth, huge economic and social disparities, and a political establishment dominated by and in the service of a handful of oligopolies.
Mexican Unions Enter the National Elections Deeply Divided
On the political front, the Mexican working class has never been more divided. Mexico’s labor unions are mobilizing for the national presidential, congressional and gubernatorial elections on July 1, but they are doing so in support of a variety of rival parties and candidates left, right, and center. There is no incumbent, because Mexico’s Constitution forbids presidential reelection after one six-year term, so President Felipe Calderón’s name will not be on the ballot.
Why López Obrador?
Book Review: Arturo Ramos and Maria Teresa Lechuga, ¿Por qué López Obrador? Mexico: Cultura, Trabajo y Democracia/Ceiba/Comuna Oaxaca. Second edition. 2011. 232 pages.
Blues on the Border: Legendary Rock Guitarist Javier Batiz Plays and Sings for 'My Beloved and Beautiful Tijuana'
Javier Batiz, the great Mexican rock-and-roll guitarist, played and sang last week in a concert that embodied and gave voice to everything that is most wonderful about Tijuana and the U.S.-Mexico border region.
"We Want To Be Heard!"
Uniformed agents of Mexico’s Federal Investigative Agency (AFI for its initials in Spanish) yanked three inmates out of their cells in the minimum-security state prison at Ixcotel, Oaxaca in November, 2008 and transported them to San Bartola Coyotepec, another Oaxaca state prison, for "interrogation." One of the three inmates, Victor Hugo Martínez, told activist friends that the federal investigators beat him and threatened to "make your family pay" if he didn’t confess in full to crimes of which he’
Cockroft: Mexico’s Revolution Then and Now
James D. Cockroft’s "Mexico’s Revolution Then and Now," written for the centennial of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, is a radical scholar’s guide to radical Mexico and well worth the read. Both a scholar and a political activist, Cockcroft writes as a partisan of oppressed and exploited and an opponent of capitalism.
Teachers in Oaxaca: A Review
Diana Denham and the C.A.S.A. Collective, Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca (Oakland: PM Press, 2008) and Peter Kuper, A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Oaxaca (Oakland: PM Press, 2009).
Metal Workers & Miners Unions Consider Merger
Unions Representing Workers in Canada, Mexico qnd U.S. Explore Merger:
Would Create International Union of One Million Metal Workers and Miners
The United Steelworkers (USW), which represents 850,000 workers in Canada, the Caribbean and the United States, and the National Union of Miners and Metal Workers (SNTMMRM), known as the Mineros, which represents 180,000 workers in Mexico, have announced plans to explore uniting into one international union. The agreement to begin exploration of a merger was signed on June 21.
Oaxaca Uprising
"Ulises nos decia: 'ni marchas ni plantones'. Aqui le demostramos que somos mas cabrones."
("Ulises told us: no marches and no protests. Here we'll show him that we're more badass than he is.")
News update: Mexican government to meet with electrical workers, mediators
The Mexican Secretary of the Interior will meet with the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) and a group of mediators tonight (December 16) some months since President Felipe Calderón liquidated the state-owned Light and Power Company, seized the facilities, and fired of the 44,000 workers. The union, which has sought in the courts the return of all workers to their jobs, has more modest goals for these negotiations, according to general secretary Martín Esparza.
What happened to the Mexican Electrical Workers Union?
Worth listening to: In this podcast from a Canadian radio program, Dan LaBotz discusses the Calderon government's attack on the Mexican Electrical Workers Union, the government’s seizure of the Light and Power Company, the liquidation of the company, and the firing of more than 40,000 workers. Dan explains the political context and reasons for the assault on the union and its importance. To hear the interview, go to http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/37203 and click on the arrow in the red circle. The podcast should load.
Mexican Electrical Workers Union Fights For Its Life
The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), made up of approximately 43,000 active and 22,000 retired workers in Mexico City and surrounding states, is fighting for its life. The union's struggle has rallied allies in the labor movement and on the left in Mexico and solidarity from throughout the country and around the world, but, if it is to survive, the union and its supporters have to take stronger actions than they have so far, and time is not on their side.
Mexican Government Seizes Power Plants, Liquidates Company, Fires Workers, Union in Jeopardy
October 11, 2009 — Mexican Federal Police last night and early this morning seized the plants of the Central Light and Power Company of Mexico (LyF) which provides electricity to Mexico City and several states in central Mexico. The government of President Felipe Calderón also announced the liquidation of the company, the termination of the workers, and thereby the elimination of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) which has opposed the government's policies.
Mexican Government Prepares to Seize Mexico City Power Plants to Break Power of Electrical Workers Union
The Mexican Preventive Police (PFP) are preparing to occupy the facilities of the Central Light and Power Company in Mexico City in an attempt to break the militant Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), according to a union press release. The union warns that the quasi-military occupation of the plants could come within a week. The PFP have been used in the last three years to attempt to break strikes of miners and steelworkers as well as to try to crush popular social movements.
Attack and Burn!
THEY GRABBED ME, THEY HIT ME, they yanked me by the hair and threw me in the back of a pickup. They sprayed me with tear gas and held a knife to my back. They said they were going to rape me and throw me in the ocean. They said other police were raping my novia (girlfriend) right then.
Notes Toward a Vision of The Workers' Movement in Mexico
TRANSLATED BY DAN LA BOTZ To the memory of Dale Hathaway and Antonioin Villalba IN ORDER TO EVALUATE AND UNDERSTAND the current situation of the workers’ movement in Mexico as power has shifted from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to the National Action Party (PAN), it is important to understand the character of the Mexican regime and its historical development. Does a change in the ruling party represent the beginning of a democratic transition and a change in the system?
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