Mexican Telecommunication Law Expands Government Surveillance and Censorship Powers: Digital Rights Activist

FSRN Radio News
April 11, 2014

New telecommunications regulations in Mexico have met opposition online and in the streets. The reform was originally presented as a way to break up telecom monopolies, but critics say it is being used to push through laws which would make lawful the mass surveillance of online activites and make government censorship easy and arbitrary. Activists in Mexico City protested the law Thursday by marching from the headquarters of Televisa – the country’s largest broadcaster – to the Senate. At the march, FSRN’s Andalusia Knoll spoke with Mexican digital rights activist Luis Fernando Garcia. Read more. 

How Mexico Became So Corrupt

The Atlantic
Lawrence Weiner
June 25 2013

Grupo Televisa, the world's largest Spanish-language media company, is famous for its logo, a gold-colored eye gazing at the world through a television screen. According to The Guardian, this logo "captures the company's success at controlling and dominating what Mexicans watch".

In a country where newspaper readership is tiny and the reach of the Internet and cable is still largely limited to the middle classes, Televisa -- and its rival TV Azteca -- exert a powerful influence over national politics. Through its scores of stations and repeater towers, the former accounts for roughly two-thirds of the nation's free-to-air television; most of the rest belong to Azteca.  Read more. 

Mexico Telecommunications Reform: Too Good to Be True?

HuffPost Blog
Irene Mia
March 28, 2013

A long-awaited telecommunications reform, presented to Congress on March 11 by Enrique Peña Nieto, was passed swiftly by the lower house with relative few modifications to its ambitious scope and is now set to be approved by the upper house in an unthinkable development just a few months ago when, in the run up to the presidential election (in July 2012), social protests, loosely coordinated by the #YoSoy132 student movement, erupted against media bias in favor of the now ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). More in general, the telecommunications reform, coupled with other significant steps made by Peña Nieto's administration to advance its reform agenda in just a few months may reassure those who were skeptical of the president's willingness and ability to challenge powerful interest groups (including unions, state government and business lobbies) which had historically been part of the PRI support base. The president has proven a master in pragmatic politics, as many other PRI leaders in the past, reaching out to the opposition and brokering deals outside and before presenting bills in Congress. Read more. 

Mexico Seeks Telecommunication Reform To Open Foreign Investment In Telephone, TV Markets

Huffington Post 
By Michael Weissenstein

Mexico City - President Enrique Pena Nieto moved Monday to overhaul and strengthen the weak and chaotic regulations that have allowed the world's richest man and its largest Spanish-language media empire to exert near-total control of Mexico's lucrative telephone and television markets.

The reforms would give the Mexican government tools to take on multibillionaire telephone tycoon Carlos Slim and Televisa CEO Emilio Azcarraga, independent observers said. The two rivals' holds on their respective markets have been widely seen as emblems of regulatory dysfunction in a country aspiring to join the ranks of the world's economic superpowers.

Their companies' pervasive influence has repelled a series of attempts to break their dominance over the years. The tycoons' power could thwart fresh efforts despite Pena Nieto's push to put teeth into Mexico's deeply flawed regulatory system, experts said.

The reforms would create two new national television channels and form a new independent regulatory commission along the lines of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, with the power to unilaterally punish non-competitive practices, including withdrawing corporations' licenses. A second independent commission would be able to order firms to sell off assets in order to reduce their market dominance.  Read more. 

Fake Mexico TV crew jailed in Nicaragua for 30 years

BBC
January 18, 2013

A court in Nicaragua has jailed for 30 years each 18 people who tried to enter the country with $9.2m (£5.8m), posing as Mexican TV journalists.

A judge in Managua found them guilty of money-laundering and organising a drug link between Mexico and Costa Rica.

They were arrested in August after police found the cash and traces of cocaine in six vans, some painted with Mexico's Televisa network logo.

Central America is increasingly a transit route for Mexican drug gangs.

The only woman in the group was named as their leader and sentenced to 20 years for international drug-trafficking, eight-and-a-half years for organised crime and seven years for money-laundering - a total of more than 35 years.

However, 30 years is set by Nicaraguan law as the maximum prison sentence.

"Raquel Alatorre Correa will finish her sentence on 24 August, 2042," said the judge.

The money and the vans have been confiscated by the judge.

The 18 Mexicans had already been found guilty in December but were awaiting their sentences.

At the time of their arrest, the self-proclaimed journalists said they had been sent to cover a high-profile murder for Televisa, Mexico's biggest TV network, but the company quickly denied any link to the group. Read more. 

Mexico’s Narco Televisa Scandal: The Impunity of the Elite

MadCow Morning News posted on October 29, 2012 by Daniel Hopsicker

Even as he prepares to take office in a month, a mushrooming scandal in Mexico threatens that country’s new President, Enrique Pena Nieto.

Some call it Mexico’s Watergate; the comparison might even be apt.

Like Watergate—which picked up momentum only after Richard Nixon had won the ’72 Presidential election—the Narco Televisa Scandal is heating up just before Pena Nieto takes office.

Watergate had a largely unexplored Mexican connection. The Narco Televisa Scandal has an American angle. Both scandals involve drug money.

And therein lies the rub, explaining why reaction in the U.S.—despite billions of US taxpayer dollars pouring into the black hole of  Mexico's drug war—has been a studied and exceedingly mild indifference.

“It has become known as the case of the fake journalists, read the lead in a recent wire report about the case distributed to American newspapers.

But this is untrue. No one in Mexico—where Televisa’s guilty involvement is almost a given—is calling it that. It is the Narco-Televisa Scandal. Read more. 

Nicaragua to try 18 fake Mexican journalists

By The Associated Press, Sept. 18, 2012

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Eighteen Mexican citizens must stand trial on charges they tried to smuggle about $9.2 million in cash through Nicaragua by posing as members of a Mexican television news crew, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Judge Julio Cesar Arias said there is sufficient evidence to hold the 18 over for the trial, which will open Dec. 3.

The defendants entered Nicaragua travelling in six vans painted with the logo of Mexico's Televisa network. Televisa said it has no connection to the suspects.

They were detained in August just inside Nicaragua's northern border with Honduras. They were allegedly headed to Costa Rica.

Investigators say the money was apparently intended to pay for a drug shipment. Traces of cocaine were found on some of the bills hidden in the vans, officials say.

Rafael Magnalli, one of the lawyers for the defendants, argued the prosecutors' case is "subjective and speculative" and asked that the charges be dismissed. Read more. 

Mexico's media monopoly vs. the people

Televisa helped elect the country's new president. Now it hears cries for the breakup of its broadcast empire.

By Nathaniel Parish Flannery, contributor

CNN FORTUNE -- On July 7, nearly 100,000 people forced their way down Reforma, one of Mexico City's main avenues, gathering in front of the Angel of Independence, a 150-foot-tall monumentin a plaza in the city center. "People, Listen! This is your fight!" they chanted. "Governing a country is not [the same as] making a telenovela," one of the protest posters announced. Mexico's election is over, but in the weeks following the July 1 ballot count, demonstrators have takento the streets. They are angry about the victory of Enrique Peña Nieto, a polarizing but telegenic candidate who ran a campaign based on simple slogans such as "You'll Earn More!"

As the demonstration passed by Museo de Bellas Artes, an iconic museum in downtown Mexico City, Carolina Reyes, a recent college graduate, explained "I think there was fraud in the promotion [of Peña Nieto] in the media." She had painted the front of a model TV screen to show a modified version of the Televisa logo, re-done in the red, white, and green colors of Peña Nieto's party, a political machine with a long and checkered history in Mexico. A plastic tyrannosaurus rex toy poked its head out through a rip in the center of the logo, a warning about the return of old, corrupt, political "dinosaurs" to power. "Fraud! Fraud! Fraud!" the crowd around Carolina chanted, as onlookers stopped to use their cell phones to snap photos as she held her TV prop over her head. The protesters, the majority of whom supported Andres Manuel Lopez Obredor (AMLO), a leftist candidate, are frustrated with the influence of Televisa (TV), Mexico's most important media company, in their country's political discourse. They don't want to see Televisa write the script for their country's elections.

Many members of Mexico's urban, educated, tech savvy youth, who watched and criticized the campaigns via Youtube and Twitter, think that Televisa, a TV conglomerate that produces many of the country's most popular telenovelas, may be too big for the country's good.Televisa controls 70% of the broadcast television market, and its broadcasts reach 95% of all homes in Mexico. Unlike cable TV or the Internet -- platforms that offer a plethora of options -- viewers frustrated with the perceived political slant of news coverage on Mexico's broadcast TV networks have few alternatives. Especially in Mexico, a country with limited cable and Internet penetration, broadcast TV plays a central role. Right now the country has only two nationally broadcast TV channels. Javier Aparicio, a political economy professor at CIDE, a prestigious research institute in Mexico City, explained that his "main concern is the concentration of the media industry in Mexico." He added, "Televisa has an important influence in campaigns in national elections." Read more. 

In Mexico, Yo Soy 132 ponders next step

LA Times: Yo Soy 132 ('I am 132'), a student movement disenchanted with Mexico's democracy, says it wants to keep the PRI on its toes, even if the election is over.

Richard Fausset. MEXICO CITY — Here they were again, marching through the dark and the rain — the preppies from private universities, the hipsters in fat-lace skater sneakers, the young intellectuals with faces framed in wispy Che Guevara beards, the regular kids with backpacks and smartphones. Read more.

Protesters blockade Mexico's biggest TV station

Reuters: Thousands of protesters on Thursday blockaded the studios of Mexico's most popular TV network, accusing it of biased coverage of the July 1 presidential election.

Shouting "Tell the truth," the demonstrators, including students and union workers, stopped employees entering the offices of the Televisa studios in Mexico City although they allowed others to leave. Read more.

Protests Against Elections Heat Up with "National March Against the Imposition"

Photo: Clayton Conn

Mexicans hit the streets again on Sunday, in the third mass demonstration against the apparent president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, in the three weeks since the elections. After months of demonstrations, Mexico's movement to reject the return of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)
shows no signs of fading away.

The July 22 "National March Against the Imposition" began at the presidential residence and arrived shortly after noon at Mexico City's Angel of Independence. Hundreds of people waited to join at the gold-tipped monument, swelling the ranks as students, unions, and citizens moved on to the central plaza.

At the final destination, tens of thousands poured into the square. They marched in clumps and converged from different routes, making it impossible to grasp the full dimension of the march at any given moment. But what the mobilization lacked in route planning, it made up for in energy, indignation and creativity.

This was about the fifth or sixth march against the PRI and its candidate that I've observed first-hand.  I wanted to check out two questions at this one: 1) what difference, if any, the coalition of organizations forged during the National Convention July 14-15 made and 2) what the main demands are, as election day fades into history and evidence of foul play mounts. I also wanted to see if accusations that the student-led movement is controlled by the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) had any substance behind them.

Organizations like the electricians union (SME) and the democratic current of the teachers' union (CNTE) that took part in the planning meeting in the town of Atenco turned out, although not in huge  numbers. The march was called just a week after the accords in Atenco and most organizations have to go through a series of assemblies to make decisions. It may take longer to really assess the impact of the formal incorporation of other sectors into the movement against Peña Nieto and the PRI.

Some unions and universities walked in contingents but for the most part, the march--unlike most Mexico marches--was made up of citizens with home-made signs who marched without visible organizations. Most were young, some were older, including veterans of past movements. The predominance of seemingly unaffiliated people added to the sense of spontaneity of the demonstration, but also to questions about its longer term direction and longevity.

National March Against the Imposition
Since the elections and accusations of fraud, vote-buying and coercion, the marches against the PRI have focused more on the electoral process. "Imposition" refers to the protesters' belief that Peña Nieto was imposed on voters through a series of manipulations and falsifications that violated electoral laws and the popular will. Recent demonstrations called by the student group "Iam132" continue to before the elections denounced the candidate, the way the highly concentrated mass media openly promoted his candidacy and the possible return of the PRI. Most of the students who make up the movement have no real memory of living under a PRI government, since the conservative National Action Party (PAN) has held the presidency for the past twelve years. One young woman carried a sign that read, "We are the children of the ideals you never succeeded in killing".

Photo: Clayton Conn

They have done their history homework. In one of the first demonstration against Televisa, the giant television conglomerate accused of having sold favorable coverage to Peña Nieto as far back as 2009, students projected scenes from the PRI government's massacre of protesting students in 1968 and 1971 against the wall of the media giant's office building. The ruling elite that controlled a one-party system to perpetuate itself in power eternally is a legend they don't want to repeat.

An Ominous Response
The march was replicated in scores of cities across the country and by groups of #Yosoy132  in other countries. Unlike past marches, the July 22 marches met with a violent response from the government in various cities. In Leon, police picked up several protesters and drove them around for three hours, captive, before taking them into detention.

In Oaxaca City, state and federal police arrested and allegedly beat up youth protesters, sexually threatening and abusing the women.

Here is part of the statement from the #YoSoy132 movement:

We also demand the a full explanation of the physical and legal situation of the 24 young people arrested--including two minors, identified in the #YoSoy132 movement, who were arbitrarily imprisoned by state government officials in Oaxaca City. We call on the competent authorities to investigate the cases and clear their names. We request that the officials involved in the various violation of human rights be sanctioned for their acts.

We repudiate the unjustified or disproportionate use of force, arbitrary arrest, torture, just to mention a few, repression that denies freedom of expression and the free manifestation of ideas, as well as abuse of power, threats and harassment against members of social movements. We therefore demand these cases be cleared up and public officials brought to justice and that state and federal authorities prosecute cases of complaints related to these events.

 The violent and arbitrary response by police in these cities could be an ominous sign. The movement continues to insist on peaceful and non-confrontational tactics as it moves into a series of actions decided at the National Convention. The July 22 march was the first of those actions It showed that the movement still has a great ability to draw people into the streets for organized protests-- even weeks after elections that the media and political elite attempted to portray as an unassailable victory-- and among those protestors the rejection of the PRI candidate runs as strong as ever.

As for the second question--what are longer term strategies, beyond the action plan from here to Dec. 1--in all the enthusiasm of the march, I couldn't discern any. The people I talked to said for now, the focus is on consolidating the movement and making its voice here from now to the inauguration.

Youth agree on a peaceful demonstration at Televisa

- In the event of any provocation, protestors will sit on the floor.
El Universal: Americas Program Original Translation  (See Spanish Original)
The People’s Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT), the Mexican Electrician’s Union (SME), and the National Committee of Education Workers (CNTE), support the civil and peaceful demonstration that includes the “symbolic take” of Televisa by the #Iam132 movement, as part of their actions against what they call the "imposition" of Enrique Pena Nieto as president of Mexico.

This coming Friday, universities and organizations will set up a “human circle” around the Chapultepec Televisa that will last for 24 hours, in which they will prevent access to the company’s facilities, but will not obstruct the way out for staff.

In a press conference, the participants said that in the event of any provocation they will not respond with violence, instead, will only sit on the floor.

“No one will march with a hood or with their face concealed, nor will anyone carry objects or weapons…no one will be allowed to participate under the influence of drugs or alcohol,” they said.

With respect to the demonstrations planned for the Televisa facilities in the other Mexican states, the local assemblies called for avoiding any provocation.

The “human circle” will be formed from Thursday, the 26th, at 8:00 pm, congregating in the Revolution Monument, and from this point march toward the Televisa at Chapultepec.

#IAM132 Statement on Today's Symbolic Occupation of Televisa

Note: I attended the National Convention in Atenco and the proposed protest of Televisa was the most controversial action adopted. The day after, many press outlets reported that the #IAm132 movement was splitting with the Convention due to disagreement with the Action Plan, especially the Televisa action. This was never true. The agreement always allowed for member organizations to carry out assemblies to decide if they would participate- and how they would participate- in all the activities. The #IAm132 Movement and most of the other organizations at the Convention operate on the basis of assemblies. This video (in Spanish)  is an excellent explanation of that form of organization. Because of those rumors, and because the protest against Televisa that begins tonight at 8:00 PM and continues all day tomorrow is the second important action after the July 22 march, we publish below the statement on the decision of the Mexico City assemblies to participate in a "peaceful, symbolic occupation" of Televisa, in keeping with the movement's commitment to non-violent action. Laura


YoSoy132. Original Americas Program Translation. The Convention against the Imposition held in San Salvador Atenco July 14-15 and called by the Front of Peoples in Defense of the Land and the #|Am132 Movement agreed on an action plan for mobilizations against the imposition of Enrique Peña Ñieto. Regarding this, the assemblies of the [Mexico City] metropolitican area declare:
1) Our assemblies met and assumed the agreements reached at the Convention as our own and announced the participation of our assemblies in the action to be carried out at Televisa.
2) by consensus, our assemblies decided that the action for Friday, July 27 in front of Televisa Chapultepec will be of a civil and peaceful nature as a human chain around the installations, maintaining the pacific principle of our movement.
3) This protest will be held to denounce the media chain's daily manipulation and especially in the past electoral process and of the role the company has played in the imposition of Enrique Peña Nieto.
4) This chain wil be held in coordination with the grassroots movements united at the Convention, headed by the Front of Peoples in Defense of the Land, the Electricians Union (SME), the Naitonal Coordinating Body of Education Workers (CNTE, among others.
5) We invite all citizens to support this initiative by gathering at 8:00 PM Thursday, July 26 at the Monument of the Revolution to march to Televisa Chapultepec and create the peaceful human chain that will last 24 hours. During the action of the chain there will be cultural and symbolic activities to demonstrate our rejection of the television monopoly, since the #IAm132 Movement recognizes the importance and legitimacy of culture as a form of resistance, protest, denouncement and struggle. We invite all communications media to cover the statement to the press we will release at 10 PM.
6) We demand guarantees to our constitutional rights of free assembly, considering that we are exercising an act of peaceful civil disobedience that does not attempt to enter the company's offices and will not use violence or aggression of any kind against any member of the company's personnel, since our struggle is against the media monopolies, de facto powers, the political power of the television network and not against its staff or public guards. For this reason, we will not block the exit of the building and it will be a peaceful chain, with our own bodies creating the links surrounding the television headquarters. We reject any attempt to criminalize our movement or any participant in the human chain.
7) We call on our organizations, collectives, movements, networks and citizens in general to respect and participate in this peaceful chain, avoiding any confrontation with the police or company security. In case of suffering any attack or provocation by consensus we have decided to NOT respond with violence but with peaceful civil resistance by sitting on the ground.  We announce that no one will march with a hooded head or covered face, nor will it be allowed to carry objects or any type of arms that could present risks to the action. Of course, no one will be able to participate under the influence of drugs or alcohol. With this decision by consensus of all the assemblies of #IAm132 of the metropolitan area we maintain our unity.
8) We send greetings to the mobilizations that will be held throughout the country and respectful of their decisions of each state, city or school, however, we call on them to avoid any provocation in carrying out their demonstrations within the framework of the action plan against the imposition. We invite all citizens and organizations to join this effort that is of everyone.

ASSEMBLIES OF THE METROPOLITAN AREA OF #yosoy132
AND SOCIAL, CIVIL AND POPULAR ORGANIZATIONS, UNIONS,PARTICIPANTS IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AGAINST THE IMPOSITION
Cd. De México, UIC Universidad InterContinental, Académicos UNAM, Universidad Iberoamericana, Facultad de Química, Colegio de México, Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo, Universidad del Anáhuac, Facultad d Ciencias, UAM – Xochimilco, Posgrados UNAM, Universidad La Salle- Neza, ITAM Río honda, ENAH,TEC Monterrey Cd. México, UACM Cuautepec, ENP – 9, Fac Odontología –UNAM, IPN – ESCATepepan, Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, Facultad de Arquitectura, UACM CentroHistórico, Acampada Revolución, Instituto Mora, Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Yosoy132Nicolás Romero – Estado de México, CCH Oriente, Facultad dFilosofía y Letras, Prepa TEC CCM,Yosoy132 Internacional, FES Iztacala, UACM – Iztapalapa, Facultad de Psicología, CentroUniversitario de Educación Superior, UAM-Cuajimalpa, Facultad de Economía –UNAM, Movimientode Aspirantes a la Educación Superior, Escuela Nacional de Trabajo Social, UAM- I Posgrado, UNP,UPN, Prepa 2, UCSJ, Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria yZootecnia, FES CUAUTITLAN, DERECHO UNAM, Lasalle Prepa, Lasalle Cd México, Escuela Libre deDerecho, Facultad de Contaduría y Administración, UVM San Rafael , Académicos metropolitanos,CCH VALLEJO, Prepa 3, Prepa 5, UACM –Del Valle, LaSalle San Fernando, LaSalle DF, LaSalle Neza,Bachillerato 4, ITAM Sta. Teresa, FES ACATLÁN, UAM Azcapotzalco, Facultad de Filosofía y letras, Asamblea Zona Norte EdoMex., UVM indios verdes, CCH Azcapotzalco, FES Zaragoza.

#IAm132 demands that the TEPJF give credibility to the election

La Jornada: Americas Program Original Translation by Ryan Gentzler

See Spanish Original.

- Presents action proposal “to protect democracy”
- If the authority ignores complaints, there will be a “risk of social unrest”

Emir Olivares and Laura Poy. The commission of citizen’s watch and the #IAm132 movement’s legal and human rights committees presented a plan of action to “protect democracy, demand a clean electoral process, demand the invalidation of the presidential election and prevent the imposition [of Enrique Peña Nieto],” which includes participation in this Sunday’s “megamarch.”

Representatives of both organizations clarified that several points of the plan must be approved by the interuniversity congress that will be held on July 28 and 29 in Morelia, Michoacán.

In the press conference, they called on the Electoral Tribunal of Judicial Power (TEPJF) to “give credibility” to the election and contribute to cleaning up the polls, and said that calling them clean, equitable and transparent “would send a very bad message to society. The assessment of the electoral process has already been given by the citizens and it doesn’t favor the PRI’s candidate.”

They warned that if the electoral authorities ignore “the thousands of citizen complaints (about alleged irregularities) documented up to this point, it would be a step towards a serious risk of social unrest.”

Plan to “take on and surround” Televisa and boycott Soriana and Wal-Mart

La Jornada: Americas Program Original Translation
See Spanish Original.
- National demonstration against fraud, meeting in Atenco

Laura Poy Solano and Javier Salinas Cesáreo. San Salvador Atenco, Méx., July 15th. On participating on the first National Convention Against the Imposition, representatives of at least 300 organizations achieved a national central focus of action that will bring together students, farmers, workers, unions and teachers, who will drive national demonstrations, boycott companies that participated in fraud, occupy public plazas and “take on and surround” the Televisa facilities throughout the country, with the objective of preventing Enrique Peña Nieto from assuming presidency.

Members of the #Iam132 movement, Villages in Defense of Land Front (FPDT), Mexican Electricians Union (SME) and the National Committee of Education Workers (CNTE), among others, approved of having a national march this July 22nd in the capital of the country, while on Friday the 27th, they will call for action against the television company, among other measures, even though they will postpone for the second convention, to be carried out the 22nd and 23rd of September in Oaxaca, the plan for action that will take place between November 20th to December 1st.

For more than five hours, the 2,600 delegates and representatives of 29 organizations, according to figures from the organizers, discussed more than 200 mobilization proposals. August 4th was the date agreed on to convene in Jalisco for the meeting for the provisional national committee to organize its second convention. Likewise, on Friday the 8th, they will call their first national community protest and test out a general strike.

Mexico's #Iam132 student protesters weigh next moves

BBC: During Mexico's presidential election, a group of university students voiced their frustration at what they saw as biased media coverage. Their movement, born on social media and known as #YoSoy132 (I am 132), shook up a staid campaign - but what now for the protesters?

"Turn off the stupid TV, turn on the truth," was the call as students marched in their thousands in the Mexican capital and other towns and cities in May and June. Read more.

Mexico’s Congress presents the ‘unpresentable ones’

Washington Post: MEXICO CITY — While all eyeballs in Mexico were glued to the presidential election this month, the seats of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies were quietly being filled.

By the “unpresentable ones.”

As they are known in the Mexican news media, los impresentables are legislators whose names do not appear on ballots, who often do not campaign, who, in fact, may be kept out of sight. But based on how many overall votes their respective parties receive at the polls, they are named to the legislature.

They are some of the most powerful people in Mexico. Read more.

Mexico's Election: A Vote for Peace, a Plan for War

The Nation: Tom Hayden. The authorities were boasting that all flights were on time as I landed at Mexico City’s international airport on June 26 to cover the country’s national election. Terminal 2 bustled with travelers; the duty-free shops gleamed with jewelry and alcohol, and the food courts were in full service mode. Only twenty-four hours earlier, however, travelers were crawling on the same terminal floor during a shootout that killed three federal police. The shooters escaped in broad daylight. The dead officers were not shot by narcotraffickers but by other police who apparently were working for the narcos. It turned out that AeroMexico stewardesses were helping export cocaine on flights to Spain. Bienvenidos to the Mexican labyrinth, where nothing is transparent, including elections. Read more.

Mexico’s Election: A Personal Commentary from Oaxaca

Upside Down World: When we lose an election, and feel angry with or without cause, it’s natural to shout “Fraud!” However, the count of votes cast on July 1, 2012 provoked a scream of rage which didn’t indicate baseless anger, or that no fraud actually occurred. Enrique Peña Nieto the PRI presidential victor, feels safe saying he will go along with a recount. The fraud won’t show up on the paper ballots.

In Mexico, how much fraud decides an election? President Felipe Calderon never permitted a true examination of his 2006 electoral results, and that refusal supported a public perception of fraud, not diminished it. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, his left-leaning opponent, never stopped saying Calderon is illegitimate. Six years later we hopefully embarked on the same scenario, this time with Peña Nieto. Read more.

Election “full” of irregularities, concludes #YoSoy132

El Proceso: Americas Program Original Translation
See Spanish Original.
Mexico City – Based in an encampment at the Revolution Monument and with a “Peace Room,” or center of operations, in a residence in the south of the city, the members of the movement #Iam132 reported that the electoral day was “full” of irregularities and a "wave of violence."

Calling for 3,000 observers and committees to register witness reports and by means of social networks, the students documented around 500 reports of irregularities, they said through different press releases and a press conference at the Revolution Monument.

“Up until now there are more than 500 reports of irregularities, among them some are serious offenses: it has been registered that police have robbed ballot boxes and that there have been shootings. Also, we received an extreme case in which poll workers were kidnapped. In Pueblo Nuevo, Chiapas, armed groups entered the voting stations and there were two deaths. In San Miguel Totolopan, Guerrero, we found out that they filled ballot boxes. In San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, armed groups with submachine guns fired at voters. In Ensenada, Baja California, a voting employee disappeared with 2500 ballots,” said Sandino Bucio, and announced that all the documentation that was gathered will be given to Fepade [the special federal investigative unit for electoral crime] to make their case.

Of the reports received throughout the country, they said that 46% related to vote buying; 30% voting irregularities; 19% related to propaganda. In spite of the close of the election, these isolated cases can affect many.

The states with the most “controversies,” according to reports, were Mexico State, Veracruz, Tabasco and Chiapas.