Some Gains for the PRD in Mexico and the Left

Some challenges are coming to Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, that had ruled the country for 7 decades from an uneasy coalition between the the Democratic Revolution Party and the National Action Party (current President Felipe Calderón's party), but particularly from the more left-oriented PRD. From the Financial Times:

"[Newly elected gubernatorial candidate Angel Aguirre] addressed a crowd of supporters in the resort of Acapulco on Mexico’s Pacific coast, and held his hand high to signal a 'V' for victory.

'Tomorrow is the start of a new era,” he said in a sign that he wanted to put behind him what had been a particularly dirty and scrappy election in a state where drugs-related violence has spiralled in recent years. “Today as never before, Guerrero deserves and needs unity and peace.'

The PRD’s win comes not a moment too soon for a party that has ruptured internally and has lost significant ground in Mexican politics since narrowly losing the presidential race [to the PAN].

Yet while both the PRD and the PAN will doubtless take heart from the result in Guerrero, political analysts say that it will probably make little difference to the PRI’s impressive comeback since losing the presidency in 2000 after 71 years of consecutive rule."

Also, February 1st, (from the Latin American Herald Tribune) "a coalition calling itself the National Movement for Food Sovereignty, Workers Rights and Democratic Freedoms [protested; made up of some 30,000 students, peasants, workers and unemployed].

'We’re looking for a new social and economic order for the country, because it’s urgent that we put a stop to price inflation, chiefly on basic necessities, and at the same time do something about the problems of unemployment and crime,” said the leader of the National Confederation of Peasants, federal legislator Gerardo Sanchez Garcia.

'We need a social movement so the government doesn’t forget that he made a commitment to resolve social problems and avoid even bigger crises for the sectors we represent,' electricians union chief Martin Esparza said."

➔ Suggesting further progressive and left unrest in Mexico.