Mexican state elections 2016

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Colima voted yesterday: the rerun of 2015, after being annulled by courts. PRI candidate confirmed his victory. Formally, according to PREP, it is

Ignacio Peralta (PRI/PVEM/PT/Panal) 43.24%
Jorge Luis Preciado (PAN) 39.54%
Leoncio Moran (MC) 12.01%
Martha Zepeda (PRD) 1.87%
Jose Gallardo (Morena) 0.82%
Gerardo Galvan (PES) 0.44%

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Has MC taken support from PRD?

Not really. Colima is not a state with a lot of PRD. In 2009 PRD had 2.1% there (and Convergencia - the present-day MC - 0.6%).

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Do PT normally ally with the PRI?

No, but sometimes it happens

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Leaders of PAN and PRD are meeting right now to figure out in which states they will go in alliances. The idea is that they decide on pairs of states: the one in which there will be a PAN candidate in exchange for the one in which PRD will run. So far, the only concluded alliance is the Zacatecas/Durango pairing. Hidalgo/Tamaulipas failed outright (they have, actually, missed the filing deadlines already). The rest is going tough. Basave, the current PRD leader, nearly resigned over the entire issue.

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Already a few things will be different. For instance, PAN/PRD alliance has failed in Hidalgo. Tlaxcala, if the alliance is successful, will be given to PRD in exchange for Puebla being contested by PAN (remember, Tlaxcala is one of the few states where all three major parties have held the governorship), Zacatecas seems to have been successfully negotiated as the PRD state (Durango going to PAN in exchange), etc.

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Colima voted yesterday: the rerun of 2015, after being annulled by courts. PRI candidate confirmed his victory. Formally, according to PREP, it is

Ignacio Peralta (PRI/PVEM/PT/Panal) 43.24%
Jorge Luis Preciado (PAN) 39.54%
Leoncio Moran (MC) 12.01%
Martha Zepeda (PRD) 1.87%
Jose Gallardo (Morena) 0.82%
Gerardo Galvan (PES) 0.44%

PRI did even better than it did back in July 2015 by gaining vote share whereas PAN stayed the same as July 2015.  This is impressive as one would expect that anti-incumbency will grow as time goes on.   Perhaps this is an "El Chapo" recapture bounce ?

More like very competent party administration by Manlio Fabio Beltrones. Remember the name.

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I am surprised that the PRD is talking to PAN at all.  It makes logical sense but problem is, unlike 2010, we now have MORENA.  So for states that PRD cede to PAN to run, MORENA will run and try to take over the PRD organization along the way and pointing out that the PRD sold out.   I guess this why the PRD is under so much pressure during these talks with PAN.

True in part. But PRD consists of various "currents" or "tribes", and some of those tribes hate AMLO more than anything else on this planet. So, at least that part of the organisation will not go with Morena under any circumstances. The other tribes, of course, object to the PAN alliance. In any case, in many of  the states that PRD cedes to PAN there is not much PRD or Morena organization to begin with.

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At his point, the big discussion are the Puebla/Tlaxcala and Veracruz/Oaxaca pairings.

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BTW, we should be adding the elections to the Constituent Convention of the new state of Mexico City (the 32nd state of Mexico). The constitutional amendment abolishing DF and instituting the state has just been ratified and should be promulgated any moment now (if it has not happened already). It calls for a Constituent Convention of 100 members, of which 60 will be directly elected sometime this summer.

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BTW, we should be adding the elections to the Constituent Convention of the new state of Mexico City (the 32nd state of Mexico). The constitutional amendment abolishing DF and instituting the state has just been ratified and should be promulgated any moment now (if it has not happened already). It calls for a Constituent Convention of 100 members, of which 60 will be directly elected sometime this summer.

Oh  I did not know that.  So will the Head of Government of the Federal District, which I think is Mancera, be renamed Governor of Mexico City?  Will they hold  an election now for the newly created role of Governor or wait until 2018?

This all depends on the Constitution they write. For the moment, we are just dealing with the elections to the Constituent Convention.

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Puebla/Tlaxcala deal is off: both parties failed to work it out. Veracruz/Oaxaca might still be on: at least PAN has approved it.

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For the moment it does look like most of the races are PRI's to lose. Their candidates are leading in the polls, and their alliances are set.

Manlio Fabio Beltrones (the current PRI leader) might be a dinosaur, but he has forgotten more about politics than all the leaders of the other parties (including AMLO) have ever known together. He is building it up for PRI nomination in 2018, and given his (very dark) reputation, the only way he can get it, is if his electoral record meanwhile is spotless. He is giving it his best. Scary guy he is, but one has to admire his skill.

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In Sinaloa where a grand alliance PAN-PRD-MC won in 2010 over PRI things look better for PRI.  Not only is the PAN PRD alliance off but it seems PAN rebel Manuel Clouthier who won a seat as an independent last year in the Congressional elections will launch a campaign as an independent trying to replicate the "El Bronco" victory in NL last year.  More likely he is just going to split the PAN vote and help hand the election to PRI.

Malova, the outgoing Sinaloa governor, was no PANista. He ran on the PAN line, because PAN gave him the line. Local PAN did not get much out of his governorship.

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It seems in Aguascalientes, it will be PRI-PVEM-PANAL-PT which should give it an advantage over PAN even though this is a lean PAN state.  PANAL seems to have some strength here.  What is bizarre is that just a couple of months ago PANAL joined PAN to defeat PRI-PVEM in a Lower House re-vote of the Aguascalientes Federal 1st District Congressional race.  Now PANAL has swung back to PRI.

PANAL is not a political party in any normal sense of the word. It is a ballot access line. Whoever pays more...

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It seems PRD and PAN will be running a joint candidate in Quintana Roo. As may be expected, he is a dissident PRIista

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It seems in Aguascalientes, it will be PRI-PVEM-PANAL-PT which should give it an advantage over PAN even though this is a lean PAN state.  PANAL seems to have some strength here.  What is bizarre is that just a couple of months ago PANAL joined PAN to defeat PRI-PVEM in a Lower House re-vote of the Aguascalientes Federal 1st District Congressional race.  Now PANAL has swung back to PRI.

PANAL is not a political party in any normal sense of the word. It is a ballot access line. Whoever pays more...

While it may be more the case of Panal, isn't it more or less the case of basically every party in Mexico, except perhaps PRI which, though awful, is a different flavor of awfulness ?

No, of course not, nothing like that. The only two parties that are truly like this are Panal and PVEM (too early to talk about PES). PAN is something very well-defined, both ideologically, historically and at the level of personalities. PRD is a coalition of certain fairly structured "tribes", each with its own history and non-trivial politics, united,between themselves once again, by history and, to some extent, ideology. Both have lively traditions and internal political processes. Morena is a personalist cult - but, most defnitely, it is not for sale. MC and PT have well-defined owners, but those owners have fairly clear political objectives. While they may be willing to sell access lines, they are not willing to sell those to anybody, and the price they charge will be, mostly, political.

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It seems PRD and PAN will be running a joint candidate in Quintana Roo. As may be expected, he is a dissident PRIista

Will this make a difference?  Both PRI-PVEM and MORENA seems pretty strong here.  If both blocs maintain their vote base PRD-PAN does not seem to have much of a chance.  Does this dissident PRI joint candidate command a large personal vote base that he can transfer from PRI to PRD-PAN ?

Well, he used to be the mayor of Playa del Carmen amd, more recently, was second in command in the state tourism department (this is Quintana Roo, the state of Cancun and The Riviera Maya). At the very least, he should hold a lot of IOUs from local business.

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And after 2006 quagmire, there was some talk of runoff in Mexico elections. Why did that fail?

No real demand for it. Run-offs do less than nothing to address  the problems of the sort that happened in Mexico in 2006. The basic problem ther was how close the election was, and run-offs, actually, increase the probability of that happening. Instead of there being one election, in which it matters who is first and second, now you have two rounds: in the first round it matters who comes second, and in the second - who comes first. So, run-off only exacerbates the 2006-type problems.

The real reason to do the run-off is to avoid the victories by caniddates that would loose to everybody else in a one-on-one election and to force the political system towards the center. In many environments run-offs would force formation of broad "left-" and "rightwing" coaltions and generally advantage more centrist elements in both.

The problem in Mexico is that both the left and the right happen to be historic allies against the center, so the impact of run-off is far from straightforward. It would seem that run-off's initial impact would be to force PRD and PAN more permanently into some sort of alliance (at least for the purposes of the second round). The problem, of course, is that in both parties there would be strong segments inconvenienced by this, so in both parties there are forces who would prefer the status quo. Long-term run-off would work to the advantage of PRI: generally, the centrist party of Mexico. But the short-term PAN-PRD convergence implied by run-off is a sufficient disincentive for the PRI not to push this.

To sum up, run-off´s impact on Mexican politics is sufficiently complex for the issue not to have sufficiently committed supporters.

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Wait.  If I am reading this right, in Zacatecas PRD-PAN will nominate a PRI turncoat who is also the brother of the current PRI governor ??!!  Wow.

http://aristeguinoticias.com/1802/mexico/un-ex-priista-designado-como-candidato-del-prd-en-zacatecas/

brother-in-law

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PRI gubernatorial candidate in Q Roo is Mauricio Gongora, the mayor of Solidaridad (Playa del Carmen). He's a childhood friend of my deranged boss, who is supporting him.

Have you moved down here?

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For Veracruz and QR this would be the first non-PRIista victory. Tlaxcala would confirm its status as a never-repeat state. It has been PRI/PRD/PAN/PRI in as many elections, so it would seem to be continuing on the second circle Zacatecas has been in the past a PRDista stronghold, and Chihuahua and Ags. have both seen PAN governments. Durango, Tamaulipas and Hidalgo are always faithful to the old party, it seems.

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PRI ahead in Sinaloa 35.1 vs 24.6.   I guess PAN rebel Manuel Clouthier did not end up running or else PAN would be even worse shape.

Remember: last time PAN's victory was only "technical". Malova, the incumbent governor, is a caudillo, with zero party allegiance. He happened to choose the PAN/PRD lines, because these were made available to him. Counting him as a "panista" is not, really, proper.

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Tlaxcala has 3 way fight with PAN 30 PRD 29 PRI-PVEM-PANAL-PS 26

The one consistently 3-party state of Mexico is true to its reputation

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Why is PT with PAN. That seems unusual to me.

Happens sometimes. They are very close to the viability threshold (3%) in most elections now. If they dip below it in Puebla, they will not be getting any resources for the next campaign in the state. Given how badly PRD alone is polling here, a coalition with it would not give them much of a chance to clear the threshold. To go with Morena they would have to completely abandon their independence - and even then it is not clear why anybody would vote for them, rather than straight for Morena. This way, a leftist trying to keep PRI out could justify voting for the PANista candidate by saying that, at least, he is maintaining PT alive in the state. Good for both parties.

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I read that Morena is some sort of anarcho-communist party. Is that true or a bunch of nonsense. I forgot what the proper ideology was called.

Morena is a purely personalist party of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). It has been created for the explicit reason of avoiding the messiness of multiple "currents" of the PRD, because of which AMLO had to spend time and effort in each election getting the nomination. This way he has automatic ballot access and financing for his campaigns independent of anybody else. As AMLO is not a very prolific author, there is still no formal ideology of Lopezobradorism codified (but, I trust, this is only a matter of time).

Pretty much the only (semi-)independent grouping within the party is the Zacatecas machine of the Monreal brothers. Ricardo, the eldest (? not sure if he is, but he is the most prominent for sure) is the former Zacatecas governor, who is currently the mayor of the central borough of Mexico City. Unlike pretty much everybody else in the party other than AMLO, Monreals are a real political force on their own. For the moment they are willing to be fully subservient to AMLO, in the hopes of Ricardo inheriting the leadership at some point.

Everybody else in the party are either have beens, who are friendly to AMLO and willing to go along with him, or outright groupies of the Leader who would willingly do whatever he orders.  It is useless to talk of their ideology: to the extent that there is any, it is a personality cult.