Intersections

E-S-T-A-D-O *

ESTADO is a series of electronic music sets taking place each Saturday this month at the Estela de Luz monument in Mexico City, showcasing the most cutting-edge and challenging emerging talents from four eletronic music centers in Mexico: Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, Monterrey, and D.F.

Here's the site, with samples and takes from each of the artists. The series is curated by Alberto Bustamante of N-A-A-F-I.

The Estela, a monumentally distastrous project since its inception, is being gradually claimed as everyday-usage public space along Paseo de la Reforma. This was where the #YoSoy132 movement held one of its earliest and most spontaneous demonstrations. Inside, or rather underneath the structure, a Centro de Cultural Digital was established, and from here, musical performances have taken place on the square at the base of the "Suavicrema."

The ESTADO site is well worth a browsing and listen. Here's a compilation of the artists at Soundcloud, with downloadable tracks.

* Also, upcoming in Tijuana, near where I am presently reporting, two good festivals I hope to check out: Norte Sonoro, curated by Jace Clayton, and All My Friends.

** PREVIOUSLY: See also, Estrella Cercana, "Teen DJ from Ciudad Juarez, Mock the Zuma, reflects a 'bizarro' reality," "More snapshots from Monterrey, NRML fest," "Estrella Cercana: A newspaper's obituary, Part 4."

Former members of Mexico student movement #YoSoy132 join Televisa talk show

** Originally published at World Now:

They rallied and railed against the dominant media duopoly in Mexico during a crucial election campaign, but now former members of the student movement known as #YoSoy132 are set to appear on a new talk show produced by the Televisa network.

The revelation Wednesday startled observers and sparked outraged and mocking commentary on Twitter in Mexico, where #YoSoy132, or "I Am 132," was founded in May.

The leaderless movement emerged in protest of Enrique Peña Nieto, the presidential candidate who went on to win the July 1 election, and against Televisa and TV Azteca. Together, the media conglomerates nearly monopolize the airwaves in Mexico, making them a target of protests by #YoSoy132 for what it called the networks' biased and favorable coverage of the candidate.

"Sin Filtro," or "Without Filters," is slated to be a weekly Sunday night program on ForoTV, an arm of Televisa. The format is a round-table of university students who will discuss, "without censorship," the pressing issues facing Mexico, host Genaro Lozano said in an interview Wednesday.

Lozano, a 36-year-old international relations professor and frequent political commentator on Mexican news outlets, is not a former member of the student movement, but he helped moderate a presidential debate that #YoSoy132 organized. The unprecedented unofficial meeting with three of the four presidential candidates (Peña Nieto declined to attend) was noteworthy for being organized by citizens and not the federal electoral authorities.

The first installment of "Sin Filtro" is expected to feature Antonio Attolini, a former #YoSoy132 campus representative and one of the most prominent and recognizable student voices during the election. Later, however, Attolini was effectively booted out of #YoSoy132 after other students regarded his many media appearances -- including on Televisa -- as detrimental and distracting to the group's agenda.

Lozano said he understood the criticisms of the new program but added that he would make efforts to reach out to students from a range of public and private universities in Mexico for future on-air panels. 

"There is a phobia toward the networks, and that's a historical issue in Mexico," Lozano told The Times. "But I think opening a new space of dialogue is always a good thing, and I hope other such spaces open up on other networks."

He added that he previously had taped a pilot for a similar program on another network, but only within the last two weeks did a contact with the Televisa conglomerate lead to "Sin Filtro." Lozano said he expects to sign a contract for the show with Televisa on Thursday.

Online, the official Twitter account of #YoSoy132 distanced itself once more from Attolini, saying: "#YoSoy132 does not have leaders precisely to avoid that the contradictions of one affect us all." Other Twitter users were less generous, with some dubbing the student panelists who appear on a "Sin Filtro" promo on YouTube as "traitors."

The promo itself is a study of what might arguably be called unintended irony.

Lozano identified the participants as all former members of #YoSoy132, now sitting before cameras belonging to the largest mass media company in the Spanish-speaking world, which is also currently tied to a trafficking ring investigation in Nicaragua.

"I'm tired of the fact that the old news media class gives us information in the same manner, and with bias," one panelist, a young woman wearing heavy-framed eyeglasses, emphatically declares. "That is bad for freedom of speech in the country and that's why we're here, to discuss what interests you, without filters."

Attolini, meanwhile, broke his silence on Twitter on Wednesday as the virtual booing and hissing rained down on him. By the afternoon, he tweeted: "The struggle will be infinite if we don't start gaining territory. Now we have it inside the wolf's cave. Let's say the things that are concealed."

"Sin Filtro" is scheduled to premiere Sunday, Oct. 28. Lozano said the likely topic will be media democratization, a central issue for the student movement during the campaign.

* Photo: Moderator Genaro Lozano appears in a screenshot of a promo for "Sin Filtro." Credit: Via YouTube

RELATED INSIDE INTERSECTIONS:

On voting for the first time for president in Mexico

Meet Mexico's new youth movement: #YoSoy132

Future in electoral politics for Camila Vallejo?

Developers in Mexico seek to build resort on protected Isla Holbox

** Originally published in the print edition of the Los Angeles Times:

By Daniel Hernandez and Cecilia Sanchez

ISLA HOLBOX, Mexico — Separated from the Yucatan Peninsula by a lagoon, this pristine island has streets of sand, iguanas that roam among humans, and a police presence best described as casual. In the tiny town on its western tip, golf carts are the primary mode of transportation.

"It's like out of movie, isn't it?" said a chuckling Ramon Chan, a 41-year-old vendor who on a recent day was hacking away at fresh coconuts from a cart on the beach.

In recent years, however, Isla Holbox (pronounced "holl-bosch") has sat at the center of a complex legal dispute pitting powerful developers seeking to build a high-end resort against a group of longtime residents who say they were cheated out of their rights as holders of revolutionary-era communal lands, known as ejidos.

The fight illuminates the growing practice of transferring communal ejidos — which make up slightly more than half of the national territory — to private hands, a practice that was authorized in 1992 but remains a legal twilight zone.

In separate cases, nine islanders allege that Peninsula Maya Developments offered to buy their individualized ejido parcels in a 2008 deal to which they agreed. But in the process, theejidatarios allege, the developers also persuaded them to unwittingly sell their permanent, constitutionally guarded titles to the Holbox ejido at large.

Because Mexico's agrarian law refers to "inalienable" titles toejidos, the islanders are asking courts to nullify the dual sale of their parcels and titles.

In response, the company said the sales were legal and clear and suggested in a statement that the ejidatarios are trying to shake them down for more money than the original price of about $388,000.

The developers contend that the ejidatarios are challenging the deal through loopholes in the ejido laws, which established strict codes meant to protect the rural peasant class from abuse by private interests. The suits over the $3.2-billion development plan are working their way through Mexico's agrarian tribunals, with one awaiting a hearing before the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, the island simmers with discord, and the eastern end, where La Ensenada resort would be built, remains untouched.

Latin American governments congratulate Chavez for Venezuela win

** Originally published at World Now:

Governments in Latin America quickly congratulated Hugo Chavez on his reelection Sunday as president of Venezuela, a sign of his convincing win over strong opposition challenger Henrique Capriles.

With Chavez's victory, Venezuela's socialist government is set to remain in power at least through 2019 and maintain its position as a regional leader for leftist governments that are Bolivarian ideological allies or depend on Venezuela's oil and subsidies.

The congratulations were effusive and personally directed at the president who has been in office for more than 13 years, making Chavez, 58, the longest-serving leader in Latin America.

"Your decisive victory assures the continuation of the struggle for the genuine integration of Our America," said Cuban President Raul Castro, in a statement released by the communist country's embassy in Mexico City.

Ecuad President Rafael Correa called Chavez "compa" -- short for compadre -- via Twitter and declared: "All of Latin American is with you and with our beloved Venezuela. ... Next battle: Ecuador!"

In Bolivia, President Evo Morales called Chavez's victory a win for "the nations of Latin America that fight for their sovereign dignity," according to the official Bolivian Information Agency.

Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner sent an emotional tweet to the Venezuelan leader, saying: "Hugo, today I wish to tell you that you have plowed the earth, you have sown it, you have watered it, and today you have picked up the harvest."

Capriles conceded after voting Sunday showed Chavez winning by nearly 10 percentage points with 90% of votes counted. Despite the narrowing in his margin of victory over past elections, Chavez overcame the challenge due partly to what one pollster called an "irrational and emotional devotion" to him among poor Venezuelans.

By Monday, other regional players, including ideologically conservative governments that share closer ties to the United States, also recognized Chavez's win. The foreign relations ministries of Colombia and Mexico pledged in short statements to continue working with the Venezuela president, who has struggled against cancer.

"The government of Mexico reiterates its full disposition to keep strengthening the relations of friendship and cooperation that unite Mexico and Venezuela," the Foreign Ministry in Mexico City said.

China, the global communist powerhouse and a crucial trading partner for Venezuela, also congratulated Chavez, the New China News Agency reported.

* Photo: Front-pages in Caracas, Venezuela, Oct. 8, 2012. Credit: AFP

Dancing in slow motion *

Dancing + being in love + flying?

If there's a single track that I will take with me from the year Twenty Twelve, for capturing that sense of hope-iness that comes with someone's embrace, it's this.

"Dancing in Slow Motion," by friends Teengirl Fantasy, features vocals from the venerable Shannon Funchess. And don't you think she sings with the grace of a chamana from space? There are a variety of great remixes, such as a noteworthy mix Brenmar. But the original has that beautiful pause at 2:39 ... and then it catches you, safe.

* More Shannon Funchess: "Shallow Tears," leading Light Asylum. I'm listening to this for the first time, and it's pretty damn good, too. Related: Twin Shadow. Most links above are local.

Reputed sister of Mexican rebel leader joins new president's team

** Originally published at World Now:

A politician identified in Mexican news reports as the sister of Subcomandante Marcos, the long-time public face of the major armed indigenous rebel group in southeastern Mexico, has been named to the transition team of President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto.

The footnote to Tuesday's major political story in Mexico sparked a flurry of head-scratching over the often-stupefying nature of the webs of blood and politics in Mexican society.

How could "Marcos," the famous masked rebel, equally enigmatic and charismatic, be related to someone now in the inner circle of the man who will lead the once-authoritarian Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, back to power in Mexico?

Mercedes del Carmen Guillen Vicente, identified also by the first name Paloma, will serve as coordinator of the legislative agenda of the PRI transition team, Peña Nieto announced. She was present Tuesday during the transition announcement.

Until last week, Guillen served as a federal legislator in the lower Chamber of Deputies of Mexico's Congress as a member of the PRI.

She is also identified in numerous reports as a sibling to Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vicente, the man Mexico's government has long claimed is the face behind the ski mask and smoking pipe of Subcomandante Marcos. He is officially the public spokesman of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, or EZLN in Spanish.

Marcos has never admitted he is Rafael Guillen, but he hasn't denied it either. By most accounts, he has been estranged from his family since he shed his identity and joined the Mayan rebels in the state of Chiapas in time for their unprecedented uprising on New Year's Day 1994.

His sister, meanwhile, is described as media-shy and has also not publicly acknowledged the blood relationship to Subcomandante Marcos.

"It is not confirmed," said Jorge Suarez, Paloma Guillen's former secretary at the Chamber of Deputies, when reached by The Times on Tuesday. "I wouldn't dare make that assertion."

Subcomandante Marcos has been largely absent from public view in recent years. Differing rumors have swirled for months in Mexico over the state of his health. On Tuesday, the EZLN's websites were noticeably off-line.

Laura Castellanos, a journalist who interviewed Marcos for her 2008 book "Corte de Caja," said the rebel leader made only a cheeky reference to Rafael Sebastian Guillen when she spoke with him face-to-face.

(The matter was further complicated on Tuesday when a major drug cartel figure with the same surname, Mario Cardenas Guillen, was captured by Mexico's marines. "Guillen" is a common last name in the state of Tamaulipas, where all three of these figures are from. There was no known relation.)

The fact is, journalist Castellanos added, many families in Mexico have seemingly contradictory ideological wings or factions. And similar ideological break-ups.

"In that context, it's understood," Castellanos said. "Go to any barrio on a Sunday for a family reunion, and it will be the argument at the table." 

* Photo: Mercedes del Carmen Guillen Vicente. Credit: EnriquePenaNieto.com

Mexico tycoons widen U.S. sports reach with Padres, Chivas USA deals

** Originally published at World Now:

A cousin of the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, has become a part owner of the San Diego Padres, and a married couple who are Mexican millionaires have taken control of Chivas USA, a Major League Soccer team.

The deals, announced in separate reports Wednesday, widen the reach of Mexico's hyper-wealthy in the high-stakes world of professional sports in Southern California.

Alfredo Harp Helu, a billionaire banker and Slim's cousin, appeared Wednesday on a list of eight new part-owners of slightly less than half of San Diego's Major League Baseball team.

The sale was reported to be worth $800 million during negotiations, but details on the final purchase price paid by members of the team's new minority group of owners were not revealed. Harp's wealth is estimated at $1 billion.

From its Carson-based clubhouse, meanwhile, Chivas USA announced that Jorge Vergara and Angelica Fuentes, the founder and chief executive, respectively, of the Omnilife nutritional supplements company have acquired the second half of the squad's ownership from partners, becoming full owners.

Vergara and Fuentes are already owners of the original Chivas in Guadalajara, the popular First Division team in Mexico's second largest city. The details of the Chivas USA deal were not released.

It's been a good week for Fuentes, one of Mexico's wealthiest women. On Tuesday she was named a chief patron of the newly renovated Rufino Tamayo Museum, which accompanied a minor controversy in Mexico's art world.

Fuentes' name appears prominently in a renovated gallery inside the museum, along with a gallery named in honor of billionaire Carlos Hank Rhon, brother of the scandal-ridden former mayor of Tijuana, Jorge Hank Rhon. Critics bemoaned the presence of the Hank Rhon name inside the museum as a symbol of the increasing privatization of public art institutions in Mexico.

* Photo: Chivas USA fans gather for opening day at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., in 2005. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Google Street View now available for Mexico archaeological sites

** Originally published at World Now:

For travelers who've never been to the ancient Maya city of Chichen Itza, a virtual window into the site's pyramids and plazas is available online, among 30 archaeological zones in Mexico now mapped by history's greatest peeping Tom: Google Street View.

From the comfort of a computer, any Internet user anywhere can now zoom in and examine the perfect form of Chichen Itza's Kukulkan pyramid, known also El Castillo, or the Castle.

On Google Street View, a viewer can almost feel like they might tumble into the Sacred Cenote, or natural sinkhole, where Maya priests practiced ritual sacrifice. Or imagine cavorting on the Plaza of the Thousand Columns. Or maybe do some souvenir browsing, up close and in intensely high resolution.

Google and Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH, announced the new maps last week. Using a 360-degree camera mounted on a bicycle, Google captured "street views" of other major archaeological sites in Mexico, such as Monte Alban in Oaxaca and Teotihuacan outside Mexico City.

Lesser-known Mesoamerican sites are also now mapped by Google Street View, including Tula in the state of Hidalgo and Xochicalco in Morelos.

The Internet search engine has focused its publicity campaign for the new maps on images captured at Chichen Itza, one of Mexico's most storied tourist destinations. But for travelers who have been there, could Google Street View now be better than the real thing?

Consider: A recent (physical) visit to Chichen Itza confirmed that tourists are no longer allowed to climb the Castillo pyramid, no more tackling its famous 91 steps that President Felipe Calderon recently climbed in a widely mocked tourism video.

Visitors can no longer actually, physically cavort among the plaza of the columns. In fact, most of the structures at Chichen Itza these days are off-limits to tourists, who must settle on snapping photos behind wire barriers. Worse, the archaeological zone is also overrun with vendors from the neighboring communities, making a non-virtual visit a somewhat disappointing experience overall.

Since Chichen Itza was declared a new Seven Wonders of the World site in 2007, access has been limited due to concerns over deterioration and also because the site's restoration process is ongoing, said an INAH spokesman.

The same is true at the Palenque zone in Chiapas, the spokesman said, where a visitor like you and me may no longer be able to climb that site's spectacular structures. But on Google, at least, there's a decent shot of a man in an orange polo with a sweat towel on his head.

* Photo: A view of the Kukulkan pyramid, or El Castillo, at the Chichen Itza archaeological site in the Mexican state of Yucatan. Credit: Google, via INAH

Perspective: What Mexico's presidential election results mean

** Originally published at Vice, Friday, July 6:

On Wednesday, the agency in Mexico that manages elections began a recount for the tens of millions of votes in the race that was apparently won by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the party that ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000. The PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto won by about six points over old-school leftie Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. AMLO, as the progressive candidate is known, is contesting the election results, just like he did in 2006. He won’t accept defeat because defeat means accepting what he and his supporters believe is an inherently corrupt system. Nevertheless, he’s a pacifist and doesn’t believe in violence or armed conflict. And as a result, the rest of us over the past 72 hours have been groaning, sleeping, shrugging, or drinking a lot. The worst that can happen is that AMLO could call for another plantón, a permanent sit-in on the main drags of Mexico City, and shut down the urban center like he did in 2006. But that only ended up hurting his base and made his enemies in the establishment cry “I told you!” On Sunday, AMLO swept dense, voter-rich Mexico City by nearly 27 points.

Outside the Instituto Federal Electoral campus, rows of police officers in bright neon lime jackets and caps are lined up to protect the institute from a small band of young protesters still holding court on the sidewalk after a near-riot the night before. The protestors’ faces are covered in folded-over bandanas and they look like porros, Mexican street slang for paid provocateurs. The emergent #YoSoy132 movement had to send out a comunicado saying that whoever was outside the IFE at this point was not a member.

Inside the IFE, most of the foreign press has left. That leaves behind the bureaucrats, the Mexican beat reporters, the TV crews, and the hostesses in gray pantsuits. I take a seat in the IFE’s big-tent press hall, where dozens of computer terminals face huge screens projecting the state-by-state vote counts. We wait around for a press conference. The IFE councilors come and take their places on an elevated stage. The bureaucrats and the reporters have a back-and-forth in impenetrable jargon. The basic point, from what I gathered, is that with a difference of more than three million votes between Peña and AMLO, nothing much will really change at this point no matter how hard the progressives try. No matter how much evidence exists out there of vote-buying and vote “influencing.” It is the same basic message that is repeated over and over in Mexico—nothing will really change here, people, let’s be honest (but say it in a language no one else understands).

Every cabbie I’ve met in Mexico in the past few weeks has ended up admitting that they don’t believe democracy exists in this country. To them, Peña Nieto looks and sounds like an invented candidate, a puppet, a nice-looking avatar for the ominous Atlacomulco group from one of the PRI’s oldest, darkest wings. ...

** Read the rest here, and here in Spanish for Vice Mexico.

* Photo: Supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador during a campaign stop in Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala.

Leftist leader trailing in Mexico election but won't concede

** Originally published at World Now:

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the veteran leftist leader in second place in Mexico's presidential election, says he will wait for a final vote count before deciding whether to concede.

As hundreds of ardent supporters chanted and rallied in an impromptu demonstration outside a downtown hotel early Monday, Lopez Obrador took to a modest podium. His speech was brief and simple, his mood mellow.

He announced that he would not concede defeat on election night in Mexico. For many, it was a flashback to 2006, the last presidential election in which Lopez Obrador refused to accept defeat, declaring fraud and sparking a series of protests that paralyzed Mexico City.

"The position that I assume is to wait," Lopez Obrador said before media and supporters in a ballroom at a downtown Hilton Hotel. "We need to know all the results. We're going to wait for those results before making any final positions. There is no final word yet."

But in a way, there was a final word. Just moments earlier, shortly after a speech by the head of the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, a smiling President Felipe Calderon went on national television to announce that the institute's "fast count" had a winner, Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI.

Lopez Obrador, upstaging the man who ultimately defeated him in 2006, began his speech before Calderon had finished his, forcing media networks to momentarily scramble between the two feeds.

"I'm not disqualifying what is being said officially, there is simply not enough information," Lopez Obrador calmly stated. "We will not in any way act irresponsibly."

The 58-year-old former mayor of Mexico City had kept much of the country in suspense Sunday in the hours after candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota of Calderon's ruling National Action Party (PAN) conceded. Lopez Obrador held what was described as an emergency meeting with senior figures in his Democratic Revolution Party at campaign headquarters in the Roma district. By 11 p.m., he was on his way downtown, as supporters gathered and chanted, "It's an honor to be with Lopez Obrador!"

His announcement came as the IFE preliminary count showed a narrowing between Lopez Obrador and Peña Nieto. At one point, it reached a difference of just 3.3%. Later Monday morning, with about 80% of the vote tallied, the margin stood at about 5%.

Campaign members said Lopez Obrador was making a good decision, and that fears of another planton protest camp in Mexico City (akin to a permanent sit-in) would be unfounded. But they also didn't discount the prospect of contesting the vote to the last possible moment, when the president-elect is formally recognized by Congress in the fall.

[ *** UPDATE, 20:11 p.m., July 2: Lopez Obrador reiterates in press conference tonight that he will not concede and will work his way through the "legal process" of contesting results *** ]

"In 2006 there were doubts about the result; what we have now is a start" to the vote-counting, said Oscar Mondragon, the campaign's social-media strategist. "We're halfway through a process that will finish in September."

Peña Nieto, meanwhile, wasted no time in claiming victory and seeking to allay fears about his party's authoritarian past. He pledged to rule on behalf of all Mexicans and to lead a government willing to listen to criticism.

"We're a new generation," he said. "There is no return to the past."

[ *** More soon ... *** ]

* Photo: A propaganda poster for presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto is defaced and vandalized on Avenida Juarez in downtown Mexico City, on election night, July 1, 2012.

Mexico's leftist candidate has high hopes, fervent supporters

** Originally published on June 27, in the print edition of the Los Angeles Times:

TLAXCALA, Mexico — His razor-thin defeat in the 2006 presidential election spiraled into a contentious political melodrama that divided Mexican society after he refused to accept the results.

Now Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is running again, his second and presumably last attempt to become Mexico's first leftist president in modern times.

"We are going to win the presidency of the country once more," the former mayor of Mexico City proclaimed triumphantly during a campaign stop last week in this small colonial center east of the capital.

Once again, his optimism may belie the facts on the ground. In national polls, he continues to lag far behind Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, although he says his own internal polling shows him running neck and neck.

Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, has been gaining slightly in national polls since the race began in March, capitalizing on discontent with two successive governments under the ruling National Action Party, or PAN, and on lingering distrust of Peña Nieto and the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Wrapped in a long wool serape thrown on him as he inched his way through throngs of supporters, Lopez Obrador described his "adversaries" as "desperate," detailing what he views as a conspiracy of television and political propaganda to "impose" front-runner Peña Nieto on the public.

The crowd booed, jeered and banged on drums. "May God never will it," a woman huffed near the podium.

This week, Lopez Obrador called on PRD supporters to be vigilant observers at polling places Sunday in case the PRI or PAN attempted to steal votes or stuff ballot boxes, which his campaign claims occurred widely in 2006.

Silver-haired at 58, Lopez Obrador inspires fervent passion in supporters — and profound angst among his many critics.

Vazquez Mota says she'd pick Calderon as Mexico attorney general

** Originally published at World Now:

The presidential candidate for Mexico's ruling conservative party has said she'd invite President Felipe Calderon to be attorney general if she won Sunday's vote, a surprise proposal made in the final hours of campaigning.

National Action Party candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota, the first female presidential hopeful from a major party in Mexico, made the pitch Wednesday at her closing campaign event in Jalisco state (link in Spanish).

"I want someone who will defend your children ... who is not afraid," Vazquez Mota told supporters at the Omnilife stadium in Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara. "That is why I want to say here in Jalisco, with total conviction, that upon winning the presidency of Mexico I will invite President Calderon to head the attorney general's office." 

In one video of the moment, some in the audience are heard gasping or laughing in reaction.

"He is a brave man. He is a resolute man. He is a man who has risked his own life and the lives of his family," Vazquez Mota said.

There was no immediate response from the Calderon administration, which has conducted a controversial military-led war against drug traffickers, nor elaboration from Vazquez Mota's team. Under Mexican law, campaigns were required to shut down Wednesday night in order to give "reflection time" to voters before Sunday's voting.

But the announcement sparked fireworks on social networks.

On Twitter, politically revved-up users described the idea as "political suicide" and suggested Vazquez Mota was throwing support to liberal candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, even though Vazquez Mota directly attacked her leftist rival in the same speech.

Polls show Lopez Obrador in second place. He and Vazquez Mota appear to be splitting votes of residents who oppose the return to power of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which lost in 2000 after 71 years in power.

PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto is leading most recent polls by at least 12 points over Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City and runner-up in Mexico's disputed 2006 presidential election. Vazquez Mota has slipped to third in most polls since the start of her campaign.

The announcement confounded observers. For one thing, Calderon and Vazquez Mota are not close.

Although she served as education secretary early in Calderon's administration and ran his 2006 campaign, Vazquez Mota has struggled to define her campaign's relationship with the president and his allies within the party, known as the PAN. Her campaign slogan is "Different," but she was forced to bring on Calderon insiders to steer her campaign after early missteps, gaffes, and a near-fainting incident.

Wednesday's unexpected move might have been a deliberate political calculation. A poll released June 20 by the Pew Global Attitudes Project said Calderon has a 58% approval rating, and that a majority of Mexicans still approve of his use of the military against drug lords.

In the same poll, however, Mexicans said they were unsure the drug war has been effective. A whopping 98% of major crimes go unpunished in Mexico, if they are reported at all, studies show.

In recent days, supporters of both non-PRI candidates have debated on social media whether PAN followers should cast their votes for Lopez Obrador in a so-called voto util against the PRI.

The 2012 campaign has also been marked by large-scale grass-roots protests against the PRI's possible return to power, led by students organized in the #YoSoy132 movement. The students announced they would hold a candlelight march Saturday, the day before voting, to "save Mexico" and push for "clean elections."

On the last day of her campaign, Vazquez Mota told supporters she was ahead of Lopez Obrador and called the PRD candidate "the face of chaos and economic crisis" (link in Spanish). On the same night, Lopez Obrador drew hundreds of thousands of supporters for his last campaign speech in Mexico City's Zocalo square and on surrounding streets.

"There is more crime, there is less employment, the country is in bad shape," said Isabel Pacheco, 46, a Lopez Obrador supporter in the front row. "But the time for change has come."

* Photo: Mexican presidential candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota of the National Action Party waves during a rally in the Mexican city of Monterrey on Tuesday. Credit: Miguel Sierra / European Pressphoto Agency

Meet Mexico's new youth movement: #YoSoy132

** Originally published at Vice.com:

We’re now less than two weeks away from Mexico’s presidential election, and at this point, few people would have expected that the otherwise unsurprising democratic process of voting would be accompanied by scenes of rabble-rousing students chanting and singing along with mariachi bands outside the studios of Mexico’s leading television network.

These scenes, part of a nascent student movement known as #YoSoy132, are now becoming regular features on the nightly news in Mexico. Imagine that, young people protesting media bias and media manipulation by the thousands in a country with little precedent for such collective grievances against corporate big media.

A lot of people here are pretty excited with this development.

It all started on May 11, when candidate Enrique Peña Nieto visited the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City for what was supposed to be a friendly meet-and-greet with the student and academic community. Instead, over the course of his visit, Peña Nieto suffered a humiliating and disastrous few hours of abuse from what looked like a spontaneous student protest. It got messy.

Peña Nieto came for a normal campaign stop, to deliver a speech and answer questions before an auditorium. The thing was going nominally well until students who had managed to slip in protest signs past a security check could no longer contain themselves. According to video, photos, and accounts of the event, the shouting started after one lone guy with a poofy haircut and a lot of attitude stood up silently holding a hand-drawn sign that read simply, TE ODIO. “I hate you.”

The shouting and chanting grew. Peña Nieto sought an escape. More protesters were waiting for him outside.

The candidate with the movie-star looks and soap-opera star wife was chased through the halls and courtyards of “the Ibero” by choruses of “Murderer!” and “Coward!” as students protested his handling of a 2006 dispute with campesinos in the town of San Salvador Atenco during his term as a state governor. The shouting and chasing grew overwhelming. Peña Nieto hid briefly in a restroom with his team, trying to find a good way out. Video of the moment shows Peña’s eyes wide and hollow, his forehead tense, lips curled up with fear.

By the time it was all over, Peña Nieto was literally run off the Ibero campus. As he ducked into a dark SUV, one reporter managed to ask him what he thought of the protests against him. “It’s not genuine,” he responded with a meager smile, and took off. And with that, the 2012 Mexican presidential race—the race that Peña Nieto was supposed to win without breaking a sweat—took a major shift.

The Ibero incident put the Peña Nieto campaign in damage-control mode. The next day, suggestions that the demonstration was staged by outsiders was repeated by his campaign chief, a few sympathetic Ibero faculty, and just about every provincial and vaguely corrupt newspaper that implicitly supports Peña Nieto and his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

This turned out to be an enormously foolish move. The students responded by uploading a video of 131 of them staring into their MacBook video cameras and repeating their names and their student ID numbers while flashing their Ibero ID cards. The PRI has spent many millions of dollars on its campaign to win Mexico’s presidency, but what followed was a media coup that no amount of cash or army of consultants could have stopped. Among Mexico’s active Twitter-verse, the hashtag soon appeared: #YoSoy132. “I am 132.”

It’s worth noting that this kind of brouhaha was very unexpected for Ibero. It is one of the swankiest schools in the country, the kind of place where a slick, media-savvy politician like Peña Nieto should normally be made to be feel right at home. Hell, the Ibero produces Peña Nietos. I know, because a lot of my friends are recent graduates. Even they were surprised by what happened on May 11, but not entirely. Any decent school always has room for progressive thought and action, and while the Ibero probably costs more per year than what millions of Mexicans make in an adult life, there was an undercurrent of “enough is enough” in the anti-Peña protest that seemed blind to class or social boundaries. By the following weekend, a classic grassroots social-media movement had taken off.

#YoSoy132 demonstrations broke first in Mexico City. Tens of thousands streamed through the central corridor and gathered at the Angel of Independence monument to make it known that they, too, were opposed to the PRI regaining power.

The party ruled the country for much of the 20th Century until 2000 with a potent mix of strategies that ultimately boils down to power-by-any-means necessary. It has a widely documented history of vote-buying, fraud, collusion with drug traffickers, censorship, intimidation, election-stealing, and often fatal repression against dissidents—from the assassination of top party figures such as Luis Donaldo Colosio in 1994 to the outright massacres of student protesters in 1968 and 1971. Peña Nieto says the PRI under his candidacy is a new party, and that his campaign should not be faulted for the party’s “errors” of the past.

In 2012, as the July 1 election day nears and the PRI remains ahead in the polls, the students aren’t having it.

#YoSoy132 demonstrations were also held in Monterrey, Guadalajara, Tijuana, Durango, Zacatecas, Tlaxcala, Aguascalientes, Veracruz, and many other cities in Mexico. Smaller protests in show of support of #YoSoy132 have also been reported among the wide Mexican diaspora in places like Chicago, Barcelona, Madrid, San Francisco, and before the White House in Washington, DC. Students at more than 35 universities and colleges across Mexico have joined the movement. What’s significant is that they’re forming a private- and public-university horizontal coalition that hasn’t been seen in Mexico with such force since the late 1960s. As thousands join their demonstrations, there’s a sense of collective dissent against the return of the so-called “dinosaurs” of the PRI, and collective disgust at the arguably biased role that the major media companies are playing in the process.

Now, this is not the Mexican Spring. It’s not a movement meant to topple the government. It’s actually stated a sort of incongruent political position: Against a presidential candidate but not in support of any other. For all we know, Peña Nieto has already won the 2012 election in Mexico. He’s about 15 points up; heart-on-his-sleeve leftie Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and incumbent party conservative Josefina Vazquez Mota, who’s all about keeping military on the streets against drug cartels, are so far splitting the anti-PRI vote.

Even if Lopez Obrador or Vazquez Mota pull off a wild upset in the end, #YoSoy132 will seek to keep the movement up, asking for media reform against the duopoly of Televisa and TV Azteca, which evidently represent an extension of the greater status quo in Mexico—all neatly symbolized by Peña and the PRI. Therefore, the natural questions are: Can it? Will it? Could it?

* Photo: Three high school friends at the Televisa studios protest on June 11, 2012, by Trevor Snapp. For more photos by Trevor Snapp on #YoSoy132, go here.

Mexico election candidates rally thousands in final days of race

** Originally published at World Now:

Mexico's presidential campaign entered the home stretch Monday, with less than a week left until voters cast ballots in a race that could return the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, to power. The PRI ruled virtually unchallenged and often with a heavy hand for 71 years before losing the presidency in 2000.

The top three candidates crisscrossed the country over the weekend rallying thousands of supporters at huge events in the final days of official campaigning.

The PRI's poll-leading candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, on Sunday held a closing rally at the cavernous Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. Leftist coalition candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, runner-up in the 2006 election, closed his campaign in the capitals of western states Nayarit and Jalisco.

Josefina Vazquez Mota of the incumbent National Action Party, or PAN, rallied supporters in the port city of Coatzacoalcos, in the state of Veracruz.

"I am not like the PRI candidate who has brought a foreigner to take care of our families," Vazquez Mota said, in reference to Peña Nieto's appointment of Gen. Oscar Naranjo of Colombia to be an external advisor in security matters if he wins.

Mexicans will vote Sunday, in balloting that will also pick senators and deputies in Congress and six governors in races that could similarly see gains for the PRI, polls show. The PAN could lose two states it currently governs, Morelos and Jalisco, which have seen increases in violence tied to the government's campaign against organized crime.

The presidential campaign took an interesting twist after student-led demonstrations against the possible return of the PRI began in Mexico City in May and spread across the country.

The #YoSoy 132 movement managed to organize Mexico's first non-official "citizens debate" online June 19, with three of four candidates. Peña Nieto declined to attend, saying he believed the movement opposed his candidacy.

Another large demonstration against Peña Nieto was held in the center of Mexico City on Sunday. But despite the protests, most polls still show him withstanding early fumbles and maintaining his lead.

Throughout the campaign, Peña Nieto, 45, has been forced to reassure observers of his credentials to govern. In December, he was unable to name three books that influenced his life, and allegations have surfaced during the campaign that a former PRI governor of the violence-plagued state of Tamaulipas, Tomas Yarrington, has ties to drug traffickers.

The PRI ruled the country from the end of the Mexican Revolution until it was voted out in 2000. Opponents fear its return could lead to authoritarian echoes of the past, such as repression and censorship.

Peña Nieto has campaigned on a message of inclusion, and has mostly refrained from attacking his opponents.

"I propose to the nation a plainly democratic presidency," he said Sunday. "I am part of a generation that has grown up with democracy and I aspire to be a president that governs by respecting liberties, listening to all and including the voices of everyone."

All three candidates have essentially similar security platforms, The Times reported Sunday, suggesting that the election is unlikely to reshape the drug war that has left more than 50,000 dead and scores missing in nearly six years.

Since 2000, two successive center-right governments under the PAN saw economic stability but few significant reforms. Drug-related violence has exploded since 2006. Vazquez Mota has dipped to third in some polls, in a sign of weariness with the results of the drug war.

On the left, charismatic populist Lopez Obrador remains at least 10 points behind Peña Nieto. He asked supporters Sunday to use social networks to "guard the vote" to avoid a repeat of the contested results in 2006, which saw him lose by 0.56 point.

"I want to clarify this so that no one will think it's a small thing we're looking for," Lopez Obrador said in Guadalajara. "It's not only about reaching a public office. What we want is to achieve the rebirth of Mexico."

Also on Sunday, at least 26 people died when a passenger bus plunged off a road in the southern state of Guerrero. The victims were identified as supporters of the Democratic Revolution Party who were headed to a campaign event to support a minor leftist party candidate for a local mayoral race.

RELATED:

Mexican detainee not drug lord's son after all

Mexico election unlikely to reshape drug war

The fall and rise of Mexico's PRI

-- Daniel Hernandez

* Photo: Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, center in white shirt, rallies supporters at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City on Sunday. He stands with Beatriz Paredes, PRI candidate for mayor of Mexico City, left, and his wife, actress Angelica Rivera. Credit: Alex Cruz / European Pressphoto Agency

Desperate senior crawls under truck to see candidate

Here's an elderly man -- he seemed to be about 75 -- who is literaly crawling under a big rig truck to get one last glimpse of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador today in Tlaxcala, the tiny state in the antiplano north of Puebla.

As "AMLO" attempted to leave the closure of his campaign in this state, squeezing into his campaign minivan to head down to Veracruz, the customary chaos ensued. This truck stood in this man's way. Others were doing it, too. ... Why?

Future in electoral politics for Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo?

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- Camila Vallejo broke into the international limelight in May 2011 as the beautiful revolutionary who led hundreds of thousands of student demonstrators in a call for education reform in Chile, toppling government ministers in the process.

She was, on the surface, an unlikely leader.

Just 23 at the time, the geography student dazzled the public early on with her statuesque features, shiny nose ring, and her soft, soothing manner of speaking. More alluringly, Vallejo was often inaccessible to the press, surrounded by student bodyguards.

Underneath the image, she was clearly exhibiting sharp political skills, both on the street among the droves of students and workers who managed to frequently shut down the capital of Santiago, and also in negotiations with the government of President Sebastian Piñera.

A year later, the students' demands for a freer, more equitable education system have made some progress against Piñera's initial response that higher education in economically prosperous Chile was "a consumer good."

But overall, the movement appears to be in a state of transition, if not stalemate.

Vallejo, now 24, has also reached a point at which she must decide what her next political role might be. Could a next step be toward the electoral arena in Chile? 

Last week, Vallejo visited Mexico for the first time, to speak at a conference on higher education at a Mexico City university. The visit had been planned since late last year, explained a spokesman at the Metropolitan Autonomous University (known as UAM for its initials in Spanish), but by now Vallejo's presence in Mexico had acquired politically significant overtones.

Since mid-May, Mexico has witnessed demonstrations across the country expressing opposition to the possible return to power of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the July 1 presidential election. The new student movement in Mexico, known as #YoSoy132, or "I Am 132," has won concessions from major newscasters and on Tuesday night organized an unofficial "citizen's debate," with all the presidential candidates except Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI.

Vallejo spent about three days in Mexico, speaking at the UAM's Xochimilco campus and meeting with members of #YoSoy132.

As the country bars foreigners from "participation" in politics, she made sure not to comment directly on Mexico's election. She also restrained from making any direct recommendations on #YoSoy132. "The students are their own advisors," Vallejo said at a news conference. "We're not here to intervene."

Despite the caution, she was treated like a rock star in liberal Mexico City.

UAM students clamored to reach out and greet her. At a public panel Saturday on a plaza near downtown, she was given bunches of flowers and greeted with shouts of "I love you!" from the crowds standing in the rain to hear her.

"What's happening here in Mexico and what's happening in Chile is that we're trying to repair the social fabric, organizing, mobilizing, so that we could more radically democratize our societies," Vallejo said in an interview with The Times on Friday.

"I believe the 'I Am 132' movement is in the same feeling," she added. "We are basically fighting for the same thing."

Her visit came at a moment of personal redefinition. In recent months, Vallejo may have seriously damaged her standing among less strident, more post-revolutionary young leftists in Latin America. She visited Cuba in April to attend the 50th anniversary of the Communist Youth Union, and apparently spoke approvingly about the Communist regime.

"If Camila Vallejo was born in Cuba, she'd be in prison or simply silenced by the mechanisms of power," said dissident Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, who sought unsuccessfully to meet Vallejo while she was in Havana (link in Spanish).

Vallejo has made no apologies for her affinity to Communist thought. She is the daughter of members of Chile's Communist Party and a member herself of the Communist Youth in Chile. With her charisma and political capital among Chilean society, some are beginning to wonder whether Vallejo would seek to further tilt Chile's current opposition more to the left, as a candidate of some sort for the Communist Party.

Speaking to The Times, she did not disavow the possibility.

"I think all the youth that have mobilized have a responsibility to assume a political role at the national level," she said. "We are going to fight until the end, and not just me, but many other new partisan militants who are young and want to build a social transformation."

"I will be there," she added, "and many other youth, social leaders, in that path." 

* Photo: Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo is shown before delivering a speech during a meeting with Mexican students in the #Yosoy132 movement, at the Metropolitan Autonomus University in Mexico City on Friday. Credit: Alfredo Estrella / Agence-France Presse

Mexico candidate Peña Nieto seeks Colombia drug fighter as advisor

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- Former Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto, leading in polls to become Mexico's next president, has appointed the former chief of Colombia's national police to work as an "external advisor" for public security if he wins the July 1 election.

The appointment of Gen. Oscar Naranjo, announced Thursday, is read as a signal to observers in Mexico and the United States that Peña Nieto would make the pursuit of drug trafficking a high priority amid growing allegations that top members of his party have had ties to organized crime.

Peña Nieto maintains a steady lead in polls as candidate for the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. He called Colombia a model for success in the U.S.-backed fight against drug traffickers.

Naranjo, 55, is credited with helping take down top Colombian trafficker Pablo Escobar in 1993, as well as for recent successes to curtail coca production and battle the country's largest guerrilla army,  the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Both Mexico and Colombia are recipients of U.S. security aid.

As he introduced Naranjo, Peña Nieto said that if elected he would seek collaboration with the U.S. on security issues.

"Mexico has accumulated achievements, it's delivered lives, enormous sacrifices," Naranjo said. "Security, understood as a democratic value, is expressed in policies that are totally inclusive, that protect everyone."

Naranjo told the Associated Press that he expects to be traveling regularly between Mexico City and Washington if Peña Nieto wins the election, hinting at closer ties with U.S. drug fighters if the PRI returns to power. It was voted out in 2000 after 71 years.

An official biography of Naranjo distributed to reporters lists him as an "honorary member" of the Drug Enforcement Administration, a point that rivals and political observers have latched on to in recent days.

"Unlike the PRI candidate, who trusts more in a foreigner than in our armed forces, I do trust in Mexico's soldiers," said Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate of the ruling National Action Party, referring to the current government's military-led campaign against traffickers.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, running under the banner of a leftist coalition, said bringing in Naranjo would violate Mexico's Constitution, which he said prohibits foreigners' participation in national security matters in Mexico.

"What is basically evident here is that the [PRI] is also betting on the same policies of force," Lopez Obrador said.

On Thursday, Naranjo said he would work "non-operationally, outside of hierarchies" in a Peña Nieto administration.

The announcement was made as the former state governor seeks to beef up his security credentials as the campaign heats up heading toward the July 1 election. Drug-related violence is growing during the campaign.

* Photo: Presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, right, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and Colombian retired Gen. Oscar Naranjo greet each other at a news conference in Mexico City on  Thursday. Credit: Christian Palma / Associated Press

Mexican immigrants following homeland's presidential race

** Originally published in print in Metro, cross-posted with World, in the Los Angeles Times, Friday, June 15:

Ramiro Romero owns an auto upholstery business in Lynwood, has sent three children to college and is a first-time voter in a country in which he hasn't lived for more than 30 years: Mexico.

"As a mexicano, we haven't lost our roots, our culture, and that makes voting a civic necessity," Romero, 56, said one morning at his bustling workshop on Atlantic Avenue.

"We want a prosperous Mexico. We want a Mexico that's not in the top ranks for violence but in the top ranks for its economy, so we won't have to go looking for opportunities to other countries."

Romero, who holds dual citizenship, is among the tens of thousands of Mexicans living abroad who are voting by mail in the July 1 presidential election — a contest being closely watched as the country confronts soaring violence related to the U.S.-backed drug war.

** Read the rest of the story here.

* Photo: Mr. Romero, left, and his brother Salvador, 53, at their workshop in Lynwood.

Popular Chilean student leader to visit Mexico

** Originally published at World Now, Wed., June 13:

MEXICO CITY -- The Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo confirmed on Wednesday that she will visit a Mexico City university and meet with members of the nascent student movement in Mexico known as "I am 132."

Vallejo, a popular figure, is among listed participants for a conference on public education that started Wednesday at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, or UAM.

She is scheduled to meet students in the #YoSoy132 movement  Thursday at the UAM campus in Xochimilco, in southern Mexico City.

A 24-year-old geography student, Vallejo became internationally known as an early and telegenic leader in the movement calling for education reform in Chile. The demonstrations that began in May 2011 to press for more public funding in higher education have put pressure on the administration of Chilean President Sebastian Piñera.

Mexico's student movement, meanwhile, held another string of large demonstrations across the country on Sunday, along with concurrent, smaller protests by supporters in cities around the world, including Madrid, Chicago and Washington.

Demonstrators are opposed to the possible victory of presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto ofMexico's former ruling party in the July 1 election. The Institutional Revolutionary Party is leading in polls as the vote nears.

Demonstrators have declared themselves nonpartisan, but the "I am 132" movement has buoyed the campaign of leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in some polls.

The movement took a hit Monday when a video emerged of students claiming to be #YoSoy132 but who were announcing a split with the group. "I am 132" organizers said the people who appear in the clip were unknown to them and had never been at movement meetings. (One figure in the splinter group told reporters Tuesday that it had only 15 members.)

"These are guys just looking for attention and the news media are giving it to them to weaken the movement," said Ignacio Martinez, a 23-year-old communications student at the Ibero-American University, where protests began against Peña Nieto on May 11.

Meanwhile, as reports of physical confrontations between alleged Peña Nieto supporters and Peña Nieto opponents have trickled into news accounts, Lopez Obrador on Wednesday said during his daily news conference that his campaign did not support violence of any sort.

"We are not in any act of confrontation," said Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor and self-proclaimed pacifist. "We are in peace, peace, peace, peace."

Peña Nieto, former governor of the state of Mexico who has also disavowed any campaign violence, reaffirmed his position Wednesday to not attend an unofficial presidential debate being organized by the "I am 132" movement. The three other presidential candidates have agreed to participate.

"It's clear this is a movement that does not generate conditions for a neutral, impartial meeting," Peña Nieto said during a television interview.

* Photo: Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo, pictured in 2011. Credit: Luis Hidalgo / Associated Press

Crowds in Mexico protest leading presidential candidate

** Originally published at World Now:

Tens of thousands of protesters streamed through Mexico's capital and rallied at the Angel of Independence monument Sunday in another large demonstration against the country's mainstream media and the former ruling political party.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, whose rule over Mexico for much of the 20th century was marked by corruption and authoritarianism, is poised to return to power in the July 1 presidential election.

"All the people have just had it up to here that the government manipulates us," said Misael Nava, 28, a native of the state of former Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto of PRI, the leading candidate.

Nava stood among crowds that rallied for up to eight hours against Peña Nieto.

The student-led # YoSoy132 movement, or I Am 132, organized concurrent protests in at least 17 other cities in Mexico as the four presidential candidates prepared to meet for their last official debate Sunday night in Guadalajara. In the race, Peña Nieto is leading by double digits.

Protesters claim the PRI is favored by the media duopoly of Televisa and TV Azteca, which they suspect organized a propaganda campaign against the leftist candidate in the 2006 election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The former Mexico City mayor is running again and moving into second place behind Peña Nieto after demonstrations against the possible return of the PRI began one month ago.

Sunday's demonstrations spread to other sites in the city, including the Televisa studios near downtown. Students in the I Am 132 movement, roused by a contentious appearance by Peña Nieto at a private university, said they were also marking the anniversary of a 1971 student massacre blamed on the then-ruling PRI government.

"I have a son of 11 and a daughter of 9, and I'm here to show them to not be indifferent to what happens in their country," said Regina Soto, who held up home-made signs with her two children.

"They don't want the PRI to win. We want clean elections where we decide who gets to govern us," she said.

Most demonstrators stood by an early pledge in the movement to remain nonpartisan, but the demonstrations have led to slight gains for Lopez Obrador in some polls. The other main candidate, Josefina Vazquez Mota, has dipped to third.

Protesters said they would work to keep the movement past the July 1 election, regardless of who wins.

* Photo: A view of the Paseo de Reforma avenue in central Mexico CIty during Sunday's large demonstration against the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and the major news media in Mexico.

On voting for the first time for president in Mexico

From Latino USA:

Writer Daniel Hernandez was already disappointed in US politics when he moved to his parents’ home country of Mexico almost five years ago. Now that he is registered to vote in Mexico for the first time he has found old problems in the political system of his new home.

Go here for the audio file and program of my radio essay for Latino USA with Maria Hinojosa on National Public Radio. Here's Latino USA's news report on the #YoSoy132 movement, with guest journalist Luisa Ortiz Perez. Good stuff.

* Previously, "Mexico students plan protests as second presidential debate nears."

Mexico's presidential candidates offer some colorful surprises

** Originally published at World Now, by Daniel Hernandez and Cecilia Sanchez:

MEXICO CITY -- The four candidates for president of Mexico met in a two-hour debate on Sunday night that saw several colorful surprises but few signs that one candidate pulled away with a sure win.

Although the format was tightly controlled, with pre-approved questions written on paper and chosen from a row of boxes, a string of attacks and counterattacks on the part of the candidates offered a much livelier evening than initially expected.

Enrique Peña Nieto of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, held up a blown-up photograph of a newspaper article referring to a 2004 corruption case tied to leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Lopez Obrador, in turn, showed a photograph of Peña Nieto sitting arm in arm with former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari of the PRI, a move meant to remind voters of the corruption and repression that occurred in the Salinas administration.

"Pure lies, pure insecurity, and that's how they want to impose [the candidacy of] Peña Nieto," Lopez Obrador said, referring to his long-held belief that the dominant television network Televisa is unofficially supporting the PRI campaign.

(The populist candidate for the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, however, held his photograph upside down for several seconds.)

The lone woman in the race, conservative Josefina Vazquez Mota of the National Action Party, or PAN, concentrated her attacks on Peña Nieto, who entered the debate as the front-runner in all polls.

Vazquez Mota drew attention to the tragic and seemingly unbelievable death of 4-year-old Paulette Gebara Farah, which occurred under Peña Nieto's term as governor in the state of Mexico.

"I am different because I have a trajectory of honesty and I come from two governments that have not mortgaged the lives of your children," Vazquez Mota said, referring to her party's two consecutive terms in power.

The fourth-place wild card, teacher Gabriel Quadri, tried his best to refer to himself as a "citizen" candidate, unlike his three leading rivals, while lobbing attacks across the board.

Despite the surprises, the first debate in the 2012 election was strictly moderated.

There was no live audience in the same room with the candidates, and no pre- or post-debate conference for the reporters and photographers who gathered in a press room far from the candidates' set at Mexico City's World Trade Center. The candidates stood at podiums facing cameras, not one another.

Before the debate, on the leafy streets outside the World Trade Center, some of the candidates' supporters gathered to rally and cheer on their favorite.

"We are sure that Enrique Peña Nieto is going to win the debate and the presidency," said Ernesto Alcantara, 28, an engineer. "We are here to tell him that he is our candidate, that we trust in him, and that he has our support."

Benita Soto, a 24-year-old student, said she was supporting Lopez Obrador because she said he offers an alternative.

"Enough of the bad governments of the PAN and the PRI," Soto said. "Lopez Obrador is the good guy."

Mexicans vote on July 1 in what will be the second presidential race since the PRI was voted out of power in 2000 with the election of President Vicente Fox of the PAN. In 2006, Lopez Obrador came within less than a percentage point of winning the presidency, which ultimately went to President Felipe Calderon -- results Lopez Obrador still claims were fraudulent.

Peña Nieto, known for his telegenic qualities but facing consistent criticism about his intellectual mettle, is attempting to ward off any potential shift in the race by Vazquez Mota or Lopez Obrador.

Analysts believe many Mexicans are willing to vote the PRI back into power after two terms of conservative, neoliberal-leaning PAN presidencies and the horrific violence brought by the drug war.

"I propose changing fear for hope, I propose changing Mexico," Peña Nieto said.

The next debate is scheduled for June 10.

* Photo: People watch the 2012 presidential campaign's first televised debate at Mexico City's Zocalo, or main square, on Sunday night. Credit: Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press

Leading Mexico candidate, actress wife star in reality TV campaign ads

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- The campaign for the front-runner in Mexico's presidential election is producing reality TV-style documentary videos that show him kissing and flirting with his wife, eating ice cream and returning home after a day on the campaign trail to hug his daughters.

The videos constitute a new level in the blurring of lines between politics and pop media in Mexico, and appear to be energizing support among voters.

Enrique Peña Nieto, galloping toward the July 1 vote with a double-digit lead over his two main rivals, would be the first president from the former ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the 21st century. The PRI, often labeled through its history as quasi-authoritarian, was booted from power in 2000.

The videos primarily star Peña Nieto's wife, telenovela actress Angelica Rivera, and are narrated from her perspective under the title, "What My Eyes See, and What My Heart Feel" (links in Spanish). In them, she follows her husband to campaign events and chats with him between stops in clips that feel like journals or diary entries.

One ends with Peña, 45, and Rivera, 41, arriving home and letting the viewer in on plans for an evening of dinner, bathing and bedtime. In another, he samples local ice cream. Here's a new clip from a stop in Villahermosa, in the state of Tabasco:

The videos are meant to show an informal, intimate side of the couple, who married in 2010 after the sudden death in 2007 of Peña Nieto's first wife, Monica Pretelini, while he governed the central state of Mexico. The clips have garnered thousands of views on YouTube and "likes" on Facebook. There, Rivera's public page frequently posts casual snapshots of her and her family.

Political advertising in Mexico's two most recent presidential campaigns, won by Vicente Fox in 2000 and fellow conservative Felipe Calderon in 2006, has moved steadily toward a more U.S.-style media approach. The PRI's effort this year takes the current social-media orientation of Mexican politics to a new level.

Peña Nieto personifies the trend, making some political commentators bemoan the nature of the 2012 race. In a Jan. 27 column in the daily Reforma, author Juan Villoro called Peña Nieto a "political hologram" and a "tele-candidate."

"There is no election today that is not decided in the media," Villoro wrote. "Trusting in this precept, the PRI has chosen a telegenic candidate. The problem is that he appears to have little more than luminous wrapping."

U.S. officials in Mexico have been watching Peña Nieto's rise for years, noting his telegenic qualities since the start, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables. One of those cables from 2009 relays a description of Peña Nieto as "a pretty face with nationwide appeal, but lacking in substance and political savvy."

His strongest detractors early on were apparently concentrated within his own party, the leaked cables show. In another from 2009, contacts inside the PRI told U.S. officials that they believed Peña was "paying media outlets under the table for favorable news coverage, as well as potentially financing pollsters to sway survey results."

His campaign has carefully guarded his public appearances, and the videos in "What My Eyes See, and What My Heart Feels," although edited with an unscripted, chop-and-cut flair, are no different.

During his first campaign stop in the city of Oaxaca, for example, Rivera's video diary showed an upbeat Peña Nieto greeting supporters at the city's central plaza but no images of the crowds of demonstrators who had gathered to protest the PRI machine.

The party isn't alone in pumping funds into sleek documentary-style video spots.

The campaign for Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate for the conservative National Action Party, released a video Wednesday documenting her visit that day to the prestigious Tecnologico de Monterrey university.

In it, she speaks to students in an auditorium, then responds to a protestor who yells at her from the audience. The nature of the protestor's complaint, however, is not specified, and neither is the candidate's response, for that matter. Instead, the video ends with a crescendo of music and the candidate calling over applause, "Do not tire of truth! Do not tire of liberty!"

RELATED:

Drug allegations may hamper PRI's return

On his stroll to presidency, Peña Nieto stumbles

Messy Mexican election reemerges in leaked cables

Photo: Institutional Revolutionary Party presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, center, and his wife, actress Angelica Rivera, left, during a campaign stop in Papantla, Veracruz, on April 13. Credit: Peña Nieto campaign

Mexico's 'Popo' volcano shoots glowing rocks

** Originally published at World Now:

Glowing red rocks were thrown from the top of the active Popocatepetl volcano at dawn Friday, producing more spectacular (and slightly frightening) images from the peak southeast of populous Mexico City. But authorities did not raise the alert level for a potential major eruption.

"Popo" or "Don Goyo," as the volcano is affectionately known, has been shooting plumes of ash, gas and rocks for a week. Residents of the semirural communities near the volcano have reported hearing hours of "low-pitched roaring" emanating from the 17,887-foot Popocatepetl.

President Felipe Calderon said Friday during a meeting with governors of the peak's neighboring states that the government is prepared, in case evacuations become necessary. Authorities said contingency plans are ready if the volcanic activity threatens residents in the states of Mexico, Puebla and Morelos.

"The volcano is in command," said Roberto Quaas, director of Mexico's National Disaster Prevention Center. 

The government has not raised its alert level on the volcano since Monday. Yet a week of sustained exhalations has produced worry among some Mexicans who live near "Popo," which is visible from some points of Mexico City on days with relatively low pollution.

An estimated 5 million people would be directly affected by a large-scale eruption, and some 19 million other people live near the volcano.

Popocatepetl, which means "smoking mountain" in the Aztec's language Nahuatl, dominates much of the landscape in central Mexico along with its "twin" volcano, the dormant Iztaccihuatl.

Left, right, or center? Understanding the brand-names of Mexican politics

** Originally published at World Now:

A leading political party in Mexico this week chose a woman as its candidate for the presidency, a first in the country's history. More interesting, the party that did it is the ruling bastion of Mexican conservatism, the National Action Party, or PAN.

As the July presidential election nears, watchers of world news are sure to be hearing much more about the PAN, its candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota, and her main rivals, Enrique Peña Nieto of the party known as PRI, and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the PRD.

These three main parties are sometimes described in easy categories of left (PRD), right (PAN) and center (PRI), but the reality is far more complex. Here's a primer on how to understand the top political name brands in Mexico heading into the July vote.

Institutional Revolutionary Party

There is easily no more loaded term in Mexican politics than the three letters that make up the acronym of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI. And perhaps no greater oxymoron, some might quip.

It emerged as a consolidating force after the tumult of the Mexican Revolution. Over time, the PRI practically invented brand-name politics. Its name, ideology and even brand colors (same as the national flag) are directly linked to the very concept of the Mexican republic. For many years, the party was the country, and the country was the party.

The PRI developed a patronage system that virtually ensured electoral victory year after year. It soon became synonymous with corruption, disastrous financial mismanagement and violent repression of dissent, as typified by the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968.

In the 1988 presidential election, the PRI was accused of electoral fraud that some claim robbed the outcome from dissident candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, son of a revered former president, when PRI-controlled election authorities announced the vote-counting system "went silent."

When the system returned, the PRI's candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was declared the winner. Salinas went on to lead Mexico through the worst of the PRI's decadence, and by 2000, exasperated Mexicans finally booted their longtime political overlords from power with the election of Vicente Fox of the PAN.

Ever since, the PRI has been mounting its comeback, leading the pack by substantial margins incurrent polls. Claiming it is a "new" PRI, the party has yet to state in a clear fashion that it would govern much differently than before.

Candidate: Enrique Peña Nieto

Campaign color: Red

National Action Party

National Action is the party that unites Catholics and capitalists in Mexico. It is free-market, conservative on social issues and friendly to foreign interests. It casts itself as efficient and effective, but it now faces the same kinds of accusations of corruption and waste as the PRI did in its heyday.

The PAN's roots are also found in the post-Revolutionary period, after the Cristero War, a bloody conflict in which Roman Catholics were persecuted in a wave of anti-clerical sentiments and laws. Counter-revolutionary leaders seeking religious freedom organized themselves in 1939 into a political group, which included some factions that were sympathetic to European fascism.

To this day, the PAN remains the political home for Mexico's devout Catholics.

For decades, PAN survived as the minor opposition to the PRI behemoth, but by the 1980s, growing disillusionment with the PRI made the PAN an attractive alternative.

The first PAN governor was elected in Baja California in 1989, reflecting its early foothold in the more industrial, more "American" north of the country. Today, PAN governs nine states (including several multi-party coalitions) and holds about a third of seats in Congress.

Despite disaffection with two consecutive PAN administrations under Fox and current President Felipe Calderon, the party is hoping a buzz-worthy female candidate could help keep it in power for six more years.

Candidate: Josefina Vazquez Mota

Campaign color: Blue

 

Party of the Democratic Revolution

After the repression of 1968 and the ensuing Dirty War, a generation of political thinkers lost trust in the dominant party for good, and rumblings began for the creation of a new wing of progressive politics. In the aftermath of 1988, the progressives formed the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD. Cardenas was its presidential candidate in 1994 and 2000, finishing third each time.

The PRD gradually built its political base in the populous capital, where it has governed without interruption since 1997. Cardenas remains the "moral leader" of the party, but its figurehead is now Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City.

Lopez Obrador is a polarizing figure. In 2004, he was subjected to a legal attack from the Fox administration, which sought to disqualify him as a future national candidate. The attack failed andbolstered Lopez Obrador's popularity.

But the PRD's goal of finally capturing the 2006 presidency would not be. The PAN campaign under Calderon smeared Lopez Obrador as a "danger to Mexico" and a would-be Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's hard-line leftist president. On election night, authorities said the result was too close to call.

What followed was a wild political drama that saw a partial recount, an early Occupy-style sit-in by the dissatisfied PRD, and an official result of less than 1 percentage point difference between Calderon, the declared winner, and Lopez Obrador, who also declared himself the winner and the "legitimate president."

Lopez Obrador was badly damaged by his decision to shut down the city center and his refusal to accept the official results. For now, the PRD trails in polls behind the PAN and PRI. But two internal factors that worked against the leftist in 2006 are not in his way this time.

First, a minor socialist party that offered a likeable woman candidate in 2006, Patricia Mercado, has since lost its registration and disbanded. (Mercado won nearly 3% of the vote in 2006.)

Second, Cardenas did not publicly support Lopez Obrador's campaign in 2006, a gaping absence rooted in personal differences between the two men. On Monday, a day after Vazquez Mota won the PAN primary, the old PRD leader came out and endorsed Lopez Obrador for president in a show of symbolic leftist unity heading into the 2012 vote.

Candidate: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

Campaign color: Yellow

* Photo: Supporters of a PRI gubernatorial candidate, Eruviel Avila, rally in Toluca, Mexico state, in June 2011. Credit: Alexandre Meneghini / Associated Press

Disapprove

** See also this. "No you don't."

Five years of Intersections *

Today, Intersections turns five years old. Wow. How did this happen?

The blog started on 20 December 2006, in my apartment in Echo Park, Los Angeles, while I was a staff writer at the LA Weekly. I wanted to add more context to my stories and also share stuff I've read or watched online.

As the days and weeks passed, Intersections began evolving. I wanted it to be about media, food, music, art, sex and sexuality, spirituality, fashion, film, politics, a sprinkling of sports, on the planet, on literature, and on the future.

Almost immediately, Intersections started making an impact on the conversation in Los Angeles, thanks to early inter-webbing for which I remain grateful. In all my work, I had to consider a new dual role, a staffer producing copy for the machines, and an independent voice, answerable to no one but myself. 

Once I moved to Mexico in autumn 2007, Intersections turned into a running first-draft of my book, the place where I posted an early photo, interview, or observation that would turn into a chunk or chapter in "Down & Delirious in Mexico City." Since then, the blog is where I re-post and share my reporting work for the L.A. Times foreign bureau in Mexico City, where I am a contracted news assistant.

The blog has also sometimes been a platform for righteously pissed-off protest. There is, after all, nothing more valuable for a trafficker of facts than the freedom to say exactly as one can conclude bearing all the information at hand.

Sometimes I've wanted to quit this exercise, let it have an expiration date. Even in the lowest moments of frustration or stagnation, however, I end up reminding myself that this blog is now a part of me, my web with the world.

Intersections was and remains about the cross-currents in our cultures, the bridges (and divides) that exist between black and brown, North and South, high and low, the Tribes, and the cities that many of us call "home" -- Los Angeles, Mexico City, the San Diego-Tijuana border complex, the global sponge that belongs to all of us.

Like, the blog has rights. In other words, killing it would be unjust.

The first posts inside the blog are here, starting at the bottom of the page. All the archives and categories are here. Thank you, readers, friends, colleagues, for going along for the ride! I hope you keep checking in with me through 2012 and -- hopefully -- beyond.

* Photo: Blending in at the ruins of Mitla, Oaxaca, Nov. 2011.

El bajón y el delirio

The Spanish-language translation of my book, "El bajón y el delirio," is going on sale in Mexico. I'm excited and nervous. Starting in January, I'm going to have to re-live the book all over again, this time in chilango Spanish, which automatically takes the intimacy and immediacy of the book to other levels.

I'm also super happy with it y espero que los lectores lo disfruten. The design is beautiful, a worthy match to the terrific design of the original edition. For the Spanish edition, the celebrated Alejandro Magallanes devised a double-flap sketch for the cover, with the title in relief, as if the words were tagged with a scriber. He has more on his design at his blog, here.

(I love it. Gracias, Alejandro!)

The translation of "Down & Delirious in Mexico City" to Spanish is by Elizabeth Flores (an old friend from the Survival Brigade). Liz and I worked closely all summer on the translation, meeting in person to review each chapter line-by-line, discussing every possible outcome for a translation we both wanted to ring as true as possible for D.F. readers, yet while also retaining some of my native pochismos.

The editor of the translation is Guillermo Osorno, an associate editor at Editorial Oceano, my publisher in Spanish. Osorno is also editor of Gatopardo magazine, where one of two early sneaks of the book is published, in the December issue. Here is the chapter titled "Originales del punk," in its entirety, a journey through Mexico City punk, to the other side of Santa Fe, and back.

I hope you like it. I re-read it in the magazine with lots of trepidation, then found myself moved by it in a totally new way. You'll see.

At the news site Animal Politico, the book's first chapter is published as a downloadable document. Here is "Guadalupanos pachecos," in honor of December 12, the virgencita's feast day. 

Of course, there will be another big-ass party. Thank you. Y saludos a la banda de la caseta a Cuernavaca, a Reyes y su familia, y a los Agudos Crónicos y Vegetales.

* Elsewhere, "Gringo, chicano, chilango, y delirante."

Woman candidate in Mexico says she comes home to check the fridge

** Originally published at World Now:

The lone female candidate contending for Mexico's presidency described herself as one of the millions of Mexican women who go home at the end of the day to check on the refrigerator, in comments that played on the touchy subject of gender roles in Mexican culture for the first time in the campaign for the 2012 election.

Josefina Vazquez Mota made the statements this week while responding to a question during a radio interview with one of the country's most prominent female journalists, Carmen Aristegui.

Aristegui asked Vazquez Mota via telephone to respond to seemingly negative comments about women made by front-runner Enrique Peña Nieto, candidate for the formerly ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Peña Nieto, facing criticism and ridicule after several recent public fumbles, was asked in a separate interview to name the price of a kilo of tortillas, a standard food base in homes across Mexico, rich or poor. The PRI candidate replied, "I am not the lady of the house," or literally in Spanish, "No soy la señora de la casa."

The phrase was interpreted to mean "housewife" among social-media users and commentators who criticized Peña Nieto for what some called an example of Mexican machismo. 

On Tuesday, Aristegui asked Vazquez Mota, a 50-year-old married mother of three daughters, "Are you a señora de la casa?"

"I am a woman, and as a woman I am a housewife, I am a government official, I've been twice a government secretary, I've been leader of a parliamentary group, I am an economist," Vazquez Mota said.

"And indeed, all of that along with being a housewife, a housewife who knows what happens every day at the dining table and in the kitchen," she went on. "And although we may not be there for many hours, as is my case -- and I'm sure your case and many others of us -- every night we return to that space of the kitchen, return to check the refrigerator and see if everything is ready or what needs to be bought the next day."

Vazquez Mota also suggested that she stops at markets between public events if anything is needed in her household. Directly addressing Peña Nieto's statements, she characterized them as "pejorative." 

"Regarding a price of something, we are not obligated to know everything, but what does seem precarious for me is this disdain, this pejorative attitude toward being a housewife," she said. "We have millions, Carmen, millions, that go out to take care of their children all alone."

Vazquez Mota is one of three primary candidates remaining from the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, of President Felipe Calderon. The PAN is trailing in polls behind the PRI as it seeks a third consecutive presidency.

A former education secretary and federal legislator under Calderon, Vazquez Mota would be the first major party female candidate for president of Mexico if she captured the PAN nomination before next year's vote in July. 

The leftist Democratic Revolution Party is also trailing behind the PRI under the repeat candidacy of populist leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who lost the 2006 election to Calderon by a razor-thin margin he refused to accept.

Lopez Obrador and others have hammered away at Peña Nieto  since he recently was unable to correctly name three books that have influenced his life. That appearance, at Latin America's largest book festival, in Guadalajara, bolstered the long-standing argument that the former governer of the state of Mexico is all image and no substance.

"As he does not have substance, it is not only a matter of [Peña Nieto] not reading, it is what he represents: more of the same, more corruption, more injustice, more privileges, more decadence for our country," Lopez Obrador said in his weekly YouTube address (link in Spanish).

Peña Nieto's campaign has been in damage-control mode since then, yet the candidate keeps making missteps.

His answer about the price of a kilo of tortillas came during an interview with Spain's leading daily newspaper, El Pais, in which he also could not accurately cite the minimum wage in Mexico. The full audio of that interview was released Monday.

Peña Nieto, married to telenovela actress Angelica Rivera, his second wife, has used Twitter to defend himself once more, saying in Spanish, "I said 'I am not the lady of the house' in reference exclusively to my home, not as a disparaging or offensive expression towards women."

The price of a kilo of tortillas, meanwhile, is a point of serious concern for many low-income households in Mexico, recent news reports say. That price rose this month from 8 pesos to 12 in some states, a radical increase for households that struggle to make ends meet. Overall, inflation rose in November by 1.08% (links in Spanish).

Next year, the minumum wage in Mexico will rise by about 4.2% for a number of regions and jobs, the Labor Ministry said in a statement. In the geographic zone of Mexico City, where the cost of living is among the highest, that wage will be set at $4.60 a day.

* Photo: Josefina Vazquez Mota of the National Action Party celebrates Monday after filing her candidacy for president at the PAN headquarters in Mexico City. Credit: Reuters

Despite policy changes, smog still afflicts Mexico City

** Originally published at World Now:

When you're above it, it might look like brown smoke. From far away at ground level, it can shine like a sheet of white ice. And when you're under it, which is most of the time, you can't really see it at all.

It is the famous air pollution of Mexico City, causing countless cases of scratchy throats, stinging eyes and mucus that looks like it came from outer-space.

It is, in a word, nasty.

And while it may no longer be known as the worst in the world -- these days Beijing's pollution problem is attracting that sort of global attention -- Mexico City's smog becomes particularly intense at the start of every Christmas season.

The effect persists even after two decades of aggressive anti-pollution policies that have dramatically cut down smog overall in Mexico's gigantic capital.

Last Saturday evening, while the mayor inaugurated the annual ice-rink downtown to kick off the holiday cheer, the city's contamination monitoring system recorded a high of 136 points on its pollution scale in Mexico City's southeast quadrant, and graded the air quality over the entire metropolitan region of 20.1 million people as "Bad."

The IMECA, as the scale is known by its Spanish acronym, has hit "bad" levels across the city all week since. The air is expected to be just as "mala" through December and into the new year.

The phenomenon joins weather, cultural and geographic factors that combine like in no other place, explained Armando Retama, director of the city's sophisticated air-quality monitoring service, with two dozen stations recording pollution levels around the clock.

The Valley of Mexico, where the metropolitan area is located, is a bowl that sits at about 7,300 feet above sea level. That landscape produces what meteorologists call the thermal inversion effect, in which colder mountain air hangs over the valley and traps warmer air and pollution particles below it.

In the mornings, it's rise and shine for many of the estimated 4 million cars and trucks that operate here.

"As the day goes on, the sun heats up the floor, and the floor heats up the air above it," Retama said in an interview this week. The air and the toxins combine, creating a haze that often transforms into ozone in the afternoon.

The pattern hits Mexico City hard in December, when Christmas shoppers and tourists bring routine gridlock to city streets. Confounding the problem, fireworks and pyrotechnic displays, popular during the seasonal festivities, add smoke and ash to the equation.

"We're producing millions of kilos of contaminants daily, in a matter of hours," Retama said.

And you can feel it. Those particles can include a host of unfriendly pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, even lead. Will it ever fully go away?

Not unless the people of the city stop driving automobiles, Retama said. Despite improvements in public transportation, such as the Ecobici and Metrobus projects, car exhaust continues to be the chief factor contributing to Mexico City's smog, he said.

So far this week, the IMECA scale has not topped 150, which would trigger a "pre-contingency" alert for the metropolis. That would lead to restrictions on certain manufacturing sectors and on outdoor activities at schools. Every hour, the monitoring-service director said, reports on pollution levels are sent to local government agencies.

(Online, citizens can follow updates on the air quality at this live-map or via Twitter.)

Yet on Friday, the metropolitan environmental agency released a statement reminding residents of the Valley of Mexico to take precautions against contributing to the pollution problem. Locals were advised to minimize the use of automobiles, chimneys, fireworks and open fires. 

"Oh yes, I feel it, especially in the past few days," said Alejandra Abrego, 24. "My nose is dry, I am coughing and sneezing a lot."

Abrego, an archeology student strolling downtown on Friday, said she grew up in Mexico City. In her view, the smog has actually gotten worse in recent years, not better. For a generation that didn't experience the worst of the smog in the 1980s, it might seem so.

"We need more efficient public transit, so that people can start leaving their cars," Abrego said.

* Photo: Sunset from the Buenavista transit hub, Dec. 6, 2011.