The Blue Block memorandum, page 10. Click to zoom.
MANZANA AZUL, say Mexican “vote by voters,” is a blueprint for election fraud by Felipe Calderón’s PAN party in the upcoming state elections in Veracruz. The memorandum bears what purports to be the signature of Alejandro “El Pipo” Vázquez Cuevas, PAN’s state party chairman.
El Sendero del Peje and La Montaña se Levanta, two pro-López Obrador Web logs, have published a document on the letterhead of the National Action Party (PAN) that describes a detailed plan to steal the state election in Veracruz in September.
The Notiver news agency in Veracruz reported the story on March 21, and takes responsibility for the authenticity of the document, apparently, saying it was leaked as a result of political rivalries inside PAN.
A similar strategic planning document by The Teacher’s PANAL was reportedly leaked for similar reasons; see Mexico: The Teacher Reaches for the Golden Apple. It makes the DoJ e-mails in the U.S. Attorneys flap look like giggling schoolgirl gossip about the latest teenage heartthrob.
On internal PAN divisions, see also PANdemonium in Guerrero: The PAN state party chair in that state was arrested for ordering the murder of a PAN legislator investigating corruption in state municipal governments.
The Diário de Veracruz ran an analysis of divisions within PAN in the state, with significant opposition to El Pipo, in February 2006.
There is a book chapter on the history of PAN in my translation queue that I really ought to knock out for you: old-school PAN activists report a massive influx of foreign funding and the emergence of corrupt practices in the early 1990s.
In the meantime, the top Mexican army commander made a point of stating publicly and emphatically this week that the army recognizes the legitimacy of Felipe Calderón’s election as president last July.
I have an ongoing bet with a friend of mine, a Spanish-language foreign correspondent in Brazil, that Mexico will see an attempt to impose an openly authoritarian state of exception by 2008. Newsflow like this adds value to my proposition, I think.
In the case of the Manzana Azul memorandum, the PRD has asked the Veracruz elections commission to investigate, reports the El Sol de Córdoba newspaper. It says it will try to ally with the PRI and smaller parties to thwart the plan.
The passage from the PAN memo reproduced above describes monitoring and disruption of polling places by persons under the command of “block captains,” who are to seize ballot boxes likely to produce results unfavorable to PAN.
Vote-buying and coercion are also discussed in the document.
The mandate to party activists to level charges of election fraud, whether the charges are true or not, has a familiar ring to it.
I translate a passage from page 10.
The group of block leaders will maintain two or three personnel outside each polling station (they will need photographic, video and communications equipment), and will remain there from the time it opens until it closes. The block leader’s group should stay 50 to 60 meters back and only enter into action on the block leader’s order.
Enter into what action?
If a polling place is losing for PAN, the block leaders will instruct their people to initiate violence and remove the ballot box to a place owned by PAN; another solution would be to provoke the annulment of the vote in that precinct because of irregularities.
“The level of violence permitting.”
The level of violence permitting, group members should take control of the ballot boxes and carry them to the nearest safe house, or to the safe house that is hardest to locate.
Cover story.
Once the disturbances are over, invited international election observers and the press should be summoned and people should be urged to step forward and lay the blame for events on the PRI.
PAN is advised by GOP political consultants Dick Morris and Rob Allyn, and has longstanding ties to the Konrad Adenauer Institute — which allegedly funded the rise of the “neo-PAN” tendency in the early 1990s with illegal financial support.
El Pipo
The Notiver news site reported the story on March 21, and takes responsibility for the authenticity of the document, apparently.
I translate pra inglês ver.
El programa de operación política MANZANA AZUL 2007 existe. El PAN tiene listas las estrategias para mantener el poder en los municipios que gobierna y preparar el terreno para ganar la gubernatura de Veracruz en el 2010,
The political operation known as Manzana (“apple,” “block”) Azul 2007 exists. PAN has lists of strategies for holding on to municipal governments and preparing the ground for taking over the governship of Veracruz in 2010.
El programa de operación política MANZANA AZUL 2007 existe. El PAN tiene listas las estrategias para mantener el poder en los municipios que gobierna y preparar el terreno para ganar la gubernatura de Veracruz en el 2010, aún cuando tenga que recurrir a propaganda negra, a campañas de desprestigio y a la compra del voto, a través de los jefes de manzana.
The political operation known as Manzana (“apple,” “block”) Azul 2007 exists. PAN has lists of strategies for holding on to municipal governments and preparing the ground for taking over the governship of Veracruz in 2010, even if it means resorting to clandestine propaganda, smear campaigns and vote-buying carried out through block captains.
En el marco de las disputas intestinas que por las candidaturas se están gestando en el Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), NOTIVER tuvo acceso de manera exclusiva documento denominado Programa Manzana Azul 2007, que forma parte de las estrategias del Programa AVE AZUL 2007, con las que Víctor Alejandro Vásquez Cuevas pretende arrebatar la gubernatura al PRI en el 2010.
As a result of internal disputes over PAN candidacies, NOTIVER had exclusive access to a document called Plan Blue Apple 2007, part of the Blue Bird 2007 strategy, by which Vázquez Cuevas means to take the governorship away from PRI in 2010.
LAS ESTRATEGIAS.
The strategies
Se trata básicamente de ocho estrategias específicas que deben cumplir los alcaldes de los municipios gobernados por el PAN:
There are basically eight specific strategies that PAN mayors are to execute:
1. Formar una estructura ciudadana con jefes de manzana identificados con el PAN, y con aquellos que desde ahora sean reclutados, cooptados o comprados, para cubrir territorialmente todo el municipio y desarrollar las estrategias políticas, así como denunciar las trampas y el fraude del PRI y el Gobierno Estatal en las próximas elecciones.
1. Create a grassroots structure with block captains who sympathize with PAN, which are now being recruited, coopted or bought, to cover territories throughout the municipality and execute political operations such as denouncing fraud and deceit by the PRI and the state government in the next elections.
2. Realizar proselitismo en cada una de las manzanas de los municipios donde gobierna el PAN, además presionar a los vecinos indecisos o que no simpatizan con Acción Nacional para que voten por el.
2. Proselytize in each block in each PAN-controlled city, as well as pressuring undecided neighbors and those who do not sympathize with PAN into voting for its candidates.
3. Identificar en todas y cada una de las manzanas de los ayuntamientos panistas cuáles son los vecinos que simpatizan con otros partidos, pero principalmente con el PRI, PRD y Convergencia, su grado de activismo y/o compromiso con el partido correspondiente.
3. Identify persons who sympathize with other parties, especially PRI, PRD and Convergence, and note their degree of activism in and commitment to that party.
4. Los jefes de manzana estarán obligados a recabar información política y personal de cada vecino para concentrarla en el partido, para definir las medidas de presión que se pueden aplicar para disuadirlos de la actividad política a favor de otros partidos, nulificar su activismo, cooptarlos y hasta intimidarlos.
4. The block captains are to gather political and personal information on every neighbor, to be handed over to the party, in order to define pressure tactics designed to dissuade them from political activity in favor of other parties, nullify their activities, coopt them and even intimidate them.
5. Los programas municipales y federales deberán ser orientados estrictamente en beneficio de los vecinos que simpatizan con el PAN, de acuerdo a la información proporcionada por los jefes de manzana.
5. Municipal and federal programs will be conducted exclusively in favor of PAN sympathizers, according to information provided by the block captains.
6. Vigilar las casillas el día de la elección e informar a los responsables sobre desarrollo o las tendencias de la jornada, a fín de que se instrumenten las acciones definidas en la casilla respectiva para recuperar la mayoría o buscar la nulidad de la casilla por los medios violentos definidos en el Programa Ave Azul 2007.
6. Watch the polling places on election day and inform PAN official about the development of voting trends, in order to take actions designed to guarantee a PAN majority in that precinct or seek to nullify the vote their through violence, as defined in Blue Bird 2007.
7. El programa Manzana Azul se desarrollará en su etapa piloto en el municipio de Veracruz, donde contamos con autoridades y funcionarios ampliamente comprometidos, que ya han sido capacitados para la ejecución del programa.
7. Blue Apple will be developed as a pilot program in the city of Veracruz, where PAN counts on elected officials and civil servants committed to its cause, who have already been trained to carry out the program.
8. Una vez que el programa Manzana Azul 2007 logre ser aterrizado con éxito en el municipio de Veracruz y entre en operación, se introducirá de manera simultánea en todos los municipios gobernados por el PAN.
8. If the program can be set up and carried out successfully in the city of Veracruz, it will be introduced simultaneously in every PAN-controlled city in the state.
En el documento firmado por Víctor Alejandro Vásquez Cuevas, dirigente estatal del PAN, enviado a los alcaldes panistas, indican que los objetivos tienen su fundamento en los principios doctrinarios de Acción Nación y están orientados a defender su proyecto de gobierno y el avance de su doctrina, basados en la fé católica, la libre empresa, el bien privado sobre el bien público, el liberalismo y el humanismo.
In the document signed by El Pipo, PAN state chairman, and sent to PAN mayors, it is stated that the objectives are founded on PAN doctrine and designed to protect its program of government and the promotion of its doctrine, based on the Catholic faith, free enterprise, private property over public property, liberalism and humanism.
En el programa, dice Víctor Alejandro Vásquez Cuevas, deben participar activamente los presidentes municipales, diputados locales y los diputados federales emanados de Acción Nacional.
The program must have the active participation of PAN mayors as well as local and federal legislators from the party.
JULEN MINTIÓ.
Julen lied
Según el documento en poder de NOTIVER, el programa Manzana Azul 2007 aterrizará en plan piloto en el puerto de Veracruz, gobernado por el alcalde Julen Rementería del Puerto. El objetivo inicial es contar con una estructura política integrada mínimo por seis mil jefes de manzana, para asegurar 18 mil votos el día de la elección.
According to the document received by NOTIVER, the program will start as a pilot program in the port of Veracruz, governed by mayor Julen Rementería del Puerto. Its initial aim is to create a minimal integrated political structure that will deliver 18,000 votes on election day.
La estrategia establece que los jefes de manzana y simpatizantes del PAN coordinarán denuncias entre vecinos a manera de propaganda negra, sobre acciones fraudulentas -falsas o verdaderas- que puedan atribuirse al PRI, como la compra de votos, uso de programas sociales, desvío de recursos e incumplimiento de obras del Gobierno Estatal.
The strategy calls for block captains and party loyalists to coordinate accusations among neighbors, using the methods of covert propaganda, of fraudulent activities — whether false or true — that can be attributed to PRI, such as vote-buying, abuse of social programs, misappropriation of funds and failure to execute public works funded by the state goverment.
Entre las acciones se encuentran:
Among the types of actions to be taken:
a. Compra de votos, credenciales de elector de simpatizantes del PRI y de representantes de casillas, en lugares donde existe poca presencia de los medios de comunicación.
a. Vote-buying, as well as the purchase of voter registration credentials from PRI supporters and polling monitors in places not covered by the media.
b. Operar una campaña de desprestigio a través de volantes e internet, de manera anónima, en contra de la vida pública y privada de los candidatos del PRI, PRD o Convergencia.
b. Smear campaigns carried out by party thugs and on the Internet, in an anonymous fashion, focusing on the public and private lives of PRI, PRD and Convergence candidates.
c. Desarrollar programas municipales de asistencia social en las colonias más marginadas, con apoyo de programas federales, dónde es más fácil manipular a la población y orientar su voto.
c. Developing municipal social assistance programs in the poorest neighborhoods, with federal support, where it is easiest to manipulate the population and steer their vote.
d. Retirar o destruir propaganda de los candidatos del PRI, PRD y Convergencia en las calles y avenidas, con el apoyo del personal del ayuntamiento.
d. Take down or destroy PRI, PRD and Convergence campaign advertising in the streets, with the support of PAN volunteers.
El programa Manzana Azul 2007 se aplicará en cuatro etapas: la primera será a partir de la elección del candidato del PAN a la presidencia municipal, la segunda a partir de la nominación de los candidatos del PRI y hasta el día de la jornada electoral, la tercera denominada Día “D”, que serán actividades previas al día de las elecciones y la jornada electoral, y la última desde el día de la elección y hasta la toma de posesión del nuevo alcalde.
The Blue Block 2007 program will be executed in four stages: The first will start with the election of the PAN candidate for the mayor’s office; the second will start with the nomination of PRI candidates and run through election day; the third, called “D-Day,” will consists of pre-election and election day activities; and the fourth, the period between the elections and the swearing in of the new mayor.
En el Manzana Azul 2007 el PAN está votando por las campañas de desprestigio para desmoralizar a los priístas, por el acoso laboral y hasta por los enfrentamientos en las casillas y robo de urnas para el día de la elección, según advierte su dirigente estatal en el documento que deben tener en sus manos los responsables de la operación a más tardar el día 1° de abril del 2007.
In Blue Block 2007, PAN is betting on smear campaigns to undermine PRI, on union harrassment and even on violent confrontations in the polling places and the theft of ballot boxes on election day, according to a document signed by PAN state chairman, which was to be delivered to the persons in charge of the operation by April 1, 2007.
El objetivo final es ganar los municipios que actualmente gobierna el PAN, elevar un 10 por ciento el nivel global de votación y preparar el terreno para arrebatar la gubernatura al PRI en el año 2010, por los medios que sean necesarios.
The ultimate objective is to hold onto the city governments where PAN currently controls, increase the PAN vote by 10% and prepare the ground for wresting the state government from PRI in 2010, by any means necessary.
The New Market Machines 