On the eve of Enrique Peña Nieto's state of the nation address to congress and 118 million Mexicans, two time presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) government's first nine months in office have been disastrous.
On a visit to Veracruz state, the firey leftist leader said nothing has changed because Peña Nieto is following the same policies of the center right National Action Party (PAN) administration which it replaced on Dec. 1.
"If things were bad before, then they've only gotten worse. Peña Nieto has done nothing," López Obrador told an audience.
In 2006 Lopez Obrador ran as the far left Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) presidential nominee, barely losing to PAN candidate Felipe Calderón in the closest election in Mexican history. Many PRD loyalists still allege fraud in the tabulation of ballots.
Last year López Obrador carried the banner for a coalition known as Movimiento Progresista (MP). MP was composed of three different parties which shared common visions for Mexico: PRD; Partido del Trabajo (PT), the leftist Workers' Party; and Movimiento Ciudadano, the Citizens' Movement. MP lost the 2012 presidential election to PRI but it performed much better than expected, easily pushing aside the PAN candidate to capture second place, with just under 32% of the ballots cast.
In Sept. 2012 López Obrador, ever the political prima donna, announced that he would create a fourth leftist party, Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (MORENA), the National Regneration Movement, which will chart its own political course apart from the others. Most of his fellow leftists, glad to be rid of him, thought it was a good idea. López Obrador breaks with leftist coalition, forms new party.
Calling Calderón and his PAN predecessor Vicente Fox (2000-2006) "rag dolls and puppets," López Obrador said today, "Peña Nieto is one more of the same. What of importance could he have to tell us tomorrow about his failed administration?"
"There's been no economic growth, no generation of jobs, no improvement in the quality of life for Mexicans. On the contrary, there's more poverty, more insecurity and more violence," he charged.
The leftist leader, who has indicated that he many make another run for the presidency in 2018, argued there is no difference between PRI and PAN. "They've been following the same tired old policies for more than 30 years," he said. "We've had enough of their anti-populist approach to government."
López Obrador announced that he will lead a MORENA demonstration in Mexico City on Sept. 8, opposing the administration's efforts to modify the constitution so that the country's state owned oil monopoly, Pemex, can be opened up to private and foreign investment. That issue remains one of the most sensitive in Mexican politics, and has many, though not all, leftists pitted against PRI and PAN supporters of the proposition.
On the teachers' strike and the call of their powerful union, CNTE, for a "nationwide labor insurgency" on Wednesday, López Obrador offered his unconditional support. "Maestros need to close ranks to fight these educational reforms, which are against their interests," he said. Teachers' union calls for nationwide strike. In the southwestern state of Oaxaca, 74,000 teachers who have been off the job for two weeks are without pay tonight, after the governor called their bluff. Oaxaca freezes salaries.
Sept. 3 - Mexico's Senate passes education reform bill; unions threaten civil disobedience in capital
Sept. 2 - Peña Nieto delivers his first state of the union address
Sept. 2 - Mexico's House of Deputies passes education reforms
July 29 - Mexican Left lambasts poverty war: "a massive failure"
July 29 - 53.3 million - that's how many Mexicans live in poverty
Aug. 3 - Manuel López Obrador: no to marijuana legalization
Jan. 27 - The fix was in, says López Obrador: Peña Nieto leaned on Supreme Court to free Cassez
July 23, 2012 - YoSoy 132 "infiltrated," López Obrador is "crazy and violent" says Mexican politician
Aug. 31 - Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Mexico in huge economic hole; looming "risk of recession"
Aug. 31 - Mexico admits 52 daily drug war deaths in EPN administration - 12,598 through July 31
Aug. 24 - Mexican unemployment stats paint a bleak picture for the most well educated
Aug. 21 - Sluggish Mexican economy worries foreign investment experts
© MGRR 2013. All rights reserved. This article may be cited or briefly quoted with proper attribution or a hyperlink, but not reproduced without permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment