By Richard N. Baldwin T. /HispanicVista.com

18 April 2005

     To Americans living in the US there are things concerning the Mexican political system that would defy belief. So first, a little score card. AMLO stands for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the elected mayor of what is known as México City. The main political parties are the PRD "center left", the PRI "center" (the party that ruled México for 71 years until 2000) and the PAN "center right" (the now ruling party under President Vincinte Fox).

     The title of this (The AMLO Caper) would imply some sort of a criminal act. It is.

     As of now, AMLO has been striped of his political immunity and the case is now before a judge to review for formal charges. It is regarded by almost all that he will be charged. To better understand, a local paper printed a diagram of the legal process for the public to follow. This diagram looks a lot like the old board game "Monopoly", complete with "pay fine", go "to jail" and "go back 10 spaces". It almost looks like a worm ball in mating season.

     Regardless of what the outcome (baring a Supreme Court appeal that is in process), AMLO will be eliminated from running for any political office. And that is what this caper is all about. Given the moribund legal process here, time will run out for AMLO to run for any office.

     As this creaks along, the political "elite" of México in the PAN and the PRI crow about everyone having to live by the "rule of law". But it would seem that they are talking about a very selective application of that "rule of law".

     In recent years, the PRI was involved in what is known as "PEMEXgate". The government owned Oil Company illegally diverted union funds into the 2000 presidential campaign to aid the PRI candidate (who lost). The PRI was fined for this but no one was ever convicted. Also under the PRI we had the FOBAPROA bank bail out scandal. This cost the Mexican government billions of dollars that will be paid out for years to come . . .  on the backs of the Mexican taxpayers. In this case, bankers were lending themselves gobs of money that was listed as "uncollectable " and picked up by the government. No one has been convicted in that one, even after independent accounting documented this massive scandal.

     Looking at the PAN, we have a sitting governor that was obviously working with the drug business, allowing airfields to be set up for distribution and aided by the state police. At the same time, the governor was openly squiring the attractive daughter of the drug lord and was "too busy" to notice what was going on. The "investigation" of that case is as dead as a doornail. And we have the genocide cases of our "dirty war" in the 1960s and 1970s that were opened up in our new freedom of information laws . . .  with nothing going on.

     But in the case of AMLO, who got tangled up in a frankly minor land condemnation case involving the city building an access road to a hospital, we have to "uphold the law". The land was condemned by the city. The owner of the land appealed. There were charges of forgery in the evidence, but a judge accepted the appeal and issued an injunction to stop construction. The city did stop, but not fast enough . . .  and the case finally came to a head years later. Considering the state of property rights and the legal registration of land in México, this is a common situation. Land battles are almost a constant in México because of the creaking land registration system in force.

     AMLO has been seen as a man who might really change things here. And, as such, he disturbed the "elite" who like things as they are. But the people will get no chance to see what he might have done. Needless to say, there has been a vitriolic campaign going on to accuse AMLO of being the devil incarnate. It is as bad or worse than anything that went on in the recent US election. The end result will be to severally divide a country that is only new to real representative democracy. As it is now, about 70% of the population feel that AMLO should be given the chance to be defeated at the polls by the people and not eliminated by a frankly questionable process of "upholding the law".

     Let's look who benefits. The PAN, who made many big promises, is perceived by many to be lots of smoke, but no fire. It looks a little like the old "Br'er Bear and Br'er Fox routine where the fox uses the mentally challenged bear to pick up the tar baby. In this case, the fox is the PRI who got the PAN (the bear) to do the dirty work and take the blame. A masterful political maneuver that smacks of our past PRI president, Carlos Salinas. But the Fox administration fell into the trap. They failed to perceive that the only winner to this caper would be the PRI, ready to return to power in 2006. But blindness to political reality seems to be endemic to the PAN.

     A local columnist says that the message here was the same as in 1988: "Our democracy is like high school government, boys and girls. You can play at it all you want but if you ever get serious, out you go!" It would seem like AMLO was getting serious and "this dangerous man must be stopped by any means possible".

     On the other hand, maybe AMLO is lucky. Remember in the election campaign of 1994 that the leading candidate was assassinated? And the strange twist to that murder is that the hand picked replacement (Ernesto Zedillo) turned out to be one of the big reformers here in modern history.

     And the traffic situation seems to be getting worse with the demonstrations going on.
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Richard N. Baldwin T., a HispanicVista.com (http://www.hispanicvista.com/) contributing columnist, lives in Tlalnepantla, Edo de México. E-mail at: R1041643422@aol.com