Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Sunday, January 30, 2011

More on the upcoming Mexican election

The Economist offers more information on the political cycle in Mexico

Saddling up for the trail to Los Pinos
THE election is not until July of next year, but… [c]andidates are jostling for party nominations, and lieutenants are preparing for the election of six governors this year, the first of them in Guerrero state on January 30th. Already the main question is whether anyone can prevent the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico as a one-party state for seven decades until 2000, from returning to Los Pinos, the presidential residence.

Opinion polls vary widely, but all show the PRI with a lead (of up to 20 points) over the conservative National Action Party (PAN), which has held power for the past decade…

PAN’s contenders are a lacklustre bunch…

The PRD has the opposite problem: two powerful contenders who threaten to cancel each other out. Marcelo Ebrard, the mayor of Mexico City, is a capable technocrat. But he lacks charisma. And he might have to share the left-wing vote with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, his predecessor as mayor who narrowly lost the 2006 presidential election…

The PRI’s biggest weakness is the perception that it has failed to renew itself in opposition, and retains the authoritarian and corrupt characteristics of its past…

For the moment, though, the race seems increasingly Mr Peña Nieto’s to lose.

See also: Prep for nationwide elections in Mexico

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1 Comments:

At 8:44 AM, Blogger Ken Wedding said...

Mexico's main leftist party keeps Guerrero governorship

Mexico's main leftist party appeared Monday to have retained the governorship in the southern state of Guerrero, thwarting the former ruling party at the start of a pivotal election cycle.

Angel Aguirre of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, finished 13 points ahead of Manuel Anorve in the race for governor, with votes tallied from all but a handful of polling sites…

The outcome in Guerrero, the first of six states to elect governors in 2011, puts a dent in the PRI's hopes of creating an air of inevitability as it seeks to retake the presidency next year…


Calderon's rightist PAN trailed by a large margin and, in the final days of the campaign, threw its support to the leftist PRD in hopes of frustrating the PRI…

 

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