Voters in Mexico elected a new president on July 1, 2012, but the results show a divided electorate.
In the July 1 national elections, Mexicans reinstated the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional), the political party that governed the country for 70 years in the 20th century and that was kicked out of power 12 years ago. Analyzing how Mexicans voted and what it means has to be done carefully, and the temptation to make simplistic and sweeping generalizations must be resisted. As I made my trek to Coahuila from Houston to observe the elections, I spoke with people waiting for up to six hours to cast their ballots. Several things struck me as important to note.
First, the country continues to be divided as to its future course — and the results of the election show it: 38 percent for the PRI; 32 percent for the PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática); and 26 percent for the PAN (Partido Acción Naciona), the party of the current president, Felipe Calderón. These numbers surely do not reflect a country united behind any one candidate or political party, but it is clear that Calderón’s party, the PAN, was punished for his approach to the war on drugs, which has brought about an unprecedented level of gruesome deaths over the last six years, some 55,000 drug-related homicides.
Second, it also must be noted that many believe the PRI edged out the PRD by employing a number of old gimmicks, such as vote-buying, the use of public resources for political campaigns, etc., which have been attributed to the PRI for decades. In that sense, there is a slight doubt that the margin is indeed (at this writing) nearly six points or three million votes. It might be considerably less than that if we consider that many Mexicans might have simply sold their vote to the highest bidder, which happened to be the PRI. Even if the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) insists that the election was squeaky clean, there were a number of irregularities that the IFE seems bent on burying instead of investigating for the purposes of refining the electoral system and punishing electoral wrongdoers.
Third, although there was general agreement among all three candidates that Mexico must fight corruption, end the grip of monopolies on its economy, lift millions out of poverty, and continue to fight organized crime, there were few specifics on how to accomplish any of these goals. Enrique Peña Nieto, the 37 percent winner, is so indebted to a deeply corrupt political class that it is not certain that he can take them on and uproot the corruption that seems to run through the veins of the PRI party — which remains largely unreformed in spite of its efforts to portray itself as a new party. What is certain, however, is that Peña Nieto, together with the Green Party, will have a majority in Congress and could, if he were to show some political will to take on his own party, pass the necessary reforms to launch Mexico into a more modern economic and political era. He is himself an intellectual lightweight and thus must be surrounded first by the right people in order to accomplish such a feat.
Thus, Mexico continues to defy those who would prefer a simplistic analysis of its social, economic and political life. It is a complex nation, and the July 1 election shows just that.
Tony Payan is the Baker Institute Scholar for Immigration Studies.