Commentary: School for Scandal

There are lots of losers coming out of last week's Baja California gubernatorial election.

One is the foreign press, who can no longer punch up their prose courtesy of a billionaire gambling tycoon with questionable ties, an apparent history of exotic-animal smuggling, an unmistakable stench of corruption, and a penchant for quaffing liquid blends of animal members, rattlesnakes, scorpions and other protein sources.

Another is Jorge Hank Rhon himself, scion of a once-feared political clan whose patriarch, the late Carlos Hank González, famously summarized seven decades of PRI rule with the immortal words: "A politician who is poor is a poor politician." Jorge Hank managed to ride his own wealth, abundant connections and intimidating presence to the top of Tijuana's municipal government, but fell a full 7 percentage points short of the Baja California governorship on August 5.

A third loser is Roberto Madrazo, the Godfather-voiced PRI dinosaur whose personal political career ended on July 2, 2006 with his party's disastrous election performance. Madrazo was singularly responsible for the calamity, first as party head and then as presidential candidate. Now even a behind-the-scenes role seems out of his reach, given that his gallo, Jorge Hank, with whom the fatherless Madrazo literally grew up, has gone down.

Even before the 2006 debacle, Madrazo had promoted Jorge's brother Carlos Hank for the PRI candidacy in the 2005 State of Mexico governor's race. He struck out there as well when outgoing governor Arturo Montiel managed to secure the nomination for his protégé Enrique Peña Nieto. Thanks to an embarrassingly incompetent campaign by PAN candidate Rubén Mendoza Ayala, and an unseemly personal smearing of the PRD's Yeidckol Palevnsky, Peña Nieto won handily. His name frequently comes up now as a likely presidential candidate in 2012, an election that the PRI, despite everything, may be in a very good position to win.

Yet another loser: The good people of Baja California, who were subjected to another idea-free farce of an election. Hank used his residual control of the Tijuana police department to prevent PAN get-out-the-voters from operating in that largest of BC cities, while the PAN, in the words of one prominent public opinion analyst, waged a campaign that "was heavy-handed enough to have possibly crossed some electoral law lines."

Governor-elect José Guadalupe Osuna Millán was also able to use the preferred PAN technique of emphasizing security and his rival's threat to it. Unlike the Calderón 2006 presidential campaign, however, he didn't have to resort to lies about his opponent in order to stoke the fear. All he had to do was let Hank be Hank.

The big winner? No contest. It's Elba Esther Gordillo, the Dragon Lady of caricatures and head of the huge teachers union who recently had herself appointed leader for life (or, as later "clarified" under pressure, until 2012, whichever comes first). After splitting from the PRI over a nasty feud with Madrazo, Gordillo threw her weight behind Calderón in 2006. Given his miniscule margin of victory, hers was no small contribution, and she hasn't been shy about calling in her chits with the new president ever since.

Gordillo worked behind the scenes for Osuna in Baja California, inspired perhaps not just by her new pro-PAN leanings but also by another chance to hurt Madrazo, via Hank. In the final days of the campaign, when it looked likely that Osuna would win, Gordillo flexed her muscles and went off on Calderón's education secretary, Josefina Vázquez Mota. "Josefina doesn't know anything about education," Gordillo told El Universal. "The only one who knows is me."

That sounded for all the world like an open challenge, implying that Gordillo expects to be Calderón's top education adviser, officially or unofficially. The irony behind the gambit is that the quality of Mexican public education is notoriously poor not because of finances (per capita education spending in Mexico is well above the Latin American average) but precisely because of the attitude of the union-controlled teachers.

"Time and again they oppose new textbooks, different content, program changes, or pedagogic innovations," writes Sara Sefchovich, an author and sociologist. "The union and the bureaucracy are the principal obstacle to improving education in this country."

Elba Esther's bold, unelected claim to power doesn't make Calderón look good. It's one thing for him to be seen as beholden to the nation's big business interests; he is, after all, ideologically pledged to support them. But to appear in thrall to an openly manipulative union boss is retro at best, and threatens to confirm many of the accusations of Calderón's political enemies. The president would do well to tell Gordillo where to get off, but don't count on it happening. For my money Vázquez Mota herself is more likely to do it than he is.