Global Insight Perspective

Significance

Mexico’s election is too close to call, complicated by the fact that there is no second round. Third-place contender Roberto Madrazo is unlikely to secure victory for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that ruled Mexico for over 70 years, but votes going his way create further uncertainty for the top two.

Implications

Calderón and AMLO come from different worlds and appeal to distinct support bases. The victor will be the one who has successfully picked up floating voters, largely oriented around the centre ground.

Outlook

Exhaustive electioneering, with a heavy emphasis on negative campaigning, threatens adversely to affect turn-out. The centre-leftist candidate representing the For the Good of All alliance has the benefit of being able to rally grassroots support and is the best placed to bring marginalised communities out to vote.

Conservative Calderón

Momentum has been building behind Felipe Calderón’s election bid in the latter stages of Mexico’s protracted campaign. The argument is that the man who came from behind to steal the PAN candidacy from Santiago Creel could yet unseat AMLO, the fiercely popular Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) pretender who led early polls for three years. The more youthful of the tied frontrunners, 43-year old Calderón has been regularly described as a “precocious” talent. A lawyer by training, he has completed graduate studies in the U.S. at the prestigious Harvard University and at Mexico’s renowned ITAM private institute. In 1996, aged 33, he became the youngest ever national president of the PAN, the party with which his family had long been associated. His role in the controversial rescue of banks by the Savings Protection Banking Fund (Fobaproa) in 1994, during his three-year leadership of the moderate rightist party, has recently been brought into question by the left-leaning challenger (see Mexico: 31 May 2006: Leftist Mexican Contender Tries to Claw Back Lead with Economic Pledges).

Calderón boasts experience of government as a one-time cabinet member, briefly serving as energy secretary under incumbent President Vicente Fox. Quitting the post in May 2004 has allowed the PAN candidate to distance himself from the disappointments of the Fox government. This has been aided by the fact that Calderón was not the presidential favourite “pointed to” by the head of state in the old process of selecting a successor known as the “dedazo”. In elected office, Calderón has served in both the capital’s (Federal District) Assembly (1988-91) and as a federal legislator in the early 1990s, and again in the first three years of Fox’s term or “sexenio”. He has played an important part in making the PAN a force to compete with the PRI, seeking to keep the once-monopolistic party out of power for a second-consecutive term, while fighting off a challenge from Mexico’s newly energized centre-left. A devout Catholic, it has been rumoured that Calderón may belong to the far-right religious organization known as El Yunque, which shares similarities with Chile’s Opus Dei. Knowing that such credentials could deter younger, more centrist voters, Calderón has made an immense effort to woo that sector of the electorate. It is a potentially powerful force, with 65.4% of the Mexican population aged under 30, although only over-18s are permitted to take part in the poll. Young people are also traditionally one of the most challenging social groups to encourage to vote. The PAN’s strongest youth vote comes from university-educated citizens, the “niños buenos” (“good kids”), who not only fear the economic impact of an AMLO victory, but consider him an uncultured character or “naco”, in Mexican Spanish.

Compassionate Conservatism

In the latter stages of the campaign, the PAN pretender has also targeted female voters, pledging the importance of equality issues for his would-be government, while taking part in day-time television shows that are popular with female viewers. Thanks in part to his social projects that benefited single mothers in the Federal District and his rights-based rhetoric, AMLO has an unusual appeal to women voters that left-leaning candidates such as Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas have failed to garner in the past. Seeking to steal AMLO’s thunder, Calderón recently pledged increased government assistance for lone parents as part of a broader package of benefits. The right-leaning politician has created dedicated areas of his campaign site to inform women and young people of just how they could benefit under his proposed administration. Pledges to improve Mexico’s economic situation by boosting its competitiveness sit alongside social promises, such as the pursuit of universal healthcare and higher quality education. In recent months, his slick public performances, not least the televised debates, combined with some slip-ups by AMLO, have converted Calderón into a credible contender (see Mexico: 7 June 2006: Mexican Candidates Spar in Televised Debate).

AMLO’s Appeal

In the 2006 election, AMLO has emerged as something of a new Fox. Differences in their policies and style aside, what AMLO and his For the Good of All alliance have in common with the Fox campaign of 2000 is the agenda for change. The Calderón camp would like to paint AMLO’s offering as a return to the past — citing the disastrous state-led development of Luis Echeverria (1970-76) as a model. However, it is up to voters to decide whether they want more of the same from another PAN government, or an administration that focuses more strongly on combating poverty and inequality. Social pledges are arguably more plausible from a politician whose entire career has been dedicated to promoting the rights of marginalised Mexicans than from a Harvard-educated lawyer.

Born and raised in Tabasco State, one of the poorest in the Republic, AMLO does not hail from the political elite that nurtured his chief opponent. The son of a shop owner, he formally began his political life in 1977 when he became director of the Indigenous Institute of Tabasco, shortly after his stint in the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where he studied political science. Opponents regularly publicise the fact that he took well over the usual five-year period to complete all modules of his degree. Much has also been made of the fact that AMLO began his political career in the PRI, ignoring the fact that most individuals with a political bent operated within the mechanisms of the one-party state.

In 1982, AMLO coordinated the gubernatorial campaign of his former university professor Enrique González Pedrero, an experience that helped him to gain the position of PRI’s president of Tabasco State the following year. AMLO held the PRI leadership post for only one year; the politically motivated reshuffle that unseated him signalled the beginning of the end of his relationship with the then-ruling party. After a period as Social Promotion Director in the National Consumer Institute, he re-entered politics proper, standing as a candidate to govern Tabasco State in 1988 for the National Democratic Front (FDN), an embryonic version of the PRD.

He has been a PRD man since 1989, when he took up the post of president of the left-leaning party in his home state. Like Calderón, he served as the national president of his party during 1996-1999. The only public election that he has ever won was the mayoral contest in Mexico City in 2000. In this post, he gained national renown and was criticised for premature presidential electioneering from the capital’s seat of government. Public attention increased in 2004-05 amid a federal move to prosecute the fiercely popular mayor for an alleged minor land law violation that would have kept him out of the presidential race. Overcoming the “desafuero” or impeachment proceedings in May 2005 was a major triumph; not only did it allow his candidacy to go ahead, but AMLO was able to garner further support for having defeated the apparently anti-democratic mechanisms of the state (see Mexico: 5 May 2005: Charges Dropped, Mexico City Mayor Back in Presidential Race).

He had also emerged unscathed from major corruption scandals that had led to criminal proceedings against close members of his government team. AMLO’s election campaign looked unstoppable.

The Battle for Pole Position

Opinion polls on Mexico’s imminent election began extremely early, interpreted as a sign that the nation had lost faith in President Fox’s capacity to progress his reform project. AMLO led such surveys for three years until two months ago, when he tied with Calderón. The right-leaning politician secured first place last month. Since then, surveys have vacillated between the two politically polarised candidates. Roberto Madrazo has stayed confined to third place, unable to overcome public perceptions of his allegedly corrupt past and present (see Mexico: 16 January 2006: Mexico's Largest Opposition Party Registers Would-Be President). Closing his campaign in the state of Veracruz yesterday, Madrazo made a last-ditch attempt to sell himself as a centrist alternative to moderate-rightist Calderón and left-leaning AMLO.

Madrazo’s pledge to create nine million jobs and increase pay is unlikely to be enough to change the tide of support in his favour. In fact, it seems that choosing Madrazo as its presidential candidate appears to have been a fatal error on the part of the PRI. Widely known as a “dinosaurio” (or “dinosaur”) both inside and outside his own party, the old guard politician provoked a split in the PRI as his manoeuvrings led powerful education unionist Elba Esther Gordillo to quit as Secretary-General.

The PRI has subsequently proved unable to capitalise on its impressive performance at gubernatorial and municipal level. Divisions have endured with Gordillo supporting minor New Alliance (Nueva Alianza) party candidate Roberto Campa at the 2 July polls. The fifth contender, and the only female in the race, is Patricia Mercado, who is representing the tiny leftist Democratic Alternative (ADyC).

Exit polls have given back the lead to AMLO, despite strong negative campaigning and scaremongering about the complexion of his future government by the PAN and the powerful Business Coordinating Council (CCE). Calderón described AMLO’s potential future government as a ”disaster movie” that Mexicans have seen before, at the close of his campaign in the Estadio Azteca in the south of Mexico City. Meanwhile, the CCE aired last-minute advertising calling on voters to opt for continuity and not “to bet on something different that would signify a setback”.

In his close of campaign rallies, AMLO not only restated his commitment to social development, he also paid special attention to reassuring the private sector. During his ultimate public gathering in the historic central square (the Zócalo) in Mexico City yesterday he promised fiscal responsibility, ongoing Central Bank independence and asserted that his future government would “not provoke any [form of] economic crisis”. He heads towards Sunday’s vote with the advantage in all but one poll, published by right-leaning daily Crónica, which tied him with Calderón.

In the other final surveys, his lead ranged from two to five percentage points. Voter tendencies had already swung back towards AMLO earlier this month (see Mexico: 14 June 2006: Two Polls Give Back Lead to Mexican Centre-Leftist).

Outlook and Implications

Mexico’s exhausting and brutal electoral campaign has finally come to a close. Mudslinging has been a key tactic, particularly in the PAN campaign, although in the latter stages AMLO has fought back with allegations that Calderón’s brother-in-law benefited from government contracts and paid negligible taxes while Calderón was energy minister. While the Finance Ministry has provided evidence to discredit AMLO’s claims, the slur has already cast doubt on Calderón’s slogan pledging “clean hands” politics. For the first time, Mexicans living abroad have been given the right to vote via postal ballots, but participation has been lower than originally hoped. Negative campaigning also threatens adversely to affect voter-turnout, which, combined with the protracted electioneering, has left voters tired of politics on the eve of polling day.

Aside from electing a new president and legislative representatives, voters in the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato and Morelos must also select a new governor. The mayoral election in Mexico City will more than likely be won by AMLO’s protégé Marcelo Ebrard, but the presidential vote is much harder to call. The lack of a second round in Mexico means that votes going the way of the third-place candidate Madrazo could prove costly to one of the closely tied leading candidates. Polls and history predict that individuals have no qualms about splitting their vote; for example, voting for AMLO for president and the PRI or the PAN in Congress.

This tendency makes it even more probable that the ultimate victor will lack a majority in the legislative chamber. The three parties comprising AMLO’s For the Good of All coalition — Convergencia, the Workers Party (PT) and, chiefly, the PRD — will struggle to dominate either the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate, which should curb AMLO’s stronger left-leaning impulses. His economic policy emphasis, laid out by Cambridge-educated Rogelio Ramírez de la O, focuses on maintaining macro-economic fundamentals, encouraging foreign investment (albeit with the exclusion of the energy sector), while paying greater attention to social priorities.

It is up to the electorate to decide whether this revised economic model could in fact allow Mexico to release its untapped potential; or if it seems a safer bet to stick with the stability of the PAN, despite its failure even to approach the elusive 7% economic growth rate pledged by President Fox. The vote for change appears to have the edge in 2006, as it did for a quite different contender in 2000.

Raul Dary

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