U.S.-Mexico border, security cooperation & state elections – Weekly News Summary: May 17

The Mexico Institute’s “Weekly News Summary,” released every Friday afternoon summarizes the week’s most prominent Mexico headlines published in the English-language press, as well as the most engaging opinion pieces by Mexican columnists.

What the English-language press had to say…

A bipartisan immigration reform bill survived another week under review by the Senate Judiciary Committee [see this useful graphic by The Washington Post containing rulings to key amendments to the bill]. A  Los Angeles Times editorial pointed out that as baby boomers retire and U.S. birthrates continue to decline, immigrants will be needed to fill labor gaps. A different article in the same paper questioned whether or not a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants would lead to an increase of the unauthorized population similar to the increase that followed the IRCA legalization of 1986.

VOXXI, a news website, argued that while border security should be a factor in the immigration reform debate, improving the efficiency of cross-border flows would provide a huge economic boost to both countries. The New York Times, meanwhile, highlighted San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s efforts to reach out to his counterpart in Tijuana and address border inefficiencies.

Mexico’s IFE one of the most sophisticated electoral institutions in the world – #MexFacts

Click here to learn more…

Survey shows that Mexico’s youth distrusts IFE (Spanish)

De acuerdo con la Encuesta de Cultura Política de los Jóvenes 2012, los ciudadanos de entre 18 y 29 años confían “poco” en el Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE) y en el Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF), aunque la mayoría cree que ambas instituciones son imparciales y autónomas.

El estudio, elaborado por el Colegio de México para el Centro de Desarrollo Democrático del IFE, revela que los jóvenes se informaron sobre los candidatos presidenciales y sus campañas a través de los spots de televisión, y 30% vio los dos debates.

Read more…

Mexico election investigation goes against leftist

AP, 1/30/2013

During Mexico’s presidential election last year, the leftist candidate furiously complained that while he flew economy class his rival from the former ruling party campaigned in private planes, appeared constantly on television and was dramatically overspending campaign limits.

Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party won the vote over leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and election authorities began an investigation into allegations of campaign spending violations. Now, six months later, the electoral body says it has indeed found evidence of violations: by Lopez Obrador, not Pena Nieto.

Read more…

Mexico’s Ruling Party Used $5.2 Million Cash Cards

Associated Press, 1/25/2013

Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute has confirmed that President Enrique Pena Nieto’s party spent about $5.2 million through electronic cash cards during last year’s presidential campaign. While opposition parties had charged the money represented illicit campaign financing, the institute said it found no evidence of that.

Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party has said the money was used for normal party personnel expenses, but the funds aroused suspicion, because the money appeared to have been triangulated through several shadowy companies instead of being disbursed directly from party coffers. Opponents also said they suspected that corporations may have used the cards to make campaign donations, something that is prohibited under Mexican law.

Read more…

Mexico’s Enrique Peña Nieto officially declared election winner [video included]

Los Angeles Times, 8/31/2012

Enrique Peña Nieto

Dismissing arguments that recent elections were rife with fraud, Mexico’s electoral tribunal on Friday officially declared Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Enrique Peña Nieto the president-elect, a ruling that was defiantly rejected by leftist leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the second-place finisher who, for the second presidential contest in a row, called his followers into the streets of the capital to protest.

The unanimous ruling by the seven-judge panel clears the way for the return of Peña Nieto’s party, known as the PRI, to power. It had lost the quasi-authoritarian grip on the country that it had enjoyed for more than seven decades in 2000, after numerous democratic reforms.

Read more…

To listen to Pena Nieto’s first message as President-elect click on the link, Primer mensaje de EPN como presidente electo.

The IFE fines the PRD for more than 1 million pesos [in Spanish]

Excelsior, 8/16/12

The IFE fines the PRD for over one million pesos due to a television ad which claimed that they had millions of proofs of electoral fraud.  The court said that it “denigrated” the PRI.

Read More…

 

Mexico’s PRI says left violated campaign finance rules

Fox News Latino/EFE, 7/24/2012

Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s campaign should be investigated for using grassroots organizations as “parallel structures” to evade campaign finance rules, Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, said.

Both the leftist Progressive Movement and its presidential candidate received funds that they hid from election officials, “triangulating them via grassroots organizations, such as Austeridad Republicana and Honestidad Valiente, among others,” PRI leaders said in a press conference on Monday.

Read more…

Experts Discuss Mexico’s 2012 Election Results

C-SPAN, 7/9/12

A polling expert says Mexico’s youth voters turned out in record numbers for the recent presidential election but their ballots didn’t boost Enrique Pena Nieto to victory. Jorge Buendia with a Mexican polling firm says the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate now President-Elect, lost the youth vote by quite a bit.

His assessment came during a Woodrow Wilson Center panel analyzing the 2012 Mexican Presidential Election results. Mexico’s Electoral Authority confirmed Pena Nieto the winner of the July 1st election with just over 38 percent of the vote Friday.

He had two other challengers.The Wilson Center reviewed and analyzed the results of Mexico’s 2012 elections. Experts discussed the potential impact of the elections on Mexico’s economy.

Watch the video here

The Final Count: EPN 38.21%, AMLO 31.59%, JVM 25.41% [In Spanish]

El Universal, 07/06/2012

All the votes have been counted and PRI-PVEM candidate Enrique Peña Nieto has once again come out triumphant. Enrique Peña Nieto won with 38.21% of the vote, PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador was behind by 6.62% with 31.59% of the vote, PAN candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota came in third with 25.41% and PNA candidate Gabriel Quadri came in fourth with 2.47%.

Read more…