The biggest loser… PAN

Via Ana Maria Salazar (Mexico Today) is a Bloomberg report written by Thomas Black and Jens Erik Gould, on expected results for the 5 July mid-term elections.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party may lose its position as the biggest political group in the lower house of Congress in July 5 elections after the economy shrank the most since 1995.

The economy is the most important issue for 40 percent of Mexicans, according to a Consulta Mitofsky poll, up from 17 percent when Calderon took office in 2006. That’s bad news for Calderon amid record unemployment and predictions by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that the economy will shrink the most since 1932 this year, said Jesus Cantu, a public administration professor at the Monterrey Technological Institute in Monterrey

….

Job losses are eroding support for Calderon’s party, even in states it governs such as Aguascalientes, said Roy Campos, director of Consulta Mitofsky. Last year, a PRI candidate became mayor in the state’s capital city, also called Aguascalientes.

“The PAN won easily before. Now it won’t have it easy,” Campos said about this year’s elections in Aguascalientes. “A lack of economic growth always results in punishment for the incumbent.”

Salazar also links to El Universal’s “Bajo Reserva,” the collaboratively written (and unsigned)– and generally reliable — political gossip column, which has two items suggesting even further woes for the administration.

Party chair German Martinez was widely quoted as saying he wanted to Guanajuanto-ize the country (create a PAN majority… specifically a piety-wing majority), which is probably what a party chair would say (think of a Republican Party chair wanting a Texas type U.S. House — a scary thought, but not one that would raise eyebrows within the party).  Unfortunately, German’s remarks came the same day Guanajuanto was in the news for another reason — a shootout between the Army and narcos left 12 dead.  Within the party itself, which is expected to be in opposition, there is a three-way fight for congressional leader, only one of whom is a reliable supporter of the Presidenial agenda.