Cynthia’s stepsister has eyes on her

-Cynthia’s stepsister has eyes on her

-They are shouting in Juarez… but for starvation wages

-Court and reform put institutions to the test

-The state PAN threatens alliance with Marko

The return of municipal lands irregularly sold by the administration of Cynthia Ceballos in Nuevo Casas Grandes, put the spotlight on the mayor who took the place of the current inmate of the Aquiles Serdán women’s prison, her stepsister Edith Escárcega Escontrías.

While the former mayor remains in prison, last week the anti-corruption prosecutor, Abelardo Valenzuela, went to formally hand over to the NCG city council the land recovered for municipal assets, which had been sold by the Ceballos administration, but without the corresponding legal process and without the resources entering the municipal coffers.

It is assumed that the recovery of the land is a step forward in the criminal proceedings against the former mayor; some progress also in the reparation of the damage and perhaps even in the possible release of Ceballos Delgado, who has just completed 10 months in prison and two failed attempts to regain his freedom.

The former mayor once had hopes of returning to office thanks to those attempts to surprise her lawyers, who are, incidentally, former officials of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. Now she no longer has the chance, given that her substitute was already elected as the incumbent in the last elections.

The process that follows, therefore, does not have as many eyes on it as those of its successor, who, having legally received the recovered lands, due to having been sold irregularly, now has the responsibility of recovering them materially for her municipality.

Even if the properties have improvements, buildings, equipment, they must be incorporated back into the municipal assets in accordance with the law, but since there are many interests at stake in the small town, there is certainly expectation to see how the president proceeds.

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Until six months ago, the average salary recorded by the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) was growing at a rate of between seven and eight pesos per month, regardless of the sharp loss of jobs that Chihuahua has experienced in the last year.

The growth rate then fell to 30 cents a month, a dramatic drop which, combined with still very high inflation and the high cost of credit, has meant that salaries are only enough to cover less and less until the Tuesday sales at supermarkets.

This is the epidemic of starvation wages that has begun to spread, especially in border states such as Chihuahua, which have been caught in a wave of uncertainty due to factors that have caused a slowdown in economic growth.

The border is caught up, specifically, in the historic transition between Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum and the elections in the United States, which pose the dilemma between the already Republican president Donald Trump and the Democratic vice president, Kamala Harris.

The new political system that Mexico is introducing, mainly with the judicial reform, is breaking the known balances in which national and foreign investors were relatively comfortable; added to this are the risks that the electoral processes of its main neighbor and commercial partner represent for the country.

The unknown creates instability, which is why the situation in the private sector has worsened, with the loss of around 60 thousand jobs this year in the manufacturing industry alone, due to the withdrawal of investments that seek stability.

Although the exchange rate has held up, with volatility that could take the dollar between 18 and 22 Mexican pesos, the signals we have before us anticipate at least another 10 or 12 months of losses in investments, jobs, productivity and salaries.

While Sheinbaum’s change and her overwhelming majority in the legislative chambers and state governments are absorbed, we will have to see and face, at the very least, those long-lasting and high-impact effects on the standard of living of citizens.

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Starting this week, when the judicial reform takes effect, the country’s institutional resistance will be put to the test, since the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation and the minority political forces will not sit idly by in the face of the promulgation of one of the greatest constitutional changes of recent centuries.

In less than 24 hours, 16 state congresses approved the draft decree of the Senate of the Republic and the Chamber of Deputies, to complete the necessary majority in just over a day.

However, from Chihuahua, PAN deputies coordinated by Alfredo Chávez, with their allies from the PRI and surely Movimiento Ciudadano, stopped the vote on the document and announced that they will launch an action of unconstitutionality against the reform, with the allegation that since the legislative procedure there were suspensions, through amparo trials, not complied with by federal deputies or senators.

At the same time, the presiding judge of the State Superior Court of Justice, Myriam Hernández, took the lead in the defense of the state judicial apparatus, which will also seek its legal avenues to attack the reform promoted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

But Chihuahua’s institutions will not be the only ones offended that seek to stop the application of the new provisions, with impacts from lower-level judges to the ministers of the country’s highest court. Other entities, through their legislatures and local courts, are also preparing their battery of legal defense, which will perhaps lead to one of the main territorial disputes that Claudia Sheinbaum faces.

Therefore, the possibility that the dispute will have to be settled by international arbitration is not far off. And if it goes to courts outside the country, there would be a lot to wait; they are slower than federal courts in times of strikes, such as those we are currently experiencing.

Therefore, the institutional resistance of the Mexican state will be put to the test, which, we would like to assume, is much stronger than that of Venezuela, just to say the least.

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The depressing performance of the national leader of the PAN, Marko Cortés, in the face of the Morena steamroller that has run over him several times since the elections, has placed him as one of the unpresentable leaders of the opposition in Mexico.

When everyone expected that Adán Augusto López from the Senate of the Republic and the National Palace would defeat some tricolor from the bench led by Alejandro “Alito” Moreno to pass the judicial reform, it was Cortés’ group that was affected by the move of Miguel Ángel Yunes, father and son, who were elevated by agreements with the national leader, who looks more ridiculous the more he says he is betrayed.

After the reform, rumors began to circulate that the Yunes betrayal is not the only tragedy that the national PAN is suffering. There is even talk of a fragmentation of the PAN mini-bench, due to the lack of leadership and direction of Cortés, which would lead one or several PAN senators to leave for Movimiento Ciudadano.

The national leader of the PAN is in these conditions, and yet the main current of PANism in Chihuahua insists on maintaining the alliance and support for the outgoing president of the party, who also snatched up the first multi-party position in the Senate to guarantee himself six more years on the public payroll.

PAN members in the state have noticed that options other than Marko’s continuity, such as former senator Adriana Dávila who is around the country fighting for her own, are blocked while waiting for an official line to elect the new leadership.

That indestructible alliance with the unpresentable senator has become a risk for the unity of the PAN in Chihuahua, we are assured from the Albiazul bases.