Disseminator of the DEA

At this point it is not clear if the National Action Party used the newspaper Reforma for its leaks during its six-year term [in office], or if the newspaper has been using that party and there’s an umpire that really rocks the cradle: the U.S. government, which took advantage of the media and the government when it wanted to burst into the news agenda in Mexico. This week, the paper published a survey in which it assured that [Andrés Manuel] López Obrador has already caught-up with [Enrique] Peña Nieto. So that the numbers matched, Reforma sacrificed without pity Josefina Vázquez Mota, PAN’s presidential candidate, and practically took the PAN out of the game. Naturally many concerns arise. What provoked the paper’s excessive harshness against Josefina? Why didn’t she defend herself, and instead turn the other cheek?

Presumably someone in the Mexican government, let’s say Alejando Poiré who spent so much time in Cisen, knows the mechanisms that work behind the newspaper. Someone in the Mexican government knows the accounts, interests, and communicating vessels. Someone in the Mexican government has the data to say whether or not the government agencies from the United States have a strategic partnership with the publishing group. Perhaps there is no such link, and we are facing a dark legend, without foundation, that has circulated for years among evil-minded reporters. It’s impossible to say. Sometimes it seems like the Drug Enforcement Administration’s disseminator in Mexico could be one of those weak coincidences from the world of information.

We return to the question of why to sacrifice Josefina, and why there was no answer from the PAN. It makes no sense. The survey far exceeds the damage that’s been done to the PAN’s campaign as result of attacks, criticism, and insults from opposition parties, starting with the Institutional Revolutionary Party and others. The survey disqualifies at once all the effort spread by Josefina in these last months. It’s a mockery of the propaganda work of the blues. Why did they let it happen? At least Josefina has thrown a tantrum and, only now, said: “I have time to meet and overcome.” I want to think that the subject was addressed in the PAN’s war room. I can’t believe that none of its members got furious and hit their desk, demanding an explanation from the paper for its very strange behavior. If the trend of the survey is correct, then López Obrador will be the winner and PAN’s fraction will be just one of dozens of legislators in congress, and will become irrelevant. The PAN should at least cancel their subscriptions. However, with the loose change they will have, they won’t have enough to even have the privilege of newspapers.

Of course, all newspapers, and all of the media, have the right to defend a particular editorial perspective linked with their economic and political interests. There’s no discussion here. What calls attention in this case is that the newspaper decided to throw a candidate from the PAN over the cliff, so the final stretch of the presidential campaign is now a “face-to-face” between Peña and López Obrador that promises rancor and division among Mexicans. If the competition becomes a matter of two [candidates], there’s a guarantee that a post electoral conflict will strike out and generate instability, which would further hurt the institutions. Which local or foreign force would be interested in such tense scenery among Mexicans starting July 2?