Buenas Noticias desde MexicoMaimon Schwarzschild

Election results – and very good news – from Mexico.  It hasn’t received much coverage in the US, but San Diego’s neighbour in Mexico, Tijuana, and the State of Baja California just elected a new mayor and a new state governor: in both cases, the PAN candidate won handily.  The PAN is Mexico’s most free-market, least anti-American, and least corrupt party.  It’s the party of the new President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, elected last year over the stridently anti-American leftist A. M. Lopez Obrador.

The Baja California governor’s race was between the PAN candidate, J. G. Osuna Millan, and the outgoing mayor of Tijuana, Jorge Hank Rhon – a billionaire demagogue with shady connections and more than an air of corruption.  Osuna won by 50% to 43% – a very good and convincing margin.  As a bonus, the PAN recaptured Tijuana City Hall as well.

This is good news for Tijuana, for Baja California, and for President Calderon.  More broadly, it is good news for Mexico and for its neighbour to the north.  Mexico has long been impoverished by its corrupt public institutions.  Hence both Mexico’s tradition of anti-American demagoguery, and its vast outflow of emigrants, mostly illegal, into the United States.  The PAN successes give hope for something better in Mexico.