The Emperor’s Old Clothes

If, however, the court succumbs to the temptation to appease the politics of the streets, an era of instability may commence. The country’s political and economic aspirations have come too far for that.

Mexico’s Democracy Test (W$J): The Mexican papers are full of commentary on this op-ed from yesterday, mostly focusing on that sentence I just cited.

… there are arguments, mostly from elites and intellectuals, that a re-run of the election would confer the legitimacy that Mr. Calderón is said to now lack. It is rumored that powerful interests in Mexicos not terribly competitive political economy are also backing nullification — which would require an interim president, chosen by the congress, until a new election is held. That could take more than a year. And of course during that time, Mexico’s government would be too weak to lead.

What? The W$J now bashes elites and powerful interests? Who do they think subscribes?

For what my two cents is worth in a period when the dollar is jittery, I think maybe a weak interim government might well be the best thing that could happen — and grant you that AMLO’s stated refusal to contemplate it sounds a dissonant note, though I personally suspect he would back off a bit on the rhetoric and claim a partial victory if that were to occur.
Like many Latin American countries — including Brazil — a bloated, unchecked executive power only tends to perpetuate the spoils and patronage system of the bad old days.

If this were the U.S., an AMLO presidency with a PRI/PAN-dominated Congress would be quite manageable if you were on the side of economic policy continuity. Witness Clinton’s great swerve to the center-right, right? Newt Gingrinch: “Hey, that was my idea!”

That could be the result in Mexico if the Congress uses the interim presidency to seize a more assertive role in the balance of power. And PAN, with its 200+ bloc in the Congress, would be in a great position to make sure that the interests of the entrepreneurial north of Mexico would be well represented in that process.

So why has it signed a pact with the PRIist devil and let it run rampant with all the same tired old pigfucker tactics of the politics of kleptocracy?

While a negotiated settlement with the López Obrador camp might seem an expedient to bring peace, the opposite is more likely. The message it would send to Mexico’s political factions is that taking to the streets trumps serious politics as the way to get things done. It may have already.

As it did in the Ukraine and Lebanon.

But it’s interesting to hear the WSJ suggesting that there is a serious chance that the elections will be annulled. Do they know something we don’t? Stratfor thinks the movement is doomed to fade away, though I would give good odds that the next big Zocalo rally, on Sept. 16, will be another million+ doozy.

Meanwhile, this is utter bullshit:

In the southern state of Oaxaca, a three-month “political” protest by a radicalized Mexican teachers union escalated this week to bus burning, the seizure of television stations and the barricading of highways and bus stations. Thugs are roaming the streets of Oaxaca with machetes and pipes.

I have yet to see any photos of these supposed thugs — though I have seen videos of policemen putting on balaclavas and going off to moonlight as death squadders.

And you don’t have to be “radicalized” to oppose someone like fallen PRI angel Ester Elba Gordillo.

The fellow who was killed the other day was a state education official, not a dirty holder of some Cuban postgrad fellowship in insurgency.

You look at the crowd shots and you see mainly a crowd of nerdy schoolteachers, is my impression. And I’m still waiting for someone with better information to correct me.

I’m sorry, folks. Ortiz is not George freaking Washington. The real thugs are occupying the state house.

The tribunal’s decision is a crucial test for Mexican modernity. Mexicans who had reason to believe that their country was evolving toward a pluralistic democracy supported by strong independent institutions are right to be worried, along with foreign investors and international creditors. Should the judges complete their lawful duties by September 6 without bending to Mr. López Obradors bullying, Mexico will have earned international respectability. If, however, the court succumbs to the temptation to appease the politics of the streets, an era of instability may commence. The countrys political and economic aspirations have come too far for that.

This is ridiculous. Either the institutions are strong, independent and free from connivance with the old-school feudal caciques or they aren’t.

They either work or they don’t. Either they let the voters set the shape of the playing field, then play good, clean hardball within the white lines, or they don’t.
Judging the situation in any other way is to take up permanent residence in a Potemkin Village of illusory “stability” and ignore the escalating levels of violence required to maintain it.

You know, like the idea of a free, democratic Iraq throwing flowers in the path of the advancing armored column and lining up to apply for McDonald’s franchises.

Think back to Oppenheimer’s account of the surprises of 1994, when conventional wisdom on the Street was that a sudden devaluation of the peso was a virtual impossibility.

It took a $50 billion bailout to keep the domino effect from toppling markets from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe.

Think of that intrepid fund manager that Oppenheimer describes: She went down to Chiapas to see for herself, quickly reached the correct conclusion, and liquidated her position ahead of the debacle.

This is not a time for faith-based management.

As a small investor, I’m begging all you corporate titans who are unikely to be reading this: Lay off that Kool-Aid, please.

Obrador uses his carefully calculated stance of fiery moral certainty — “I won and I won’t accept any other outcome” — to keep his followers mobilized, to keep the ink flowing, and to play to a growing silent majority of international public opinion that is only too inclined to believe that the U.S. is capable of staging a soft coup d’etat to turn Mexico into a client state with an Exxon-friendly energy policy.

This strategy is also making it easier to discredit him in the W$J, of course. Still, it will be interesting to see how that wager actually pays off.

Does the opinion of the W$J and the interests it represents still carry enough weight to matter?
That should be a sobering thought to readers of the W$J’s op-ed page.
Mass campouts aside, however, at the same time, this Lopez Obrador guy has submitted blizzards of lawsuits, backed with prima facie credible evidence, that the institutions are as putrid as they ever were. And he’s taking to calling attention to signs of irregularities in the judicial process lately.

I hate to bang the same old drum, but I have not read word one in the U.S. press about that evidence or the legal and institutional basis for the claims that the vote-by-voters are making.

In a U.S. court, these would be decided in full public view, with blawgers downloading the briefs and arguing the fine points of the pros and cons on the weekly news forums.
But, and this is key, Mexico is not the U.S.

There’s the understatement of the day.

Mexico’s constitution is a vast marble palace of justice being used as a whorehouse and goat-milking shed.

The goats and whores have got to be put out to pasture before the Goddess Democracy can be worshipped properly.

So I have to admire this Lopez Obrador guy for going balls out to try to make that happen.

In the process, he’s using every legal recourse to build a dossier on what actually happened to contrast with the official explanations — and using the Netroots to disseminate his counterdisinformation.

I note on one Spanish-languaging blog traffic monitor, for example, that El Sendero del Peje, the Blogspot-hosted preeminent rallying point for the “vote by vote” clicktivist scene, rocketed from outside the top ten to the top Latin American blog between July and August, and is approaching a million unique visitors a month, if the trend keeps up

That’s the blog that Megacable has allegedly been blocking.

Eventually, those flimsy official explanations, propped up by the infotainment monopolies — barring draconian censorship of the Internet — are going to collapse like a house of cards, and everyone is going to know it, if they don’t already.

Indeed, most people do already know, as Oppenheimer is constantly observing. What they are waiting for is the safety of being one of millions who are also saying it, so that they won’t be singled out for reprisals by the strict system of old-style PRI social controls that still holds quite a bit of sway.
Unconditional respect for corrupt institutions qua institutions is for suckers.

If Acme rocket-powered roller skates are no good, you switch to Gleemonex’s competing product. Wile E. Coyote, Genius, was a brainless twit to keep buying from the same old catalog.
So I keep saying it: Governments that can’t out-compete the black market in social services and social opportunity are failed states. Period. Look at Hezbollah and Hamas and the Colombian narconomy.

You can only force people to eat shit and call it chocolate layer cake for so long.

Brooklyn rules: Throw the bums out!

Source: El Universal, 2005.