Mexican Elections 2017-18

[Former President tack50]

Actually, it is the AMLO voters who need a US or another additional passport: they will not want to live in Mexico he will create. Nor, of course, will the rest of us.

Poor North America. Two Trumps at the same time. Canada is the last remaining hope of the continent!

Can you do a TL;DR about why AMLO is so bad?

I mean yes, he could end up like Chavez. But doesn't Mexico have a 6 year term limit? Unless he gets a majority in parliament (which iirc isn't likely) he doesn't seem that bad, he will have his hands tied. (kind of reminds me to the French election, where even if Le Pen had won, she would have her hands tied by parliament. Except AMLO has a chance while Le Pen didn't)

Definitely a left wing Mexican Trump but still. Is the opposition that much better? Peña Nieto is definitely very unpopular. Was Calderón also quite unpopular when he left? If so then it's no wonder people will vote for AMLO.

[ag]

The problem with AMLO is that he is both a megalomaniac, convinced of his own greatness and a classical old-time Mexican machine politician, in the dirtiest sense of the word. He also has extremely long memory and is vengeful. The combination is dangerous.

I expect him to do his best to undermine all limitations on presidential power. Abolishing a single-term limit might be difficult (too ideologically established here), but I would not even be confident he would not try that (though, as he is in his 60s and has had a major heart attack,  this is less of a danger than it would be 12 years ago). But electoral system will likely be eviscerated, as he is going to strive to control the Congress and the states. He will attempt to take over political machines and clientelistic networks that, at least, currently compete. Given his record, it is likely this will be the thing he will be most successful in. And, of course, the cartels, in his view, are just another clientelistic network to be controlled and used for his purposes: if they are willing to join him, he will not fight the goons, but use them as enforcers. He is pretty open about it: his "coalition" includes the most corrupt "historical" union leaders out there, and he is offering the cartels an "amnesty", without any verifiable dismantling of their structures: he will use those, once in power. People will get killed.

His main economic objective will be to generate monopoly rents, in order to finance whatever ideas he has (at whatever the cost). That might, actually, be good for certain Mexican businessmen (the ones that choose to play by his rules), but the overall cost to the economy will be humongous, as competition (both domestic and foreign) will be blocked. Essentially, what he will try to do is centralise the economy around his political needs. While doing it, he will gratuitously punish "disloyal" business, in order to make sure the others are loyal. This would be extremely bad long-term even if he sticks to the orthodox macroeconomic policies to ensure stability we have gotten used to: but he, probably, won't, since he will need  a short-term boost he is promising to his supporters. Hence, he will also need to undermine the Central Bank. Notably, the Central Bank and the Electoral Commission are among the few high quality civil service institutions in Mexico - bot will be his enemies. I would not, at all, be surprised by currency controls: not even for any economic purpose, but purely for control.

Add to all this the fact that he is a narrow-minded small-town conservative catholic and nationalist: neither will be good for culture. But, fortunately, he does not much care about culture: perhaps that will not be among his priorities, so it could go on unmolested for some time. His views of education completely confuse quality and quantity: he has been known to create "educational institutions" that do not have any capacity to educate, but that he views as "creating opportunities". In reality, the only reason he cares about education is that it provides a way of expanding clientelistic networks by giving a respectable cover for redistribution of resources to loyal "teachers" and "students".

I can continue. But even these are enough to explain why I think AMLO will, at best, through Mexico back by 30 to 40 years in its political and economic development.

[jaichind]

AG, so what you are saying is that if AMLO wins he will be successful in co-opting the various local PRI and PRD machines including various non-MORENA governors (assuming AMLO wins the election with good margin I have to assume MORENA will win the DF, Morelos, Tabasco, and Veracruz head/governorships) and then in turn control the Congressmen and Senators from those states to build a ruling majority in the legislative level ?

[ag]

AG, so what you are saying is that if AMLO wins he will be successful in co-opting the various local PRI and PRD machines including various non-MORENA governors (assuming AMLO wins the election with good margin I have to assume MORENA will win the DF, Morelos, Tabasco, and Veracruz head/governorships) and then in turn control the Congressmen and Senators from those states to build a ruling majority in the legislative level ?

Yes, of course. He is a classic PRIista politician from the ancien regime, dinosaur's dinosaur. As for PRD machines, he created the one in Mexico City  - he already has the bulk of that one. What he wants is the restoration - and big chunk of those two parties want exactly that.

[jaichind]

AG, so what you are saying is that if AMLO wins he will be successful in co-opting the various local PRI and PRD machines including various non-MORENA governors (assuming AMLO wins the election with good margin I have to assume MORENA will win the DF, Morelos, Tabasco, and Veracruz head/governorships) and then in turn control the Congressmen and Senators from those states to build a ruling majority in the legislative level ?

Yes, of course. He is a classic PRIista politician from the ancien regime, dinosaur's dinosaur. As for PRD machines, he created the one in Mexico City  - he already has the bulk of that one. What he wants is the restoration - and big chunk of those two parties want exactly that.

Well, this will be interesting to watch if he wins.  I am skeptical that all these PRI and PRD politicians that denounce AMLO today would defect so quickly if AMLO wins.  They have their own credibly to worry about in the field of future electoral policies, especially if they are in office today.  Of course the dynamics of the politics of defections are different in different political ecosystems so we will see. 

[ag]

AG, so what you are saying is that if AMLO wins he will be successful in co-opting the various local PRI and PRD machines including various non-MORENA governors (assuming AMLO wins the election with good margin I have to assume MORENA will win the DF, Morelos, Tabasco, and Veracruz head/governorships) and then in turn control the Congressmen and Senators from those states to build a ruling majority in the legislative level ?

Yes, of course. He is a classic PRIista politician from the ancien regime, dinosaur's dinosaur. As for PRD machines, he created the one in Mexico City  - he already has the bulk of that one. What he wants is the restoration - and big chunk of those two parties want exactly that.

Well, this will be interesting to watch if he wins.  I am skeptical that all these PRI and PRD politicians that denounce AMLO today would defect so quickly if AMLO wins.  They have their own credibly to worry about in the field of future electoral policies, especially if they are in office today.  Of course the dynamics of the politics of defections are different in different political ecosystems so we will see. 

Half the people on AMLO´s team are former PRI politicians with a history of violently denouncing either himself or the PRD when he was a part of it. They do not seem to be so much as blushing - they know, he is the winner, so they have jumped the ship. AMLO himself used to be a PRIista goon as a young man - he is more authentically PRIista than the current PRI. In fact, he is pretty much the only culturally PRIista candidate in this race - Meade has never been in the party, AMLO got his entire political education in it.

[ag]

AG, so what you are saying is that if AMLO wins he will be successful in co-opting the various local PRI and PRD machines including various non-MORENA governors (assuming AMLO wins the election with good margin I have to assume MORENA will win the DF, Morelos, Tabasco, and Veracruz head/governorships) and then in turn control the Congressmen and Senators from those states to build a ruling majority in the legislative level ?

Yes, of course. He is a classic PRIista politician from the ancien regime, dinosaur's dinosaur. As for PRD machines, he created the one in Mexico City  - he already has the bulk of that one. What he wants is the restoration - and big chunk of those two parties want exactly that.

Well, this will be interesting to watch if he wins.  I am skeptical that all these PRI and PRD politicians that denounce AMLO today would defect so quickly if AMLO wins.  They have their own credibly to worry about in the field of future electoral policies, especially if they are in office today.  Of course the dynamics of the politics of defections are different in different political ecosystems so we will see. 

Also, keep in mind that, in addition to major politicians, there are all sorts of local networks, that are run people with only local name-recognition. These guys, in many cases, would have alreayd switched parties 3 or 4 times - they do not much care about partisan lables. They will happily switch again, if they have not done so already.

[MAINEiac4434]

I haven't seen the reason why Social Encounter allied with Labor and MORENA for AMLO. Why did a right-wing party join the most left-wing coalition? Is AMLO socially conservative?

[ag]

I haven't seen the reason why Social Encounter allied with Labor and MORENA for AMLO. Why did a right-wing party join the most left-wing coalition? Is AMLO socially conservative?

Yes, of course he is. He is a small-town catholic conservative. And why would you be surprised that a right-wing party joins a fascist-led coalition?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Small parties in Mexico are all scams, even more so than the big ones (maybe Citizens Movement is OK? Never really worked out the deal with them.). Best example being the"classically liberal" PANAL.

[ag]

Small parties in Mexico are all scams, even more so than the big ones (maybe Citizens Movement is OK? Never really worked out the deal with them.). Best example being the"classically liberal" PANAL.

Yeah, MC has been something a bit more serious than the rest. It is a private vehicle of a former Veracruz Governor, Dante Delgado, but he is a bit more interesting politician than the other minor party leaders, so he has allowed some activity within the party that is neither inconsequential nor outright corrupt. At the last election they were quite strong in Jalisco.

[Former President tack50]

For all what's worth I like MC's campaign song quite a lot XD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNE7XfxZ7hk

[jaichind]

Small parties in Mexico are all scams, even more so than the big ones (maybe Citizens Movement is OK? Never really worked out the deal with them.). Best example being the"classically liberal" PANAL.

Yeah, MC has been something a bit more serious than the rest. It is a private vehicle of a former Veracruz Governor, Dante Delgado, but he is a bit more interesting politician than the other minor party leaders, so he has allowed some activity within the party that is neither inconsequential nor outright corrupt. At the last election they were quite strong in Jalisco.

I think this year MC is favored to win the Jalisco governorship in a 4 way battle of MC vs PRI  vs MORENA-PT-PES vs PAN.  PAN used to strong in Jalisco so I guess they refuse to play second fiddle to MC so their national alliance is off here.

[jaichind]

For all what's worth I like MC's campaign song quite a lot XD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNE7XfxZ7hk

This AMLO ad from 2012 is also pretty good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbIaqx3Hys4

My son a couple of years back liked to watch this.  It took a few moments after watching the ad to realize that AMLO is still AMLO.

[jaichind]

Massive Caller (which I noticed that has a pro-PAN and anti-PRI bias) poll has Anaya gaining from Zavala since the debates.

[MAINEiac4434]

For all what's worth I like MC's campaign song quite a lot XD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNE7XfxZ7hk

I don’t care what their politics are, I want them to win every seat bow

[jaichind]

Reforma poll post debate

AMLO (MORENA-PT-PES)       48 (---)
Anaya (PAN-PRD-MC)           30 (+4)
Meade (PRI-PVEM-PANAL)     17 (-1)
Zavala (PAN rebel)                 3 (-2)
El Bronco                              2  (-1)



As expected Anaya got some support from the other candidates.  Still way behind.  Seems like if this poll is accurate then AMLO has to stumble somewhere for Anaya to catch up.   Tactical voting does not work if the leader is already at 48% of the vote.

[ag]

Reforma poll post debate

AMLO (MORENA-PT-PES)       48 (---)
Anaya (PAN-PRD-MC)           30 (+4)
Meade (PRI-PVEM-PANAL)     17 (-1)
Zavala (PAN rebel)                 3 (-2)
El Bronco                              2  (-1)



As expected Anaya got some support from the other candidates.  Still way behind.  Seems like if this poll is accurate then AMLO has to stumble somewhere for Anaya to catch up.   Tactical voting does not work if the leader is already at 48% of the vote.

This is normalized to exclude those subjects who did not respond or did not give a candidate name.  It seems the actual results should be something like

AMLO 41%
Anaya 26%
No answer 18%
Meade 14%

Still, of course, it does not change the main outtake: AMLO should stumble for him to loose.

[jaichind]

Parametria poll.  More Anaya catching up post-debate and Zavala 's support falls to to be in line with other polls.

AMLO (MORENA-PT-PES)       39 (+1)
Anaya (PAN-PRD-MC)           25 (+5)
Meade (PRI-PVEM-PANAL)     14 (-2)
Zavala (PAN rebel)                 6 (-7)
El Bronco                              2  (--)

[ag]

Yeah, Anaya will be the runner-up. Not that it will make any difference. We are in for a bout of fascism in Mexico. Hopefully, it will be sufficiently disorganized not to be too lethal.

[jaichind]

The Economist and Mitofsky came out with a survey on Lower House elections

It has



Which it seems to imply something like

PAN         104
PRD           42
MC            38
PRI           62
PVEM        15
PANAL       10
MORENA  128
PT            45
PES          55
Ind.           1

Since none of the parties are contesting enough seats to hit the 8% rule one can then infer the following
 
             Total     FPTP      PR       Impled PR vote share%
PAN         104      55        49             24.5%
PRD           42     29         13              6.6%
MC            38      28        10              4.8%
PRI           62      25         37            18.4%
PVEM        15       9           6              2.8%
PANAL       10       6           4              2.1%
MORENA  128     62         66             29.5%
PT            45      37           8              4.0%
PES          55      48           7              3.4%
Ind.           1

Which means

                            FPTP    PR seats  Total     PR
PAN-PRD-MC         112         72        184    36.1%
PRI-PVEM-PANAL     40         47          87    23.3%
MORENA-PT-PES    147         81        228    40.5%

Even in the 2006 debacle PRI-PVEM got 123 lower house seats and 29% of the non-null PR vote.  This time PRI-PVEM-PANAL might get reduced to 87 and 23.3% of the non-null non independent vote PR vote.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

In the pr seats in the legislature, are the alliances running on unified lists or can you vote for their individual components?

Also crazy that PES is level with PRI. Thanks AMLO for that; we all wanted some emboldened theocrats to become one of the biggest forces in Mexico...

[TJ in Oregon]

Also crazy that PES is level with PRI. Thanks AMLO for that; we all wanted some emboldened theocrats to become one of the biggest forces in Mexico...

Presumably, AMLO wants them to take votes from PAN to prop up Morena in the long run?

[jaichind]

In the pr seats in the legislature, are the alliances running on unified lists or can you vote for their individual components?

Also crazy that PES is level with PRI. Thanks AMLO for that; we all wanted some emboldened theocrats to become one of the biggest forces in Mexico...

I wrote something about this based on what I learned from AG and reading on line but cannot find it anymore.  

But the PR allocation depends on the nature of the alliance.  

The allied parties could just nominate the same candidate and the voter pick which line to vote for the party (like the way we do it in NY State) PLUS vote for 2 or 3 or more of the same candidate lines to split the PR allocation between the said parties.

Or the allied parties can have one line with the alliance name and parties associated with it and have a contract that states on how each vote will be split between the allied parties for PR allocations.

As for large PES and PT seat count that seems to be a function of AMLO giving them a lot of winnable seats. The FPTP seats are allocated MORENA 150 PES 75 PT 75 and the PES and PT seats seem if anything more winnable than the MORENA seats which is not at all correlated to the real strength of MORENA relative to PES and PT.  Not sure why.  I guess he figured he can control them once he becomes president.

[jaichind]

Massive caller projection on Senate (I think this pollster has a pro-PAN bias)





For each state a list gets 2 seats for coming in first and 1 seat for coming in second.  MORENA-PES-PT comes in first in 20 states, PAN-PRD-PT comes in first in 10 states, PRI-PVEM-PANAL comes in first in 1 states and an independent (I think MC rebel in Jalisco) comes in first in 1 state.

By looking at their result it seems MORENA-PES-PT will come in second in 8 states,  PAN-PRD-PT  will come in second in 17 states, PRI-PVEM-PANAL will come in second in 6 states, and MC running independently will come in second in 1 state.

The 32 seats are allocated by on PR.

The result seems to be

MORENA-PES-PT     61
PAN-PRD-PT           47
PRI-PVEM-PANAL    15
Independent/other   3 (I think they will be all aligned with MC)

Which is a pretty good result for PAN-PRD-PT under the circumstances.  They seems to squeezed out PRI-PVEM-PANAL  in several states for second place by close margins.