On Oct. 20 Raul Ojeda Zubieta, center-left candidate for governor of the southern Mexican state of Tabasco, charged in a press conference that Andres Granier Melo, candidate for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), had won in the Oct. 14 state election through the "manipulation and addition" of 89,689 votes. Demanding a recount, Ojeda said that in addition to buying votes and stuffing ballot boxes, the PRI had conspired with other parties, principally the center-right National Action Party (PAN), to shift votes from their candidates to Granier to give him his margin of victory. (La Jornada, Oct. 21)

The state leader of the Chiapas branch of the Independent Center of Campesinos and Rural Workers (CIOAC), Luis Hernandez Cruz, told a march of some 15,000 followers in the state capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez, that if the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TRIFE) overturns the victory of leftist gubernatorial candidate Juan Sabines Guerrero, there will be a "social explosion" throughout Chiapas, similar to that in Oaxaca. (APRO, Oct. 18)

Gunmen shot two people at a roadblock in Oaxaca City Oct. 14, killing one. The assailants fired at protesters at a street barricade in the predawn darkness, hitting one in the head and another in the arm, according to activists. The victim with the head wound died later in the hospital. The shooting began after strikers refused to let two apparently drunk men in a vehicle pass across an occupied street, according to the state government. (Reuters, Oct. 14) A report in La Jornada identified the victim as Alejandro Garcia Hernandez, and said the killers were military troops in civilian clothes. (La Jornada, Oct. 15) El Universal identified the attackers merel as "drunken men leaving a bar." (El Universal, Oct. 15) AP reported Oct. 15 that a soldier has been arrested in the incident, but blames the shooting on a "drunken argument." (AP, Oct. 15) Noticias de Oaxaca noted a similar incident of gunfire on protesters Oct. 12, saying the attackers were state police and "porros" (paid provocateurs). (Noticias de Oaxaca, Oct. 12)

Federal legislators from the ruling National Action Party (PAN) say they are determined to revive plans to build a mega-airport for Mexico City in Texcoco, despite the militant opposition of the farmers at the conflicted village of San Salvador Atenco, whose lands would be seized for the project.

Especially given the contested presidential elections and the seizure of popular power in Oaxaca—both potential threats to Mexico's ruling elites—it is ominous indeed to see the evident emergence of Colombia-style death squads linked to the drug trade and (we can assume) elements of the security forces. From Reuters, Oct. 8:

Mexican rebel leader Subcommander Marcos is remaking himself as a writer of political pulp fiction in collaboration with famed crime thriller scribe Paco Ignacio Taibo II. Interesting how a genre that generally plays to the law-and-order right in Gringolandia plays to the revolutionary left in Mexico, where the political elite is more overtly criminal. The new tome, The Uncomfortable Dead also has an all-too-plausibe theory about who the man really is in those relentless Osama bin Laden videos. Is this really political satire, or do Marcos and Taibo know something we don't? A book review by Patrick Anderson, "Marx Brothers Marxists," from the Washington Post, Oct. 2:

Revolution or Populist Theater?

by Dan La Botz, Mexican Labor News & Analysis

Two months after Mexico's contested July 2 presidential elections, the Federal Electoral Tribunal recognized Felipe Calderón as president-elect, while a massive National Democratic Convention has proclaimed Andrés Manuel López Obrador to be the "legitimate president of Mexico." He is now creating an alternative government, and says he will call a constituent assembly that will write a new constitution. What is happening here? Is this a radical fight for reforms? A potentially revolutionary movement? Or a spectacular piece of populist theater?

From CBC, Sept. 21:

A North American security meeting was secretly held in Banff last week, attracting high-profile officials from the United States, Mexico and Canada.