PRI, PAN, and a Pez named Borge

Greetings all!

Hope this posting finds you well. It finds me uncomfortably adjusting to the shock of realizing what I already knew: I have to leave the school in less than one month! It's always sort of tragicomic when one of those moments strikes you: realizing a long-known fact. Anyway, I'm not going to turn this into a post about that (leaving) because, frankly, I just don't want to think about it all that much right now and will save it for a soppier post in the future.

Onward, then. So last Thursday was the last day of the last full cycle of classes we're giving here at the school. Once again, the orange-tinted palette of food paraded in: cheetos, orange soda, doritos, ham-and-cheese spaghetti, etc. Though we will teach, starting next week, one more mini-session of intensive English, the previous cycle was my last chance to work with many of my students, including Kindergarten and Niños Nivel 2. Saying goodbye to them was surreal, it still hasn't hit me quite yet that I won't see them around the school anymore, especially since I keep running into them out and about on the island.
Students from my Niños Nivel 2 class in the afternoon.
Kindergarteners! If you tell me you've ever seen children more adorable than these children, I will refuse to believe you.
This is Mia, our 10:00 am Niños Nivel 1 class pet. Her owner, one of my students, lives around the corner from the school, and her spoiled little dog would cry if she didn't get to come along. In this circumstance, I decided it was better to have 2 in attendance, Fernanda and Mia, than none in attendance.

And speaking of pets, I was surprised by one of my students at 5:30 that evening with my very own tiny pet guppy! He brought it in a bag in his backpack, coming directly from a political rally for the PRI. I wasn't expecting to become a fish mom that evening, so I wasn't exactly prepared with a fish bowl or anything. I found a giant empty bottle of mayo in the kitchen, boiled it a few times to clean it, added some clean sea glass from the beach in the bottom, and voila! A casita for my pececito. Only after moving him into his house did I think about the fact that he may also need to eat. Oh. Thus began the quest for some fish food as well. Normally there's a little store around the corner from the school that sells pet supplies. Unfortunately I visited twice and it was open neither time. I went in search of a second recommended pet store, which turned out to be imaginary. And then I remembered another student and neighbor of mine who sometimes liked to catch fish in the Caribbean for her tank. I stopped by and her son, yet another former student, handed me some food in a little salt shaker given out by the political party, PRI. The name of their gubernatorial candidate, BORGE, was emblazoned on the side. I thanked him and took off to feed my new little friend. On the way I ran into yet more students, twin 6 year-olds from my morning class, who were excited to chat on and on in the way that only little kids know how. I told them about my fish, and showed them my new fish food. Then I asked for recommendations for a good fish name. They suggested that I give him the name on his fish food: Borge. I was struck by the brilliance: I mean, it was what most people do in reverse, get a pet and get their name put onto a food bowl. Then they changed their minds and said "Nero" was a better name, so his official name has become "Nero Borge Maassen." I think the name is longer than he is.
That flash in the edge of the bottle is the distinguished Nero Borge Maassen.

Now, Borge seemed a particularly appropriate name not only because two adorable kids suggested it, but because it seems to be one of the only names you see around here anymore. As I briefly mentioned in my last blog, Quintana Roo, my state, held elections on July 4th. There were 12 states electing governors that day, and you may have heard in the news about the murder of a gubernatorial candidate in the northern state of Tamaulipas. He was also for the same party, PRI, but fortunately this region hasn't experienced anything near the violence or intensity that the north has.

So, it's time for a little Mexican political history lesson: are you ready? I just can't help myself, history and politics and factoids--irresistible writing topics.

Here are Mexico's three main political parties (there are many smaller ones, but they typically just throw their weight into alliances with the big guys):

PRI, Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or Institutional Revolutionary Party. Adherents are called ¨priistas.¨
PAN, Partido Accion Naciónal, or National Action Party. Adherents are called ¨panistas.¨
PRD, Partido de la Revolución Democrática, or Party of the Democratic Revolution. Adherents are called ¨perredistas.¨
Here's a map of where the parties are influential, roughly. Given that each city also elects its own mayor, deputies, etc. the results are more mixed than the map suggests. But, generally, PRI, green, has support in the shown areas. PAN, blue, has support in its respective blue areas. And PRD has support in the yellow areas. The current president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, is a panista, but more on that later.

So where do these parties line up in respect to American ones? Who is red and who is blue? Well, PAN is the conservative party, so blue is red, if that makes sense. And PRD is a committed leftist, socialist party, so yellow is blue. And PRI? Well, they are technically leftist as well, but I think they typically fall somewhere on the political spectrum called "opportunistic." In order to understand this, a bit of history lesson is in order, whee!

As I've mentioned in previous posts, Mexico is celebrating its 200th anniversary of independence this year, and its 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. Though the Mexican Revolution started in 1910, it was a long, drawn-out and bloody struggle, lasting over 10 years into the 1920s. When the revolution finally drew down to some central hands holding power, one of the winners was a forerunner of the party that would become PRI; thus partido "revolucionario." It began at the behest of a general who realized that no one was safe in power unless he had the backing of a party, or at least a posse. As it began, it wasn't so much about ideals as it was about integrating power in centralized hands. Once that had been accomplished, the party began to fulfill some of the promises of Mexico's 1917 constitution. Several leaders through the late 1930s carried out popular reforms, most notably land distribution that affected about 1/3 of Mexico's people, and nationalization of Mexico's oil production (something that Mexicans are still proud of today, though lower profit margins mean less R&D, which is starting to concern economists...nationalized oil companies can't keep up with the likes of BP). Anyway, so it started out in the socialist tradition, giving back to the people. But...as time went on, they took on a pattern that has been tragically predictable in Mexico.

As a book of mine describes: "Rule by the people for the people has been notably absent in Mexico. Instead, from the age of the Aztec emperors to the Spanish conquest of 1521, through three centuries of colonial rule, to the nineteenth-century era of civil strife and foreign intervention, through the thirty-year dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz and its overthrow in the Mexican Revolution in 1910, the country's political life has been dominated by gyrations between anarchy and authoritarianism." It is certainly easy to find echoes of this in the current struggle against drug cartels. 23,000 people have been killed since Felipe Calderon declared war in 2006. That's more than American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Basically, when the PRI centralized power, they centralized it to such an extent that all local officials had to be completely submissive to the President, who acted more or less as an emperor. Congress existed to rubber-stamp things, and even when a president's 6-year term was up (Mexico does only one 6-year term, rather than 2 4-year terms), the president simply had to give the "dedazo" or "finger point," to hand-pick his successor, obviously a fellow PRI crony. Even if the election results showed different, the PRI simply set their "alquimistas" or "chemists" to work, magically doctoring the electoral results to show the PRI as the winners. The election results wouldn't often show differently anyway, given that the PRI had the money (stolen from state coffers) to buy off voters, as well as the hired goons to scare anybody who threatened PRI dominance. It was el sistema, or "the" system, and it served for over 70 years, changing party lines to serve the times. For example, in 1938 it nationalized the oil companies, yet in 1994 it signed NAFTA: nationalization and free trade wouldn't seem to come from one party, but when you are the only party, guess it makes sense.

Thing is, PRI wasn't the only game in town, it just was the bully. Other political opinions, personalities, and parties have always existed in Mexico. It just took them a lot of doggedness, time, and economic upheaval to finally wrest power away from the PRI. The PAN also came out of the wreckage of the Mexican Revolution, on the losing side. At that point in time, Catholicism played a much greater political role in Mexican society. A pro-Catholic movement called the "cristeros" fought against non-clerical reforms of the 1917 constitution, but ultimately lost to forces that, as mentioned, loosely formed the PRI. The PAN remains conservative and Christian Democratic. The PRD started in 1989 as an rebel group of disaffected PRI powers, namely a man named Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who narrowly and suspiciously lost a contested election against a fellow priista named Carlos Salinas. It was the first PRI election in which the ¨dedazo¨was not utilized, and it was pretty disastrous.

So, aside from corruption and intimidation, how did the PRI consolidate its power against the others? Well, largely with the continued support of the populace. The reason being that Mexico experienced at least 3 decades of steady and strong economic growth during the PRI's reign. Wages increased, mortality decreased, population tripled...BOOM. As American politics certainly prove, when economic times are good, you're safe in power. They are projecting the November mid-term results off of economic calculations. Economically, all is relatively good or at least steady in Mexico until the late-80s and early-90s. In 1994, however, under the PRI, the Mexican Peso completely collapsed, and the country had to be bailed out by the United States. Many people lost everything and faith, already fraying, was shredded. Enter 2000, the next year for national elections, and who should win but the PAN under Vicente Fox. Obviously a million other factors influenced the outcome, but I can't help but think that economic concerns are what pushed it all over the brink.

Mexico had its 6 years under Fox, and then another general election was set for July 2, 2006, smack in the middle of my time in Oaxaca after Freshman year. We were obviously following the contest with interest. The PRI, having just been broken, couldn't field a strong candidate. The race was between the PAN and the PRD, under Felipe Calderon and Manuel Lopez Obrador, respectively. As the map above showed, the south is PRD country, especially the impoverished south (leftists=social programs and benefits!). My village and family were strong for PRD, though still traditionally connected to the PRI as well. So election returns rolled in the evening of July 2nd, and my family rejoiced to see Lopez Obrador projected to win the country. Eerily similar to 2000 in the United States, however, projections began to waver, and newscasters began abashedly stating that it appeared that Calderon would actually take the election. A month of total fiasco ensued (again echoing the US), with Lopez Obrador organizing marches on Mexico City. Calderon was finally declared the winner with 0.58%! percent of the vote! Lopez Obrador, a brash figure anyway, decried the results and literally set up a shadow government for several years, inaugurating himself publicly and asking to be called "legitimate president." You can't make this stuff up! All of this was happening, incidentally, as Oaxaca was undergoing a scarring teacher's strike and general insurrection against the PRI governor of the state, with Zapatistas from Chiapas smuggling in support to the strikers.

And you think American politics are ridiculous? That's mild salsa to the fire sauce they serve down here!

Anyway, up to the present moment, and what does it all have to do with our little island? Well, elections are apparently an all-encompassing experience here in Mexico, if not in a mental sense, then in a sensory way. They are LOUD! Up until July 2nd, the last day for campaigning this year, the island was frequently paralyzed and deafened by competing political parades and rallies, representing the PRI and the PAN. They pull out all the stops, Carnaval style, and spend millions of pesos on free t-shirts, aprons, stickers, hats, magnets, lunchboxes, backpacks, salt shakers, posters, billboards, flags, tv advertisements, websites, and on and on. Cars are COVERED with screen prints of political candidates, TV trucks go around blaring candidates messages, popular songs are re-written to party lyrics, and people are paid to come out and rally. Seriously. If you've got the right connections, you can basically outfit your entire home in political paraphernalia and make a bit on the side. Even I, blatantly ineligible to vote, am the owner of 4 t-shirts, stickers and a salt shaker.

The big names flashing around, and being sung OVER and OVER again at earsplitting decibels, were Hugo Sanchez, Demetrio Celaya, and Alicia Ricalde of PAN, and Antonio Coronado, Agapito Magaña and Roberto Borge of PRI. They were candidates for mayor, local representative, and governor. Alicia Ricalde is the current mayor of Isla Mujeres, and opinions seem to be relatively polar: she's great or she's terrible. Outside of Isla Mujeres, she's not very well known which might explain the ultimate results of the election. PAN won the mayor's post with Hugo Sanchez, and the local representative with Demetrio Celaya. Borge won the governorship of Quintana Roo. PRD doesn't have a significant presence here on the island, but they are active in other parts of the state, including Cancun. The mayor of Cancun is a guy named Gregorio, or "Greg" Sanchez, and he was running as the PRD candidate for governor against Alicia and Borge. Several months ago, however, he was indicted for connections with not only one but TWO drug cartels running through Cancun. This made him legally ineligible to run, but it seemed that Cancun got the message a bit late. Even a week after the news broke, his posters were EVERYWHERE in Cancun.

Outside of one of Cancun's big shopping malls, Plaza Las Américas. Psst, stop partying and read the news, Cancun!

I guess the final note about politics is how the PRI can still remain so popular in Mexico. Didn't they oppress people for generations? I suppose it comes back to the economics of it, really. It doesn't really seem, 23,000 people dead and economy sinking, that the PAN is really guiding Mexico down the right path. Yet many people are so frightened to see the PRI come back to central power that they are taking drastic measures. In Oaxaca, which also voted 4th of July, a PRD-PAN coalition candidate (unthinkable 4 years ago!) defeated a PRI candidate for the governorship. Next year the state of Mexico, which surrounds Mexico City and is a bellwether for general Mexican politics, will pit a popular PRI politician, Enrique Peña Nieto, against a coalition candidate for PAN-PRD. If the coalition wins, then it will definitely deflate PRI chances for a comeback. Read more about it here.

Whew! Class is out. You're a champ if you really read that whole thing.

One last little update, since the last post didn't really cover recent events. In May, a good friend of mine from university, Dan, came down to visit. He finally convinced me to do what I had been resisting. As a resident, I couldn't bring myself to visit the spectacle and glory and hype that is...Chichen Itza!
I do love intentionally crooked pictures.

Yes, I was coerced into having my own picture taken, something I typically resist. Thanks Dan. It was a nice day, though quite hot! (Par for the course.) Dan also helped clear memory space on my computer, which was a huge help--you wouldn't see these pictures otherwise, there would have been no room!

Second thing overcome while Dan visited: the Cenote...

I had mentioned a few posts ago that I visited a cenote in Valladolid, and even included a picture. I told a little story about how terrifying my last visit to a cenote in high school had been, little fish and deep water, etc. Well, I had hoped I could conduct myself more maturely in a visit this time around...but some old phobias die hard I guess.
Look at these catfish! Little sharks just waiting to gobble me up in the murky water. Dan got in right away, but I decided to be the hero and go to the jumping platform. Might as well go out in a blaze of glory, right? Well, I got to the top and between the fish and the murkiness and the height, not to mention the fact that several tourists had their cameras trained on me for a jumping shot...I totally balked. I stood there for at least 15 minutes, convincing myself that I could jump off, that it was no big deal. I had done it before, dammit! But at the last second each time I would panic. Finally, with a shriek, I made the leap! And I live to tell the tale today, whew. Dan was inspired to take the jump after I did, but did it in manly silence. He got a cool jumping shot out of it, look for the flash of blue and white swimming trunks to find him below.
Well, time to do some work now, starting final English workshops on Monday. Things (i.e., what I'm doing with my life) may be shaking out for the future. Not that I've procrastinated or anything...I don't get evicted for about 3 more weeks! Preview: I'm exploring options literally between halfway around the world and right here in my neck of the woods (or jungle in this case?). I'll keep you posted. Until next time, le vaya bien!