The struggle of the National hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets
2016 2016-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 12 →
The words are the paper's own, from its digital file; the division into articles was made by machine, so a box or caption can end up inside the article next to it.
Scan page 12
12 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 2016 José López Portillo apologized to the poor for having been unable to eliminate their misery.
Why did Peña Nieto apologize? All the critical analy ses agree in pointing to the terribly disastrous results of last June, in which, among other losses, the PRI [Peña Nieto’s party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party] lost several governorships in states where it is traditionally dominant. The tremor that made itself felt in the highest circles—and the first victim—was the powerful president of the PRI, Manlio Fabio Bel trones, who had to resign immediately, thus removing himself as a possible successor for Peña Nieto in 2018.
In that defeat, which seemed more like an electoral massacre, Beltrones himself recognized that the PRI was paying for what the Peña Nieto government had done. And indeed, since 2004 the popularity and pub lic approval of the actions of the president have plum meted, surpassing the record popularity drop of the previous PAN [National Action Party] government of Felipe Calderón. In fact, the electoral defeat cannot be separated from the decisive defeat of the policy of structural reforms that has been the hallmark of the Peña Nieto government—a defeat that even bour geois groups recognize, including some leaders of the Catholic Church.
A year and a half passed between November 2014 and the “humble apology.” Much will have been dis cussed in the president’s inner circle that this man would decide to bend his arrogance before a nation that had turned its back on his overwhelming major ity—if we pay attention to the “popularity” polls so