Monday, July 03, 2006

And the winner is

Calderon but of course the liberal can not accept defeat. Sounds familiar.

7 comments:

Barry Dauphin said...

terrye

The headline really caught my eye: Mexico conservative creeps toward slim victory.

They found a way to put "conservative" and "creeps" into the same headline.

Unknown said...

barry:

I wonder if it had been the other way around if they choice of words would have been different.

loner said...

I found the whole vote count fascinating. Of the 31 states and the Federal District, Calderon is leading in 16 and Obrador is leading in 16 and the split is mostly north and south with the non-contiguous exceptions being that Calderon is leading in Puebla and Yucatan and Obrador is leading in Baja California Sur, Nayarit and Zacatecas. As the vote count went so smoothly and as the margin of victory should increase some as the majority of unreported precincts are still in states where Calderon is leading, Calderon will be the next President when all is said and done.

The extent of the north-south divide may present some cause for concern. I wasn't aware that the regional divide was quite so pronounced.

Anonymous said...

New and improved, now with fewer typos -

The south of Mexico is very poor. No auto or television plants there. Oil and some state-owned refineries near Coatzacoalcos on the Atlantic side and that is about it. Some Central American type agriculture. Very close to Guatemala and points south in terms of infrastructure (as in lack thereof) and in culture.

The northernmost tier of Mexican states have - in places - a US feel to them, in terms of new middle class wealth. Strip malls, shopping centers with anchor tenants, theaters, a Burger King. It is easy to draw too close of an analogy, since there is still much more difference than similarity. But these northernmost states probably have more in common with the US than they do with southernmost Mexico.

Anonymous said...

david:

It no longer is able to compete effectively in a global economy.

In part this is true. Many maquiladoras have closed up shop in the face of Chinese competition. High labor costs relative to China, for one thing. So the Mexicans have moved up, making Ford engines instead of floor mops. The privatization of Mexican rail and improved highways gives them low transportation costs to US markets, which also helps. But the larger question remains - can they advance quickly enough to make a difference?

The traditional "solution" in Latin America is the heavy hand of the state. Northern Mexico seems to have escaped, or wants to escape, this ancient trap. We shall see.

Unknown said...

skook:

Years ago my brother in law was in the DEA in Central America and Mexico. His family lived in Mexico City. He said that in the southern part of Mexico there were virtual bases run by druggies in the jungles. In the time he was in there [back in the 70's and 80's] no fewer than 7 DEA men were lost in that region. Vanished. Or so he said. He told me the locals just looked upon the drugs as another commodity.

I wonder if this has changed in 20 years?

Anonymous said...

terrye:

Don't know about the drug bases, but there is lots of illegal alien movement between Guatemala and southern Mexico and in places things are pretty wild and wooly. Certain roads you only drive in the daytime. Fast. And this was less than ten years ago. I doubt much has changed.