Mexican Elections - July 2012

The Progressives are mostly your typical Latin American left wing populist, with some more modern types, like Mexico City candidate for Mayor, Miguel Mancera.
AMLO has been compared with Chávez by his foes. I don't think he's THAT bad. But he's certainly no Lula da Silva.

PAN is your typical right-wing Catholic party with minorities of "liberals" (in the European sense of the word) and US style economic conservatives.

The difficult party to explain is the PRI.
It has the best minds and the most corrupt politicians.
It had a "nationalist-revolutionary" ideology until it caught on with the economic liberalization and globalization of the 80s. And both currents concur in the party.
It is also a web of interest groups: from unions and peasant organizations, to local organizers to business groups.
I'd say Peña Nieto is more tied to big business interest groups and Paredes more the classical nationalist-revolutionary. But the key with them is that you can never be sure of their moves: they are primarily pragmatic political beasts that clinge to power.

Ok, now we're less than a week from election day.

The 2nd presidential debate was boring. Conservative Vázquez Mota won by a small margin, according to polls, but it didn't help her much.
There was also a 2nd debate among candidates for Mexico City. It was even more boring.
... and a 3rd presidential debate, organized by the Anti-Peña group of "I am Number 132". Peña Nieto did not attend. It was transmitted on the web. The format was nice, but the debate, irrelevant.

AMLO is asking all anti-PRI voters to vote for him, since Vázquez Mota is lost. And he insists he'll win, pending fraud.
The polls say otherwise.
Even AMLO's pollster came out today with this data:
Peña 41%, AMLO 30%, Vázquez Mota 25%, Quadri 4%
Consulta-Mitofsky's poll is even tougher:
Peña 45%, AMLO 29%, Vázquez Mota 24%, Quadri 2%

It seems a given thing. But AMLO's attitude has helped make a lot of people to want to go vote. Either for him or against him.

A big thing that is coming out of this election is that Mexico City is, by a huge margin, a political outlier in the country.
Not only the Progressives have an incredible lead in the polls, with Mancera 70%, Paredes (PRI) 20%, Miranda de Wallace (PAN) 10%, Guerra (New Alliance) 1%, also AMLO's lead in the Presidential race is astonishing: he's over 30 percentage points above Peña Nieto and conservative Vázquez Mota draws only 12% of the capital city vote.

There are other races for governor and, according to the polls:
PAN will keep Guanajuato, in Central Mexico
PAN will lose Jalisco (an important state, whose capital is Guadalajara) to PRI and Morelos to either PRI or PRD
PRD will lose Chiapas (a poor state with huge indigenous population, border with Guatemala) to PRI
PRI will retain Yucatán (in the Peninsula) and is in a lock with PRD in Tabasco (also Southeast). AMLO is from Tabasco.

Finally, I have decided my votes.

I'll vote for Peña in the Presidential race, marking my ballot for PRI and not for the "Greens", which I abhorr.

I'll annull my vote for the Senate. The Greens, allied with PRI, placed in their top spots spokespersons of the television duopoly. PAN has many Calderonistas. PRD many radicals. Panal, many relatives of the Teachers' Union leader.

I'll vote for the Progressives for the lower chamber of Congress. I don't want PRI to have an absolute majority.

I'll vote for Mancera (Progresssives) for Mexico City mayor.

I'll vote for Errasti (PAN) for "borough mayor". I am happy with past PAN administrations in the local level. And I used to live in a PRD stonghold: much worse services.

I'll annull my vote for the Mexico City Legislature. Don't want to fatten PRD's landslide, PRI has horrible candidates, PAN is pro-life and anti-gay marriage, New Alliance... well my wife chose to dump her vote there but I don't want anything with the Teachers' Union.

Very complicated, but I see your reasoning, not that I really understand a lot.

Polls are about to close in the last Western State, Baja California.

Exit polls so far tell a good story for PRI and the Progressives, a terrible one for the Conservatives.

Mexico City Mayor.
Mancera 60-61% (Progressives), Paredes (PRI-"Greens"), 21-23%, Miranda de Wallasce (PAN), 14-*15%, Guerra (New Alliance): 2-3%

Governor of Jalisco:
Sandoval (PRI), Alfaro (Citizens Movement, left) 33%, PAN (incumbent): 17%

Governor of Chiapas
Green-PRI: 58%, Progressives (incumbent) 23%, PAN 12%

Governor of Morelos
Progressives 41%, PRI-Green 37%, PAN (incumbent) 20%

Governor of Yucatán
PRI (incumbent) 58%, PAN 33%, Progressives 8%, New Alliance 2%

Governor of Guanajuato
PAN (incumbent) 45%, PRI-Green 37%, 3 leftist parties: 16%, 1% and 1%

Rumor says Peña Nieto has a 10 point lead over López Obrador.

First National Exit Poll:

Enrique Peña Nieto 42%
Andrés Manuel López Obrador 31%
Josefina Vázquez Mota 23%
Gabriel Quadri 4%

Do they have a run off if no 50+ percent?

Nope. Peña Nieto is virtually President Elect

Other exit polls put Peña between 40-42, AMLO, 30-33, Vázquez Mota 23-25, Quadri 3-5

Live results (in English!):

http://www.google.com.mx/elections/ed/mx/results

Corny, but democratic, concession speech by Vázquez Mota.

We'll wait for AMLO sore-loser. We may wait long.

There was one radio station here in San Diego that heavily promoted Josefina Vazquez Mota (it was an U.S. station) and appealed to the Mexicans living in the U.S. to cross the border and vote for her.

Enrique Pena has had a good reputation as governor, he did a lot for the infrastructure and healthcare system, built many hospitals and vouched to
address the drug problem from a different angle. Sounds good, but time will
tell if he's able to turn around the crime rate.

Results are in:

Peña Nieto 38.5%
AMLO 31.5%
Vázquez Mota 25.6%
Quadri 2.4%
Null votes 2.0%

Do you expect any improvements from the new government?

I'll put it this way.
Suppose that in Peña's government:

*There are 30 000 deaths because of the drug war
*The economy slumps and growth is 3% annually
*Only 1 million formal jobs are created every year, instead of the 1.5 million needed
*Income distribution stays as bad as it is.

In that case, Peña can claim he halved the number of deaths, helped the economy and job creation to grow 50% faster and stopped the growing social disparity.

---
That's how bad Calderón was.
Only diehard panistas thought their party had any chance of finishing but in third place.

----

I live in a conservative middle class neighborhood of Mexico City,
Even in the old days of so-called "one-party" rule, PAN won handily the precincts, with nearly 60% of the vote.
Fox got 66% in 2000; Calderón got 70% in 2006. Yesterday Vázquez Mota got a bare 42% majority.

Imagine the Democrats having 42% in Washington D.C. or downtown Detroit. Imagine the Republicans getting 42% in rural Alabama.

And something happened that I would hardly have imagined. The left wing's Mancera won the race for mayor even here. He was 20 percentage points above the PAN's lousy candidate, Mrs. Wallace.

The tight race for governor of Tabasco has been won by PRD.

As expected, AMLO will contest the results... and throw away in the process a big part of the political capital gained by the left in the elections.

i do appreciate your post, FB. You and I might be unique in having an interest in this.

Here is a good video summarizing these elections:

"Elected Mexican president to bring peace or corruption?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDtf8qx_r38&feature=youtu.be

What do you think of the outcome, fbaezer? Good for Mexico? Not good? Too hard to call?

I feel positive of the outcome. During the campaign I was afraid of a PRI landslide.

The most important thing is that PRI did not get a majority in either chamber of Congress. They'll have to negotiate. This pushes back the spectrum of "an imperial presidency", much of the like of old priistas. It makes it difficult to return to the "old regime", even if there is the temptation in the incoming government.

I think Peña Nieto will do better than Calderón in both the economy and security (as I posted before, this is not very difficult). I also think that our traditional (1930s-1990s) foreign policy will help put Mexico back in the place in the world it had before the advent of the "drug war". Peña Nieto will be partner with the US, but will not lick the boots of American interests the way Calderón did.
My main preoccupation is about the authoritarian knack of the PRI. There will be loads of propaganda, and lots of concessions to the big TV duopoly. But I think Mexican society will not tolerate it.

The key to the future, IMHO, depends on what the left does with the result. If they decide to follow Lopez Obrador's tantrums, and radicalize, they'll leave the ground for a very pro-business PRI-PAN entente, when this country needs more economic equality. If the left behaves "institutionally" (as we say), it will clearly position itself as the main opposition to Peña Nieto and a reliable option for future national governments. The attitude of the moderate leftists is important. So far, the (left wing) governor of Oaxaca has declared he will collaborate with president Peña. The mayor elect of Mexico City declared that wil also collaborate with him "pending the definitive result of the election". If they manage to isolate AMLO and his cronies, they'll do both Mexico and Mexico's left a big favor. Not an easy task, though.

Finally, I am very happy Calderón had his comeuppance.