Long live democracy, the people of Brazil won.
Congratulations President Lula! — Claudia Sheinbaum on Instagram
I know even less about Brazilian politics than the little I know about Mexican politics, but the runoff victory of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is good for President Claudia Sheinbaum and good for Mexico. If Lula had lost, Claudia would be the only lefty president of a major country south of the USA, and it would have endangered the important trade relationship between Brazil and Mexico that both Claudia and Lula are trying to grow.
Moving on to the death of two CIA agents in Chihuahua in April in a car crash, which I wrote about here, the Attorney General of Chihuahua, César Jáuregui Moreno, has been indicted for treason:
The FGR [Mexican AG Office] accuses Jáuregui of possible participation in the crime of Treason over the entry of US agents into Mexican territory for an anti-drug trafficking operation in Chihuahua, without them having the corresponding authorizations to enter the country.
According to the investigation, the CIA agents did not have authorization from the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) or from the High-Level Security Group to temporarily enter Mexican territory for information-sharing purposes. In addition, they also lacked weapons carry permits issued by the Secretariat of National Defense (Defensa), although there are indications that they were armed.
The events took place on April 18, when personnel from the state Prosecutor’s Office and Army troops, with the participation of CIA agents, located and shut down a synthetic drug lab on a property in the Sierra del Pinal, in the municipality of Morelos, Chihuahua.
The presence of the US personnel became public after four people died in a car accident in the early hours of April 19, shortly after the operation ended. Among the victims were Pedro Román Oseguera Cervantes, then head of the State Investigation Agency; his bodyguard, Manuel Genaro Méndez Montes, and the CIA agents Richard Leiter Johnston III and John Dudley Black.
[…]
The accusation against Jáuregui is based on Article 123, section I, of the Federal Penal Code, a provision that punishes anyone who carries out acts that undermine the independence and sovereignty of Mexico with the purpose of subjecting the Nation to a foreign group.
This story was a big deal in Mexico. Per the Soberanía podcast on this topic, Mexican states can have autonomous or non-autonomous Attorneys General. Chihuahua has a non-autonomous AG, which means Jáuregui reported to Governor Maru Campos, who threw him under the bus because he was arrested first by Chihuahua authorities before Mexican Federal authorities arrested him.
Note, too, that Claudia recently forced out the Attorney General of Mexico, who was 86-year-old man who would work in his bathrobe and was ridiculed as “sleepy” and not up to the job, with her long-time legal advisor Ernestina Godoy. Claudia’s comment on Godoy’s appointment was “it’s women’s time.”
Ernestina Godoy, Mexican Attorney General, who I believe is as tough as she looks.
Well, not completely, because Maru Campos, a woman, is probably going to be in very hot water:
Mexico City, October 25 (SinEmbargo).— To confront criticism and attempt to polish their public image, the state Government of Maru Campos and that of the National Action Party (PAN) in the municipality of Chihuahua have racked up millions in spending of public resources on official advertising, events, the hiring of artists, influencers and media personalities, as well as the purchase of gifts.
Campos’s administration has so far allocated at least 2.6 billion pesos to advertise itself on television, radio and the internet, with contracts for Televisa for at least 96.8 million pesos, according to data from its Communications office, and for TV Azteca for 89 million; in addition to paying 21.7 million pesos to Latinus for its propaganda (including a contract in 2024 for 12.7 million and another for 9 million); 2.3 million to the company Alazraki Bross TV, of Atypical Te Ve, and 2 million to the news site of Joaquín López Dóriga, among other media outlets.
Moving on, not everything is roses for Morena and the Sheinbaum government in Mexico. Healthcare workers in Mexico recently went on strike:
Thousands of Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) workers took to the streets of Mexico City and other cities across Mexico on Tuesday to demand higher pay, better work conditions, increased funding for healthcare and an end to shortages of medicines and medical supplies.
In the capital, around 7,000 workers, including doctors, nurses, orderlies, social workers and administrative staff joined a so-called megamarcha (mega-march), which set off from the IMSS-run Siglo XXI National Medical Center in the Doctores neighborhood at 4 p.m. and made its way to IMSS offices on Paseo de la Reforma, the tree-lined boulevard that runs into the historic center.
The source of this issue is the Morena effort to make healthcare available to all Mexicans. I don’t pretend to understand Mexican health care. There are at least three government-supported healthcare agencies, of which IMSS is one of them, plus many middle- and upper-class Mexicans use private health care. Morena has made an effort to unify all of the different public health care providers under one government umbrella, but this effort has growing pains. Supply of drugs is clearly one of them — this has been a regular topic of the daily press conferences (mañaneras), where members of the Ministry of Health report on the percentage of drugs that are available in public healthcare settings. As usual with Claudia’s government, it keeps getting better. Shortly after her administration started, drug warehousing and delivery was taken over by the government, and it made a difference that is reported regularly to the Mexican public.
To relate this to the US, the fear of people being angry about changes in the healthcare system will cause people to complain, so I guess the conclusion here is “why try?” The Mexican approach is to make the changes and deal with issues as they arise, competently.
That all said, Claudia and her government are still incredibly popular, and she is not afraid:
Claudia Sheinbaum visiting Ectapec, State of Mexico
