Photo: ESFP
Mexican gubernatorial candidate of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) Rodolfo Torre Cantu was killed on June 28th in an ambush less than a week before the elections.
by the
state’s election commission, while in Sinaloa, firebombs were tossed at
offices of the PRD, PAN and PRI political parties.
On June 23, a group of 15 armed men wearing t-shirts promoting Rafael
Moreno Valles, the PAN candidate for governor of Puebla, allegedly
threatened, beat and robbed Ismael Maldonado Flores, a distributor for the
Contralinea news magazine. According to the Mexico City-based press
defense organization CEPET, the assailants took money, a lap top and 2,500
copies of Contralinea.
Nationally, the ongoing disappearance and presumed kidnapping of 1994 PAN
presidential candidate and leader Diego Fernandez de Cevallos also shrouds
the political scene.
Emilio Alvarez Icaza, president of the official human rights commission of
Mexico City and a veteran of the civic action organization Alianza Civica,
characterized the electoral map as practically on fire. “The alarming
thing is that we are returning to those practices of the 1980s and before
against which so much was fought,” Alvarez wrote in a recent column.
In addition to violent incidents, reports of old-fashioned vote-buying,
systematic political spying, Watergate-style break-ins, illegal use of
official positions and programs to promote candidates and other electoral
violations and irregularities have flowed in the press.
The campaigns have drawn some international scrutiny. A representative of
the UN Development Program in Mexico told reporters five of the 12 state
governments holding elections had declined to turn over information on the
operation of social programs in their respective jurisdictions. According
to Magdy Martinez-Solman, the state governments of Quintana Roo,
Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Veracruz and Tamaulipas did not disclose information
pertaining to the functioning and auditing of the relevant programs.
“When there is no information or when there are no restrictions, there is
reason for concern,” Martinez-Solman said. “Above all, serious reasons
exist to be on the alert
...
Preventing the exorbitant cost of student mobility
The societal cost of a high school dropout has been calculated into actual dollars and cents and circulated for public awareness. What is less known, though, is the exorbitant cost to a child’s potential achievement caused by switching schools for reasons other than grade level progression – an ...
Legislating an end to racial profiling
No one denies – at least openly – that racial profiling is bad practice. The question at hand, and one raised during a Senate Committee hearing on civil and human rights last week, is how to end it.
On Tuesday, April 17, the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights ...
Community honors beloved poet, humanitarian
Praise, good memories and unconditional love were abundant this week as friends and family gathered to remember humanitarian and poet Abelardo “Lalo” Delgado at the 5th Annual Lalo Delgado Poetry Festival held at the St. Cajetan’s Center on the Auraria Campus, sponsored by the MSCD President’s ...
Young mothers share literary inspirations
The roots of Día de los Niños (April 30th) began in Latin América as a holiday honoring children and has been adopted by the United States with a variety of festivities that highlight the beauty of children Through The Weekly Issue/El Semanario’s Student Writing Project, we highlight the ...
No one denies – at least openly – that racial profiling is bad practice. The question at hand, and one raised during a Senate Committee hearing on civil and human rights last week, is how to end it.
On Tuesday, April 17, the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights ...
view more videos
view more photos
El Semanario New Mexico 
El Semanario