Vote somebody, or nobody

I haven’t much commented on the 5th of July  congressional and municipal elections.  With less than 10 days until the election — which will have a very low turnout (expected to be only 30 percent) — I don’t expect any major surprises.

The Calderon Administration, and PAN would like to make narcotics a campaign issue, but it hasn’t caught on like economic issues.  Despite that, NarcoGuerra Times,  Michael Reyolds (“July Dogs”) new sub-blog (associate blog?… not sure what to call it) –nmeant to focus specifically on “the drug wars and related subjects from North America, Mexico, Central and South America,” —  has a better election overview than I could write at this point:

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) …  is currently leading in the polls with 37% of likely voters. Calderon’s PAN comes in at 33%. The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) lags with 16%. Lopez Obrador … is stumping for candidates from two smaller  leftist groups–Convergencia and the Workers Party (PT).

The PRD might have done well in this election but spent the past six months in an internal pissing-match between its left-wing and right-wing. The rightists won taking charge of the party. So Lopez Obrador, supported by the PRD left faction, took a walk along with his “Legitimate Government”–a shadow cabinet combined with state and municipal organizations–and hooked with Convergencia and the PT. The PRD hasn’t recovered from this.

The Mexican Legislature, both its Senate and House, are pretty much equally divided between  PAN, PRI, and PRD.  At this date PAN has a few more senators and representatives.  The PRI and PAN ussually ally on important issues. That gives the over two-thirds of the votes, leaving the PRD out of the game. On July 5 the PRD would have to more than double its number of legislators to put the brakes on the right-wing governance. That isn’t in the cards.

Then there is the mounting “none-of-the-above” movement–primarily a “netroots” campaign that’s gaining traction. Voters are being urged to strike off all the names on their ballot, simply file it blank, or stay home. Right now this bloc is polling at 11%. Expect to see this number climb.

A few thoughts, mostly in response to more “U.S.-centric” Mexico writers about the elections.

A PRI victory (probably not a sweep, but PRI should be the majority party once again) is not a bad thing for the left.  I won’t go into a long history of the PRI here (other than note it DID NOT control Mexico for 70 years, as U.S. reporters — echoing Jesse Helms — are prone to write.  The PRI wasn’t even founded until 1948, though it included most — but not all — of the cadres included in the old PRM). I will point out that the PRI lost credibility when it moved to a generic “Washington Consensus” economic policy, but has always been a socialist party.

With Party Chair Beatriz Parades re-emphasizing the party’s socialist heritage,  and dissatisfaction among those that are going to vote with the present economic situation, a PRI plurality in the Chamber and the Senate will be more likely to turn to the socialist PRD and the smaller parties for support in achieving a majority.

Felipe Calderon is going to be a lame duck, no matter what happens.

It’s PAN that seems to be falling apart. While the PRD at least is grouped around the same ideological concepts (socialism in some form or another), PAN is a mixture of free-market capitalists (what in Mexico are known as “liberals”), big business types, the conservative wing of the Catholic Church (including the hierarchy) and fascists.  The “pragmatists” and “pietists” (for want of a better term) have been fighting for control of the party, and the prospects for a united party are dim.  At this point, attempts to push Calderon’s chosen successor (Josefina Vasquez Mota) seem more an attempt to find an acceptable compromise between the competitors.  Vasquez will have a plurinomal Senate seat, and she will be getting a lot of press, but whether she’ll be accepted by the party base remains an open question.  Remember that Fox pushed Santiago Creel after the midterm elections in 2003, only to see Felipe Calderon nominated after fierce party in-fighting.

I don’t think the projected 16% for PRD is out of line, or unusual, given the party’s history. Much has been made on another English-language site about the PRD’s “circular firing squad” and internal dissent, but that’s normal for what has always been a coalition of competing smaller leftist organizations and theorists… which normally only has about 15% of the vote, anyway.  The third of the vote received by AMLO in the 2006 Presidential election never meant the PRD had a third of the voters, and –given the outcome of that election — many of AMLO’s supporters have given up on electorial politics altogether (or are independent voters, waiting for a worthwhile candidate).

The smaller AMLO-philic parties may or may not survive. How much support AMLO still has is hard to assess, given that he is largely frozen out of the media, and his supporters — the poor and the young — are both hard to count, and unlikely to vote unless they have a strong candidate to back.  And, like Barack Obama’s backers, much of the AMLO support is under the radar, organzied by techno-saavy geeks which isn’t likely to be followed by the traditional media.

The results of the null vote are going to be interesting. Already, the parties, and the controlling Elections Commission, are talking about “reforms”. Much of the “null vote” movement — as well as the high abstention rate seems to be based in dissatisfaction with the party system, as controlled by the Commission. In an attempt as fairness, the system rigidly controls party propaganda, and for practical reasons, benefits the status quo.  And makes the elections plainly dull.