Fake Newspapers Circulated Against PRD Candidate
(Acapulco, JG 20 January) In either an incredibly bold or astoundingly stupid move, supporters of PRI candidate Miguel Añorve circulated counterfeit front pages of La Jornada Guerrero, a local newspaper that has endorsed opposition candidate Ángel Aguirre Rivero. Hundreds of the papers with the false front page were circulated in the commercial areas along the Avenida Cuauhtémoc. The headline read “Ángel Aguirre Loses the Debate,” and it carried a photo of the candidate with his head lowered. The article says that Aguirre has fallen heavily in the polls and that citizens acknowledge that he made no realistic campaign proposals.
Simultaneous distributions were made in Acapulco, Chilpancingo, Iguala, Taxco and Costa Grande. A video about the phony newspaper has been uploaded to http://www.agoraguerrero.com showing the red Chevy and the perpetrators distributing the papers around 1 am in the center of Acapulco.
The newspaper has called for a criminal investigation and is preparing legal action against the perpetrators. Other than the fake lead story, the front page is a clone of the publication’s January 9 edition. In the 2008 election for mayor of Acapulco, a similar stunt was tried, also in favor of then-candidate Manuel Añorve. On that occasion the false newspaper was El Sur, and it announced that opposition candidate Luis Walton had withdrawn from his campaign.
Not surprisingly, candidate Añorve is careful to distance himself from any such “dirty tricks.” He said, “This is something that needs to be investigated to the bottom.” When asked by the press what role his campaign played in the distribution of the false newspaper, Añorve replied, “No, we had nothing to do with it. This is the first we have heard about it. I do not know anything yet, and I have not even had a copy in my hands.” When asked his opinion, Añorve said “I have no knowledge of the incident and it should be fully investigated.”
Candidate Aguirre, on the other hand, said the phony newspaper story was another example of the “dirty war” being waged by the PRI and his opponent, Añorve Baños.
It was former PRD mayor Alberto López Rosas who recalled that the Añorve campaign had been accused of the same tactic in 2008, three days before the election of mayor, when Luis Walton of Convergencia was the principal opponent.
The national leader of the PRD, Jesús Ortega Martínez, discredited the strategy of false news publications as “grotesque and ridiculous strategies used by the PRI to hijack the election in Guerrero next January 30.” He said the crude imitation was pathetic, but that the crime was serious. He said that the Añorve team is desperate because they are 7 points behind in the polls.
