Are We In A Quagmire?

living.boondockingmexico@yahoo.com

The last few months have been brutal to democracy.  On June 1st, there was a public vote for 800 district and Supreme court judges.  Do you know how many countries have a public vote for Supreme Court judges?  None. The candidates were chosen from a tombola.  The requirements were minimum to say the least; a law degree, five years of practice, and a minimum GPA of 8.  To ensure that a certain party won all the slots, accordions were passed out the week before telling people who to vote for in their district along with the Supreme Court justices.  An accordion is a cheat sheet.  

80% of the vote matched the cheat sheets, ballots were not folded, indicating that they were not true votes and never inserted into the urns, ballots were marked with the same handwriting, voting polls with 100% or more participation, voting polls that were open for up to 29 hours versus eight hours.  Since then, 29 of the winning judges have had their votes nullified for corruption, extortion, or involvement with the drug trade.  So much for the judicial system. 

There has been talk of militarization.  It has already begun. For example, the armed forces are now in charge of distributing vaccines and school textbooks, building publicly owned hospitals, banks, highways, stadiums, and hotels, as well as infrastructure projects that are key for administration, including Mexico City’s new airport and a tourist train in the south. The military is also responsible for administering the new publicly owned airline (which still only has five aircraft and many flights have only had one passenger. These are 737-800 aircraft) and for policing airports and customs areas. The army’s budget has doubled since 2018 and is now more than three times that of the Health Ministry.

The worst news became public last Friday.  Happy 4th of July!  Many of you are temporary or permanent residents and, like all Mexicans much have a Clave Unica de Registro de Poblacion.  It is a requirement for all Mexican residents.  BTW, you need to have the latest printed and on hand at all times, signed by the Secretaria de Gobernacion.  That position has had a personnel chang three times in the last seven years.  If it doesn't have the latest Secretria name on it, it is not valid.

Anyway, the constitution was changed last week to require that the above document be digitalized.  That means we will all now be part of a biometric system that includes facial recognition, fingerprints and more.  Here is the list:

Personal Information:

Full name (first and last name)

Date of birth

Place of birth (state)

Sex or gender

Nationality

Biometric data:

Digital photograph

Fingerprints

Iris scan (possibly)

Security features:

Electronic signature

Barcode or QR code

Security features to validate authenticity

The law was passed, and then an important clause was changed after voting.  Before the vote, a judge would be required to authorize the use of the information before an investigation or arrest was made.  This could be for many violations, including those at a highway checkpoint, immigration and more.  That clause was removed after the vote and now no authorization is required.   This is a serious change.  So seriously, that I booked a couple of flights for next month on VivaAerobus to Queretaro and San Antonio, TX.  I received an email after booking asking me if I wanted to use facial recognition to avoid an in-person check-in. 

Some good news on the border front.  Arrests by the U.S. Border Patrol have been reduced by 93% because of action taken by the U.S. There are no more caravans traveling through Mexico.  Those caravans were filled with a variety of undesirable people, including criminals, people who have obtained legal residency in other countries but were looking for a free ride to the U.S. 

The border is still very dangerous, and Nuevo León has created a workaround to help avoid some of the cartel trouble via the Colombia Bridge.  They have created a connection from the Monterrey-Nuevo Laredo highway to what is now called La Gloria.  A bypass which will avoid the necessity to use Hwy 2 from Colombia back to Nuevo Laredo and then to the autopista Monterrey/Saltillo.  

Military and Guardia Nacional checkpoints have become very spotty.  They are now going through personal belongings, including wallets and purses, asking for the amount of money one is carrying and in many cases stealing money or items from vehicles.  The most recent atrocity was a guy who had a U.S. prescription for Viagra along with the pills.  The prescription means nothing here and is considered a federal crime.  The military threatened to jail the man in Mexico City if he didn't pay 1 million pesos.  He resisted for hours, and finally they gave up taking what money he had in his wallet.  Oh, and the confiscated Viagra was thrown back into the owner's car.  

Abrazos no balazos and primero los pobres.