Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

ELECTIONS-MEXICO: Campaign Deadline Brings Relief from Mudslinging

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Jun 27 2006 (IPS) - Observers of Mexico’s upcoming elections would be hard-pressed to find any vestiges of affinity between the country’s leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and conservative National Action Party (PAN), which prior to 2000 often toiled shoulder to shoulder in the opposition trenches.

The parties have conducted their campaigns – which come to an official end Wednesday – as mudslinging enemies, desperate to win Sunday’s presidential and legislative elections.

Meanwhile, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which throughout its 71-year political dynasty abused and marginalised the opposition, is playing it low-key, eschewing what it calls the “violence of the left” and the “ineptitude of the right.”

For the first time in history, the PRI seems to be lagging far behind in the electoral race.

Not one voter-opinion poll conducted during the six-month campaign period gives the PRI any hope of taking back the presidency, lost six years ago to the nation’s current leader, President Vicente Fox (PAN), who is limited to one term in office.

Some 70 million Mexicans have the right – but not the obligation – to cast their vote in one of the 130,000 voting stations in the country’s 32 states, to elect Fox’s successor, the 128 Senate members, 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies, and several governors and mayors – including that of the capital city.

The two forces previously had joined forces to build a strong opposition that “seemed to dwarf the once all-powerful PRI with their strength,” political scientist Luis Ortiz, an independent elections expert, told IPS.

PAN, an organisation founded in 1939 by Catholics and considered conservative by analysts – although some members self-identify as centre-left – is hoping candidate Felipe Calderón will lead the party to another presidency.

In the other corner, the PRD, established in 1989 by former PRI members, leftist militants and a few social democrats, is banking on candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador to give the party its first run at the Executive Branch.

PRD founder Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas brought the left to within a hair’s breadth of the presidency in 1988, but ultimately lost to PRI candidate Carlos Salinas (1988-1994) in what many allege was PRI electoral fraud.

As electoral campaigns wound down for the Wednesday deadline, as per law, the PAN and PRD were mired in a sea of accusations, each attempting to out-discredit the other.

The PAN has called the PRD an irresponsible leftist, populist and violent party; in return, the PRD has accused the PAN of being a fascist-right, neoliberal and ultra-conservative party.

The presidential candidates of these two parties are running neck-and-neck, and a handful of votes could make the difference, according to the latest polls.

Calderón is running on a platform to take the country farther down the free-trade road, step up investment and increase employment. His proposals are most popular with business leaders and higher income and educated sectors, but he also has the support of many low-income segments of the population.

The PAN candidate focused on reminding voters that trade liberalisation and the current economic models have helped bring stability to Mexico, all but putting an end to recurrent monetary devaluation and other crises that dogged the country before 1994..

López Obrador, on the other hand, promises to change the economic model to benefit low-income groups in particular, which represent approximately half of the country’s 103 million inhabitants.

His platform includes giving more power to the government, increasing wages to stimulate domestic demand, fighting corruption, providing subsidies to vulnerable populations and lowering government operating costs.

The PRD candidate’s strongest support comes from unions and other organisations that were close to the PRI and that accused the long-governing party of corruption. He also has the support of renowned intellectuals such as writers Carlos Monsiváis, Juan Villoro and Elena Poniatowska, the famous painter José Luis Cuevas and prestigious political analysts, such as Lorenzo Meyer and Miguel Granados Chapa.

López Obrador’s critics say he has no clear model, and warn that aspects of his platform could increase foreign debt, chase away investment and potentially lead to an economic crisis.

The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), a poorly-armed indigenous rebel group based in the southern state of Chiapas, calls the PRD little better than “the left hand of the right (if that),” and characterises López Obrador as ambitious and dubious.

Cárdenas, former PRD presidential candidate in 1988, 1994 and 2000, and emblematic figure of the left and the struggle for the country’s democratisation, has been ambiguous in his support of López Obrador, revealing cracks in the organisation.

Meanwhile, those who oppose the PAN’s Calderón say his continuity of the Fox administration’s economic policy would do nothing to change poverty and social inequality. Like the PRD, the EZLN says a PAN government will not solve the country’s problems.

The PAN is also divided internally, as a number of its leaders – the most conservative – did not back Calderón’s bid for the candidacy in internal party elections.

In the past, the PRD and the PAN worked together in the struggle to reform the PRI-dominated political system. In the 1990s, this joint effort brought about changes in the electoral model, and more just election process regulations.

By the mid-1990s, the opposition struggle had cost the lives of 636 PRD supporters, particularly in rural areas. While the PAN was not violently attacked, between 1940 and 1980 every obstacle imaginable was thrown in its path to block its electoral participation.

In 1997, the opposition wrested the absolute majority of the Chamber of Deputies from the PRI for the first time, and went on to even greater political achievements, culminating with the PAN’s Fox presidential victory in 2000.

Today, in addition to the presidency, PAN holds 148 of the 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, and 47 of the 128 Senate seats. In addition, nine of the country’s 32 governors are PAN members.

After just 17 years in existence, PRD members control 97 Chamber of Deputies seats and 15 Senate seats; six are governors.

Nevertheless, the PRI is still the most powerful party, with 203 legislative deputies, 58 senators and 17 governors.

This power distribution is not likely to change much following the Jul. 2 elections, according to polls. But what seems to be certain is that PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo has little hope of taking back the presidency for his party.