Anaya, on the hunt for PRI members

Anaya, on the hunt for PRI members

The “Mexico to the Front” coalition, formed by the conservative National Action Party (PAN), the left Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), and the center-left Citizen's Movement Party (MC), which has Ricardo Anaya as presidential candidate, has chartered a route to get more votes, according to our sources. We're told that they have come up with a strategy to be implemented after this Sunday's debate, pursuant to which Mr. Ricardo will try to become the second option of the members of the center-right Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The plan, we're told, takes into account a poor performance by the candidate of the PRI, José Antonio Meade during the debate. The strategy was devised, they say, by the PRD. However, in order for this plan to succeed, three things would have to happen first: first, Anaya would have to win the debate. Second, Meade would have to lose the debate. And third, the PRI members who Anaya has relentlessly insulted and accused of corruption and ineptitude would have to be willing to vote for him. Uh-oh.

Deputies forced to work

A bad news is coming today for the deputies, especially for those who are not in the habit of being in the Lower Chamber and get some work done. There is a bill which will be presented and with the purpose of establishing parameters to measure the work done by our legislators. We're told that the project, which will be presented by the President of the Chamber himself, Edgar Romo (PRI), will go beyond the quantitative aspect – which is the attendance record and bill presentation. This bill, our sources say, is about approving a qualitative assessment of the proposals made by the legislators and to create a follow-up body that, in addition to assess them, will verify which bills can actually become reforms and which not. The challenge will be for those who see the Congress as a scholarship and that once they have a seat they just submit bills with no future. Unfortunately, there are plenty of those.

Children of Margarita, out of the campaign

In Monterrey, a high school student told Margarita Zavala that other presidential candidates have campaigned in the company of their families and that she would like to see Zavala do the same with the “future husband” of the President. Mrs. Margarita knew where she was going and she cut her short: “He is the current husband and he will continue [being the current husband], I love him well...even that speaks well of me.” The most important part is that, according to our sources, the independent candidate has discarded the possibility of taking her three children to campaign events because she doesn't want to expose them and prefers they are left alone. Yet the one we will get to see at some point is former Mexican President Felipe Calderón .

The INE reassures AMLO

Mr. Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) will be able to sleep peacefully tonight. He was concerned, you see, about envoys of the “mafia in power” stealing voter's cards to sympathizers during his rallies but the National Electoral Institute (INE ) has reminded us that it will be possible to get a replacement. This will be the first election, according to the statement of the INE's president councilor, Lorenzo Córdova, in which citizens will be able to get a replacement of their voter's card until June 20 – that is, 11 days before election day – and vote without further trouble. Since the INE has biometric data of citizens, those requesting a replacement will be identified by their fingerprints and their iris scan.

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