PRI Accepts “Vote for Vote” Recount

July 7, 2010

Representatives of the Partido Revolucionario Intitucional (PRI) agreed to allow electoral votes cast in this past Sunday’s gubernatorial elections in the state of Veracruz to be opened and counted one by one to confirm that their candidate, Javier Duarte de Ochoa, won the election outright.

Opposition coalition “Viva Veracruz” continues to claim that their candidate, Miguel Angel Yunes Linares, was a victim of electoral fraud and requested the recount.  The PRI agreed to the recount on the condition that the losing candidate no longer refer to themselves as the “legitimate governor.”

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Seven Ideas for Defeating Drug-Related Violence in Mexico

February 17, 2010

As headlines continue to report a tale of horror, violence and massacre in what had seemed to be a peaceful country, a growing debate stirs on whether or not Mexico’s government stands a chance to win the war on drugs.

The general consensus is that President Felipe Calderón has inherited a cancer that the Partido Revolucionario Institucional(PRI regime) had contained through institutionalization of corruption. This is a cancer that former President Vicente Fox was unable to effectively cope with when he took office, ending the PRI’s hold on power. Now Felipe Calderón is trying to get rid of this disease by beating it with a big stick and empowering the military to crack down on criminal organizations such as the Zetas and Beltrán Leyva’s group , but as Ana María Salazar has stated recently, “Mexicans are paying a huge price”

Calderón’s war on drugs seems limited if the goal is to effectively address the complex issue of drug-related violence. A recent conversation I had with a group of Thunderbird School of Global Management and Tec de Monterrey postgraduate students proves there are at least seven more ideas that the President should consider incorporating into his strategy:

1. A hard line political and militarily line is needed, but we should recognize this is not the path to a solution. This part of the strategy should be seen as mere containment. Just like the Planarian worms if you try to cut the head off a criminal organization, it will grow back and sometimes even multiply , but you need to keep doing so to prevent the worm from growing stronger.

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Major Political Reforms Proposed in Mexico

December 16, 2009

In the most dramatic proposal for political reform in decades, Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced yesterday a 10-point plan aimed at revamping Mexico’s political system. Among the many reforms, the proposal would allow independent candidates to run for office and relax term-limit rules for legislators, allowing lawmakers and mayors to hold office for up to 12 years.

The legislation would also reduce the number of seats in the chamber of deputies by 20 percent to 400 seats, and reduce the number of senators from 128 to 96. Calderón also included a provision that would require, for the first time, a runoff election in presidential races in which no candidate obtains more than 50 percent of total votes cast. If passed, the reforms would dramatically alter Mexican politics. According to Calderón, “the idea is to give citizens more power, to give them the capacity to shape public life and to strengthen our democracy.”

Reactions to the proposal have been mixed. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) expressed its approval for most of the provisions, but refuted the need for runoffs in presidential races. The Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) rejected the proposal altogether. Gustavo Madero, leader of the Senate’s National Action Party (PAN) party, spoke highly of the proposed reforms, saying they present an opportunity to “leave behind formulas originated in the days of the monolithic PRI.”

Congress will officially debate the proposal in 2010.

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Mexico: The PRI is Back and Gaining Ground

July 9, 2009

Last Sunday, Mexico witnessed how the PRI, or Institutional Revolutionary Party (a heterogeneous grouping of right-of-center groups and revolutionary nationalists), reasserted its standing and overtook President Felipe Calderón's National Action Party (PAN) in the elections for Congress, six governors, and municipalities and local congresses in 11 states. The PRI also defeated the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which lost many of its traditional constituencies and is now facing one of its worst crises.

Few in Mexico were surprised by the PRI's comeback. There is a feeling among a large portion of Mexican society that, despite the authoritarian tendencies of past governments and the corruption scandals, things were better off during the 70 years of PRI rule that ended in 2000. Diego Núñez, a young voter from Monterrey, echoed voters throughout the country: “The PRI is highly corrupt, but so are all politicians; the difference is that the PRI actually governed Mexico.” Mr Núñez and many others believe that President Calderón's administration is stuck at an impasse on major issues due to both a lack of political skill and an ignorance of how government functions.

The PAN's electoral strategy didn't help. While the PRI relied on the political and financial resources of its governors to operate the party’s campaign, the PAN chose an approach of direct confrontation. It also counted on President Calderón's popular image, paralleling a vote for the PAN with a vote against drug traffickers.

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Mexico's Mid-term Elections: the Political and Policy

June 22, 2009

Stolen elections and ballot-box stuffing became such the norm in Mexico under the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) that observers used to say that even the dead rise and vote on election day. In the mid-term legislative elections on July 5, this time it may be the once-thought moribund PRI that rises from the dead. A newly resurgent PRI in Mexico’s bicameral congress will have consequences for the policy agenda (mostly positive) of President Felipe Calderón and his Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and signal the decline of the leftist Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD)—under its current leadership, maybe not such a bad thing). 

At stake in these elections are 128 seats in the Mexican Senate and all 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. If polls are to be believed, these elections may dramatically shrink the seats that the PRD gained in the 2006 elections. At the time, many believed this would be the trend, as Mexico appeared cleaved between the Right (PAN) and the Left (PRD). In the 2006 elections, the PRD scored 37 of the one-third-open Senate seats, compared to 57 for the PAN and 32 for the PRI.  Most remarkable was that only six years earlier in the 2000 presidential/legislative elections the PRD only managed 17. In the lower-house elections in 2006, Mexico’s standard bearer for the Left, the PRD, did even better scoring 106 seats in the chamber, exceeding the 66 it won in 2000. 

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