The handsome one, the old one and the woman

Though the end of my SALT term is coming to a rapid close, Mexico’s elections are nearing even more rapidly. On July 1, Mexicans will vote for a new president and Chiapas will elect a new governor (not to mention thousands of municipal officers). I may know more about this election than the U.S.' pending presidential election. It’s pretty hard to miss with the rampant propaganda. T-shirts, painted walls along the highway, Facebook and Wikipedia ads, stickers covering taxis’ rear windshields, larger-than-life billboards, and most ingeniously (according to me), umbrellas (in the once-again-rainy Chiapas) are everywhere you turn. This promotional material assaults with bright colors, phrases like “mi compromiso es contigo,” “diferente presidenta,” and “el cambio verdadero está en tus manos,” and even the occasional pop song adapted to promote a given candidate and blared from bullhorns atop moving vehicles.

Mexico holds presidential elections every six years, and interestingly enough, July 1 will mark my second in-country, Mexican presidential election. In 2006, I was in Mexico City with my mom, dad and family friends Tricia, Tim, Camille and Kate. We experienced first-hand the outrage expressed by many who contended (and still do) that Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO, also a candidate for this year’s election) lost the election to current president Calderón due to electoral fraud. We saw one of the many “voto por voto” protests and I have since followed Calderón’s “war on drugs” (which has left between 50-65,000 dead, over 5,000 disappeared, and an increasing normalization of this violence) with both interest and desperation. All of this year’s presidential hopefuls hammer home the fact that Mexico is in a state of “national emergency.”  It’s been a long and hard six years for Mexico and this country is ready for a new president.  But, who will the new president be and what chance does he or she actually have of improving the situation?  Drumroll please. I now present the candidates:

Enrique Peña Nieto (the handsome one)

Running under the banner of the PRI/Verde coalition, former governor of Mexico state, Peña Nieto has been leading in the polls for the entire race (currently at 42%), though the gap between he and the other two front runners has narrowed since April. Also helping Peña Nieto is the support of the national TV station Televisa, which is allegedly providing him favorable coverage at the expense of the other candidates. This has sparked the “Yo Soy 132” movement that, in addition to criticizing Peña Nieto, also calls into question the biased reporting of Mexican media. The biggest thing Peña Nieto has going against him is his party affiliation. The PRI ruled Mexico from 1920-2000 and in addition to a focus on Mexico’s state of national emergency, the other two candidates warn of the perils of again electing a PRI candidate to the country’s highest office. And, lest we forget, Peña Nieto is the handsome one. Liliana says that’s why she’ll be voting for him. I honestly can’t figure out whether she’s telling the truth. I don’t think she knows herself.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (the old one)

AMLO, candidate for the “leftist” coalition of PRD, PT and MC, was favored to win the 2006 presidency and claims (along with many of his supporters) to have lost in a fraudulent election. But, this former mayor of Mexico City is back. In some ways, AMLO reminds me of Obama (running under the premise of enacting change, but probably not quite as far to the left as he might have you believe).  In the past month or so, AMLO moved into second place in the polls, but recently returned to 3^rd (only trailed by outsider Gabriel Quadri de la Torre). Student and progressive mobilization in his favor probably won’t be enough for him to pull off a win. Gabriel (along with most of the INESIN staff) is pulling for AMLO and my host dad tells Liliana they won’t sleep in the same bed for the entire sexenio (six-year term) if she doesn’t vote for AMLO. Though I’m a bit cynical about what type of positive change any president can achieve during a term, I certainly agree with Gabi that, of anyone, AMLO has the most interesting outlook: ”only the people can save the people,” and like my friend Renzo said on Facebook, “yes, only the people can save the people, but it helps to have someone with power supporting us.”       

Josefina Vázquez Mota (the woman)

Known more commonly only as “Josefina,” Vázquez Mota is the first female candidate for Mexican’s presidency from a major political party. Running with the conservative PAN party (which has also held the presidential seat for the last 12 years), Josefina’s main selling point is that she’s “different,” both as a woman and to distance herself from the largely unpopular Calderón. Like AMLO, her chances of winning are slim, but that doesn’t stop many (for example, Miriam’s landlords), from proudly hanging her banners proudly from their rooftops.

The fear of fraud in this election is large. In the end, it’s also hard to know how big of an effect the new president will have. It’s a difficult situation to step into and it’s hard not to acknowledge that on many issues the president’s hands will be tied by outside pressures and influenced by corruption. 

It looks like many progressives will be disappointed in 12 days (or whenever the results are finalized). However, as Marina Pages, director of SiPaz reminded us at INESIN's recent analysis of Mexico’s current context, holding elections is only one factor in a functioning democracy, and there are more ways to change a system than from the top-down. She stressed that regardless of the outcome, many working for positive change will continue striving for human rights, justice and peace. And that work, though slower than that of the government, may, in the end, be more important anyway.