Mexican elections 2018

The Presidential candidates, and their coalitions are in, even if they are formally pre-candidates.
This will take a little explaining, though, since things aren't exactly black & white here.

Presidential (pre)candidates:

Ricardo Anaya, 38, will be the candidate of "Mexico to the Front", or coloquially, El Frente, a coalition of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), the left wing, (left-of-center in Latin American terms) Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the left-of-center, very opportunistic Citizens Movement Party (MC).

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, 64, will be candidate of "Together we'll Make History", a coalition of his left-Populist-Nationalist party National Regeneration Movement (Morena), the left-wing, maoist, pro-North Korea, Workers' Party (PT) and the extreme right-wing, Christian Evangelical Social Encounter Party (PES).

José Antonio Meade, 48, will be the candidate of the yet unnamed coalition of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), originally left-of-center and authoritarian, now more driven by corruption than anything else, the right wing Green Party (PVEM) which has been expelled from the Global Greens, since it supports the death penalty, among other things, and the New Alliance Party (Panal), a political vehicle for the strong Teacher's Union.
Meade is what you'd considered the incumbent, since the party in power is PRI, and there is no reelection.


As you see: 9 parties and 3 candidates. All coalitions are ideologically transversal.

None of the candidates will come out of primaries. Meade was handpicked by president Peña Nieto; López Obrador practically owns his party and has been campaigning since 2006; Anaya was given priority in the Front by the leaders of the 3 parties, even if left-of-center Mexico City's mayor, Miguel Mancera, tried to have a different kind of process.

Aditionally, there's a chance we'll have one or more independent Presidential candidates. They have to gather about 866,000 signatures from registered voters, and at least 1% of the list in at least 17 states. The process has been going on for about 2 months. They have until February 19 to gather the necessary signatures.
As of today, these are the more important independent wannabes:

Jaime Rodríguez, El Bronco, 59, governor of the industrial state of Nuevo León. El Bronco, a former member of the PRI, is the first Mexican politician to win a governorship as an independent, in almost a century. I would classify him as a "Northern Populist". He has already collected the 800K+ signatures, but is lagging in getting the 1% in 17 states, since his force is mostly from his home state.

Margarita Zavala, 50, former first lady -she's married to former president Felipe Calderón-, she left PAN, the Conservative party, mostly because of her disagreement with Anaya's strategy of having an alliance with the left wing parties. She has leverage in Catholic strongholds in Central Mexico. She is on target to get the 800K+ signatures, but it's unlikely she'll get the 17 states.

Armando Ríos Píter, El Jaguar, 44, left wing Senator for Guerrero, broke with PRD about a year ago. He's strong in the South, but is lagging.

Marichuy Patricio, 54, a Nahuatl "native-Mexican", Human-Rights and Indigenous Peoples activist, propelled by the EZLN, the left-wing former guerrilla movement that appeared in Chiapas in 1994. She's in 4th place in signatures among independent wannabes.

A vocal independent candidate who faded is Pedro Ferriz, a right-wing radio host, sort of a Mexican Rush Limbaugh. He's now in 6th place, behind an unknown professor.




Complicated, isn't it?

I will be following the thread.

As you can see from this Mitofsky poll, things start quite tight, with López Obrador ahead (as usual).
The poll was before he announced the alliance with the right wing PES party.

Usually, in Mexican elections, 3 candidates start strong, and one fades during the campaign.

can you discuss the major issues this cycle?

Am I missing something? I can't make heads or tails over the two separate dates. Is the July date like our primary? What exact process formally starts today?

The July date is Election Date

The process that starts is like your primaries. But, since each coalition has only one candidate, it is like if the Presidential campaign itself starts today.

The only primary I am certain about is for the Front candidate for Mexico City's Chief of Government. I'll write about them later.

*following

The 3 big issues are: economics, security and corruption.

Economics:
Meade (PRI) is a pro-business economist, he has been Secretary of Treasury and Finance in both Calderón's (PAN) and Peña Nieto's (PRI) governments, plus some other important posts. The PRI campaign will be about macroeconomic stability, low inflation, job creation, and Meade is certainly the man to give confidence to markets.
Anaya (Front) will have to yield to some of the left's economic issues: bad income distribution, mainly. The Front has already promised a small guaranteed income for every Mexican. PAN party is more pro-business than PRI, but it has to move to the left if the Front wants to keep the votes of the PRD sympathizers, who favor taxing the rich.
AMLO (Morena) has promised no more taxes, more spending and zero deficit. The savings will come out of blocking corruption. The math doesn't work, but it doesn't matter. He has also promised huge infrastructure investments, doubling pensions, and a guaranteed income for young people who don't work or study.

On security:
PRI plans on keeping the bloody ongoing war against the cartels, and giving the Army a legal shield to act as a police force. It is backed on this by PAN's right wing (closer to Margarita Zavala than the Front)
The Front says that the strategy does not work and is costly in lives, but has not gone beyond that (since PAN were the original creators of the war against drugs), while PRD favors drug legalization and more intelligence work against money laundering.
AMLO has proposed an amnesty to criminals who repent, and this proposal has been heavily critisized by the other coalitions and mainstream media.

On corruption:
Meade (PRI) wasn't even able to say "yes" to the question (asked by Spanish newspaper El País), about whether he was going to prosecute present government officials accused of corruption. "We should move to a context in which that question is no longer valid", he answered. He's personally known as an honest man, though.
The Front says they will prosecute corrupt politicians, even President Peña Nieto, if it's the case. None of the parties in the coalition is known for its honesty, though. Anaya has been accused by the pro-PRI press of making his father-in-law very rich, through corruption.
AMLO is known as an honest man, but some of his party members are not. And the PT people are openly corrupt. His idea is that corruption will inmediately end when he assumes office. He'll preach by the example.

as "Los Pepes " and the "Bloque de Busqueda" found out in Colombia,"once you organize something to take care of a problem, you often create new problem just as bad".

Yes, indeed.
Watch this Bulgarian short and this is what it's about:

I have to say that these are the oddest bunch of parties! Greens who support the death penalty! Left and far right......we may be able to see some similarities but they usually can’t.

May one ask which of these, if any, you support?

Coalitions of left and right-wing parties? Talk about bipartisanship!

Yes, it's the oddest bunch of parties.

It's never been "normal" in the European (or Australian) sense, since the PRI has always been a sort of Macheavellian catch-it-all party. Until the late 80s PRI had all the Federal and State Executive branches, so many people who wanted to make a professional career started as PRI militants.
PRI is still a member of the Socialist International, though it was an authoritarian party for many years, and has moved consistently to the right in economic matters, at least since 1982.
The Green Party was founded in the early 90s and true greens were sidelined as it became a political business for the founder and his family. The son of the founder - nicknamed "The Green Boy" when he got to preside the party, but now over 50- swiftly converted it in a sort of rich boys club, and moved it to the right. It has been allied to PRI since 2006.
Panal, the teachers' union party, went alone in 2012, and it didn't go well for them. Since then, they have sided with PRI to have their secure berths.

The other strange phenomenon is Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), a politician made in the PRI, who moved to PRD when he was not handpicked to be governor of his native state, Tabasco (South).
AMLO went on to take hold of PRD (another member of the Socialist International) and was their presidential candidate in 2006 and 2012. In 2016 he lost for less than 1%.
His authoritarian and populist vein made it difficult for him to keep the reins in the PRD, so he broke with them and founded his own party (Morena).
Morena took almost half of PRD former voters in the midterm 2015 elections and is growing.
AMLO is a charismatic politician, and many of his followers adore him. He has been called "the tropical Mesiah" by one of his critics. Morena has moved from the left to an strictly more Nationalist approach.
AMLO himself is a political extremist but a social conservative. This explains his ability to gather around him both the Maoists and the Evangelical Christians. What baffles me is that some liberal leftist still believe in him.
Someone said: "He has not a party, but a community of the faithful".

The fact that the remaining left wing party (PRD) lost half its power to AMLO and Morena put them in a difficult position. If they competed alone, they may lose their strongholds, most notably Mexico City, and become irrelevant. And the PAN conservatives wanted to beat both PRI and AMLO, so they thought of a wide alliance.
PAN and PRD have one thing in common: they have been committed to democracy.
MC (Citizen's Movement) is strong in some states, notably Jalisco, and its capital, the second most important city, Guadalajara. Their bet is to win the State, which also has great PAN following.
So, in terms of logic, the three parties divided the cake: Presidency for PAN, Mexico City for PRD and Jalisco for MC.

Alas, an explanation (sort of)

I dunno.

I don't want a reprise of Peña Nieto, dislike the cynicism of PRI corruption, don't think macroeconomic stability is enough without better income and wealth distribution and disagree about the war against drugs strategy.
Meade is a fine man (he's not even a party member), but the party, the system and the allies (specially the Greens) suck big time.

I was hopeful about the Front, many people liked the idea of a Citizen's Front (as it was originally named), but it soon became a cupular politician's alliance. Did not like that they didn't have primaries, but distributed the cake; do not feel confortable about the candidate. Gotta see.

AMLO is the sort of Populist I don't trust at all. He dislikes criticism, promotes hatred and division, has impractical ideas, thinks too highly of himself and has a short fuse. I may be exaggerating, but he could be Chavez and Trump in one. Or he could be just another inept Mexican President.

As you can see, this puts me, and many voters, between the pan and the fire. Will see how the campaigns go, and vote for whoever can defeat AMLO. If AMLO is the one to flop out of contention, then I'd tend to choose the Front (and I'd vote for them -not convincingly- is the elections were held today).
It's still early to say.

I have already signed to have Marichuy Patricio, the left wing activist promoted by the former guerrilla, as an independent candidate. Not that I would vote for her in the elections, but because I think Mexican indigenous people have to be heard and because I think polls are better than guerrillas.
If somebody asks me to sign for El Jaguar, I'd do that too.

How are the candidates about Mexico-US relationship?

Meade, a graduate from Yale, is the more pro-US of the three. He's a friend of Luis Videgaray, the man who invited Trump to Mexico (and lost his Finance and Treasury seat for that, giving way to Meade). Videgaray's man in the White House is Jarred Kushner.

Anaya is also pro-US, but is relatively unknown. He speaks English fluently, as Meade does.

AMLO is a Nationalist, and does not believe in NAFTA. He says "we will have with the US a policy of friendship and cooperation, but not one of submission". Says he can convince Trump to change his "bad" foreign policy and work with Mexico in a program that can help develop both countries.

--
To put Mexican politics in an American lens:
PRI and PAN were pro-Hillary Clinton. PAN was more heavily for Clinton, since PRI, who is in power, had to be cautious. Even the (Margarita Zavala) right wing of PAN was openly pro-Hillary. Panal was openly pro Clinton and very anti-Trump.
PRD was pro-Bernie Sanders and very much anti-Trump.
PT and MC were anti-Trump
Greens favored a "dialogue with both candidates".
AMLO (Morena) said it was none of our business to have an opinion; he was critical of both American candidates expressing opinions about Mexico, "which affects our sovereignty".
PES was mildly pro-Trump (against the Wall, but more against Hillary's pro-choice and pro-LGBTTTI rights).

All very interesting, thank you.

Will reaction to Trump have any effect at all, do you think?

I loved the Fox video!

Mexicans are almost unanimous about Trump, as you might imagine.

Anaya and AMLO will do most of the Trump bashing, minding that the present PRI government has still to deal with Agent Orange. They'll accuse Meade of being a softy.

The coalition now has a name: "Meade Ciudadano por México" (Meade Citizen for Mexico) stressing the fact that the candidate is a not a card-carrying member of any party.

This is the sort of curious things we'll get to see in this campaign.



The baby faced Conservative Party's candidate rocking with the popular mayor of one of the working class Mexico City suburban counties (and his Che Guevara guitar strap).