Economist.com Cities Guide: Mexico City Briefing - July 2006

News this month

A close call

Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) seems to have won Mexico's closely fought presidential race. On July 6th election officials declared that Mr Calderón had defeated Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) by the slender margin of 243,000 votes. The announcement followed days of uncertainty during which both candidates claimed victory.

But Mr López Obrador is refusing to throw in the towel. In what promised to be the first of a series of rallies, he addressed an estimated 300,000 supporters in Mexico City’s central square, the Zocalo, on July 8th, to allege vote-rigging. He has appealed to a special electoral court, which has until the end of August to decide whether to recount the votes or even annul the election.
Mexico City's new mayor will be Marcelo Ebrard of the PRD, who won just under half the votes cast in an election on July 2nd. The remainder was split between Demetrio Sodi, a former PRD senator who left the party to stand for the PAN, and Beatriz Paredes, the candidate of the Party of the Institutional Revolution, who came third. The result was no surprise: PRD candidates have won all mayoral contests since the office became an elected post in 1997.

Genocide redux

Luis Echeverría, Mexico's president from 1970 to 1976, was placed under house arrest on June 30th. The move came after a court issued a warrant for Mr Echeverría, who has been accused of genocide in connection with the deaths of some 300 student protestors in Mexico City in 1968. Many think Mr Echeverría, who was interior minister at the time, ordered government troops to open fire on the protestors, though he denies this.

Whatever the truth, a judge dismissed the charge eight days later, citing Mexico’s statute of limitations. Somewhat suspiciously, Mr Echeverría's arrest came two days before the country's presidential elections. A member of the PRI, he is a politically charged figure; some opponents of Mr López Obrador labelled him a populist modelled on Mr Echeverría, whose presidency is regarded by most Mexicans as disastrous.

The deluge

Flooding brought misery to some of Mexico City's poorest residents in early July. Heavy rain caused the water level in Iztapalapa and Chalco, both districts in the south-east of the city, to rise by over 1.5 metres. The army implemented an emergency rescue plan in Chalco, while fire-fighters rescued families in Iztapalapa.

As the flooding grew worse, residents of Iztapalapa blockaded Zaragoza, a main artery, calling for the area's drainage system to be improved. Germán Martínez Santoyo, the director general of Mexico City’s water system, had previously announced that work on new drainage infrastructure would begin in September, as the region’s rainy season draws to a close. It remains unclear whether the city will pay for damage caused by the flooding. Few if any residents have insurance.

Oral proceedings

A drive to hold court trials in Mexico City is gathering speed. This would be an improvement on current legal proceedings, which are paper-based, inefficient and opaque. Marcelo Ebrard, the city’s mayor-elect, has promised to create 40 new courtrooms to allow for oral arguments. Enrique Peña Nieto, the governor of the state of Mexico, which surrounds the city proper and accounts for much of the metropolitan area’s population, announced in mid-June that 18 state courtrooms would be ready by October, thanks to a 70m peso ($6.3m) budget allocation.

Several local law schools have announced plans to begin teaching oral arguments. Parallel programmes are already underway in the northern state of Nuevo Leon and in Oaxaca in the south. A reform of the federal justice system is a distant prospect, but observers hope that state-level reforms such as those launched by Messrs Ebrard and Peña Nieto will slowly improve Mexico’s judicial system.

Mind the mine

The director general of public works for Álvaro Obregón, a district just south of Mexico City's centre, has announced that three of the 21 abandoned mines in the area could collapse. Between 500 and 800 people living above them are at risk. Fortunately, the three mines are relatively small—their combined volume is only 1,500 cubic metres—so filling them should cause only minor disruption. The authorities only became aware of some of the mines recently, which has led locals to worry that more unstable mines may lie undiscovered. Thirty mines were filled as part of a project that lasted from 2002 until 2005, but more work clearly needs to be done.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Arnulf Rainer Presents the Wrong Image

Until October 31st 2006

It is difficult to take this exhibit seriously, but that’s the point. Even the exhibit’s title shows that Arnulf Rainer, a 76-year-old Austrian surrealist, is ready to jest. The works, which date from 1975 to the present, include playfully chaotic finger-paintings and inventively colourful photographs. “Faces and Farces” features photographs of a man making silly faces, with cartoonish drawings on top.

Manipulated photographs from Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, amplify the landscape’s vitality; the best have streaks of colour cutting across the bow of a ship. Four Übermalung paintings are the most serious of the bunch, and make for a poignant counterpoint to the rest of the exhibit.

Muca Roma, Tonala 51, corner of Colima, Colonia Roma. Tel: +52 (0) 55 5511 0925. Open: Mon-Tues 10am-7pm; Sat-Sun 10am-6pm. Free admission. See the museum's website for more information.

More from the Mexico City cultural calendar