The Narco News Bulletin
"The name
of our country is América"
-- Simón
Bolívar
US POLLSTERS
DRAW FIRE FOR HIDING $OURCES
Editorial
of El Universal, Mexico City, June 20, 2000
Hidden
and Suspicious Sponsorship
With
the goal of conducting exit polls, also known as rapid counts,
in the imminent Mexican electoral process, a man by the name
of Douglas E. Shoen is found in Mexico: director, and it would
seem, co-owner of the firm Penn, Shoen and Berland, dedicated
to this type of election polling.
Mr. Shoen sustains that the
only interest behind his activity is that the elections of July
2 will be democratic and their results respected. The fact that
a foreign firm comes to our country to conduct a rapid count
doesn't have any particular significance, except for the fact
that Mr. Shoen denies to reveal who is financing the work that
he wants to realize this coming July 2nd on Mexican soil.
About the hidden sponsers of
his work, Shoen limits himself to say that it is a "plural
and representative group of Mexican society, including businessmen
who are interested in that there by trustable results on July
2nd. According to the other partner of Shoen, Rob Allyn, the
sponsors of the study "asked that their names remain secret,
in order to guarantee the independence of the project and also
avoid possible reprisals by the Mexican government."
Thus, Misters Shoen and Allyn
say they are interested that the results of the elections of
July 2nd are democratic, that is to say, clean and transparent.
But they refuse to make transparent the source of the money that
pays for their work.
Why the mystery? Is it to protect
the sponsors from possible reprisals of the Mexican government?
This sounds like a poor excuse that Mexican society cannot swallow.
In Mexico many polls with diverse results and with self-identified
sponsors have been made. And what has been the problem? To the
contrary, public opinion knows who to look out for.
The hidden financiers are, precisely
due to their dark character, the source of suspicions over the
real objective of the political job they contract. Are there
pretensions of foreign influence in the affairs that are exclusively
of the Mexican people? Are there destabilizing motives by forces
that seek to subvert the legal order that we the Mexicans have
given ourselves? Is there a goal of substituting the functions
of authority by foreigners or by hidden Mexican nationals? Is
this simply about a provocation? Is there dirty money that comes
from illicit activities?
With all these grave conjectures
Shoen and his partners refuse to identify their financing sources.
And before such an unjustified and suspicious refusal, it touches
upon the electoral authority, the Federal Elections Institute
(IFE) to take a role in the matter. Not to impede Shoen and his
partners from doing their job, but rather to demand of them,
in agreement with the legal norms active in Mexico, that they
clear up who pays them. Those who live or work in our country
have the obligation to respect Mexican law. As any foreigner
has to abide by the legal mark of the country where he finds
himself.
Welcome to the foreign pollsters
and observation. But welcome always and when they proceed according
to the law and don't try to mock it with excuses that are so
incredible and suspicious.
We at
Narco News Tried to Warn Them Once
Who
is funding the US political consultants in Mexico?
And
what are they hiding?
Fobaproa
Money?
Drug
Money?
There Is No Path
to Transparency.
Transparency Is
the Path.