Mexican Elections 2017-18

[ag]

Assorted news.

Next year there will be elections in only 4 states - but some very important ones. Mexico State, Coahuila and Nayarit will have the general gobernatorial/legislative/municipal polls. In addition, the newly-PAN-governed Veracruz will have the municipals.

The main attraction, of course, is Mexico State, our largest state. PRI has never lost power there. In fact, the old dedazo system of the outgoing governor choosing his successor has never been abandoned. The state has been, traditionally, in the hands of the Atlacomulco group (to which Peña Nieto belongs). However, in 2012, then governor Peña Nieto sacrificed it in order to obtain the national presidency: at the last moment, instead of the cousin everybody was expecting him to "touch", he chose the mayor of Ecatepec, Eruviel Avila from an entirely different faction of the PRI. At this point, it will first have to be  resolved if Atlacomulco resumes the normal service (in which case, probably, the nomination would go to Alfredo del Mazo, who should have been the nominee the last time), or if Governor Eruviel manages to keep it with his "eastern suburbs" allies. If I had to bet, I would bet on the former - though recent performance by Peña makes one doubt.  However, PRI itself might not get to keep the state as easily as it has: especially if it fails to unite. PAN is going in for real this time. The most likely candidate will be the former presidential nominee Josefina Vasquez Mota. It will be fun.

In other news, an early poll by Mitofsky for the 2018 presidential election, has PRI-PVEM at 33% of those choosing to declare a voting intention followed by PAN at 32% (this is before the Trump visit). Morena is the choice of 16% and PRD closes the pack with 11%. However, 39% of those polled have not expressed a preference at all. It is far too early.

[ag]

Shocked that the PRI is leading (even if it is clearly within the margin of error) when EPN is so utterly despised. I lament that Mexico doesn't have a true center-left party because the PRI is centrist (and corrupt) and the PRD is bloody insane (maybe they've changed, but the whole AMLO shadow presidency after the 2006 election left a bad taste in my mouth). I fully expect PAN to win the next presidential election, but it should be an interesting few years...

Well, the poll was taken before the Trump visit

In any case, Peña will not be on the ballot. Nor, likely, will it be anybody from his faction of the PRI. Remember, PRI is the Grand Old Party of Mexican politics. There are many factions and many influence networks involved here. A lot of people have always supported it. It rarely goes too low. If anything, it is a very weak performance for it.

The rump PRD, after the AMLO defection, is somewhat corrupt, but also more reasonable.

[ag]

So, some news.

The biggest polls this year are in Mexico State. It looks like a 5-way race, with at least three (and, may be, all five) having chances of victory.

The only alliances concluded by the alliance deadline are the usual PRI-PVEM-PANAL and PRD-PT combines. PAN tried to get it with the PRD, and the national leadership pushed for it, but the state party organization said no.

So far, three of the main candidates are well-defined. PRD will run, it seems, Alejandro Encinas - the former Communist and an acting mayor of Mexico City after AMLO resigned to run for presidency. He also ran last time, if my memory serves me right. He is a decent enough man, but old and not very inspiring. And the PRD is in doldrums.

Morena, as usual, has no difficulty figuing out candidates: the decisions are centralized there (in the old Mexican tradition, it is a perfect internal democracy with the electorate size limited to 1: AMLO). They are running Texcoco Mayor Delfina Gomez.

A third candidate that is showing up in the polls is an independent: Isidro Pastor, who is, basically, the representative of the Ecatepec (Gov. Eruviel Avila´s) wing of PRI, who is running because, it seems, the Atlacomulco clan is in control of the state party and determined to return to governing after the 6-year hiatus.

PAN and PRI are still thinking. It seems, Josefina Vasquez Mota, who ran for presidency in 2015, may enter. If she does and gets the nod, she has a chance. Other PANistas are, probably, not very likely to win. PRI is still thinking about which of the del Mazo infantes of the Atlocomulco dynasty is going to be "touched".

[ag]

Anyway, here is the party voting intention from yesterday's El Financiero poll (in brackets change from theri poll two months ago,  in Nov. 2016)

PRI 24% (-8)
PAN 22% (+2)
Morena 18% (+1)
PRD 15% (nil)
Independent 9% (+3)
PT 3% (nil)
PES 3% (+1)
PANAL 3% (+2)
PVEM 2% (-1)
MC 1% (nil, and they are not, actually, running a candidate)

[ag]

If names of candidates are given, it becomes very volatile: candidates matter

Josefina Vasquez Mota, PAN 33%
Alfredo del Mazo, PRI-PVEM-PANAL 21%
Delfina Gomez, Morena 20%
Alejandro Encinas, PRD 14%
Isidro Pastor, Ind 12%

Alfredo del Mazo PRI-PVEM-PANAL 26%
Delfina Gomez, Morena 24%
Jose Luis Duran, PAN 20%
Alejandro Encinas, PRD 16%
Isidro Pastor, Ind. 14%

Delfina Gomez, Morena 28%
Jose Luis Duran, PAN 22%
Ernesto Nemer PRI-PVEM-Panal 19%
Alejandro Encinas 18%
Isidro Pastor 13%

[ag]

As for the national elections, Reforma has recently had a nationwide voting intention poll for 2018. These are January numbers, with change from December in brackets. Trump is really making a difference here (though, one should ad, so does the rize in gas prices)

Morena 27% (+5)
PAN 24% (-3)
PRI 17% (-5)
PRD 10% (+5)
Independent 10% (-1)
MC 4% (-1)
PVEM 2% (-1)
others 6% (+1)

EPN's numbers are awful. His performance is approved by 12% and disapproved by 86%.

[ag]

(Bloomberg) --

Former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Morena has 33% of voter preference, up from 29% in Nov., according to poll on website of El Financiero.

Former First Lady Margarita Zavala of the PAN follows w/27% of preference, down from prior 29%

Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong of PRI in 3rd w/preference of 20%, down from prior 26%

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera of PRD has 10% vs prior 9%

----------------------------

I wonder with all the stuff Trump will be up to it would only polarize the Mexico electorate and push support toward AMLO.

Of course it does. At this point it is AMLO´s race to lose. Though, let us not forget that he managed to do it back in 2006, before his negatives were all solidified. Still, it is going to be very hard to avoid having him elected in 2018.

[ag]

So AMLO is clearly running, in this case? Your post about the names of the candidates seemed to imply to me that his party was likely to run someone else (this Delfina Gomez, for instance) as a stalking horse.

He is running for president: that is the one reason Morena exists. Delfina Gomez is running for Mexico State Governor.

[ag]

Can you give me (or send me a link: an article in Spanish is no problem) a run-down of who the parties are likely or possible to nominate, and what the differences between the candidates are? I understand the identities of the Mexican parties from having followed prior elections, but I don't have such a knowledge of the country that I know about individual politicians, besides very famous ones like AMLO.

Very simply, left to right

1. Morena - AMLO, nothing to talk about.

2. PRD/PT could nominate Mancera (Mexico City mayor). Otherwise, they will either go into a coalition with Morena (unlikely) or PAN (more likely). If the latter happens, PT might go to AMLO on its own.

3. Convergencia. Who knows? Might gow with AMLO, might go with Mancera, might go on its own.

3. PRI (with PVEM and PANAL, most likely). A whole zoo of candidates. EPN wants Videgaray (the foreign secretary), but that guy is literally toxic and EPN is not strong enough. A softer (and less toxic) version would be Meade (the treasury secretary), but he has no base in the party whatsoever. Osorio Chong (the interior secretary, formerly governor of Hidalgo) is the natural successor, and he has strength of his own. And, of course, there is Manlio Fabio Beltrones: having resigned as the party Secretary General after the election defeats last year, he is not responsible for the administration's disasters - and he is the smartest guy in Mexican politics, for sure. Quite a frightening character, actually.

4. PAN. There are three semi-declared candidates at this point. Most realistic is Margarita Zavala, Calderon's wife (and a former Congresswoman on her own). She is tainted by her husband, of course, but she is the only one in the party with both ambitions and charisma. Ricardo Anaya, the party leader right now, also wants it. He is, actually, quite good, but he has the appearance, gravitas and charisma of an overgrown nerdy college freshman. Finally, there is Rafael Moreno del Valle, who has just finished his term as the governor of Puebla. Alas, he is a fool.

5. PES. Who knows (or cares)?

6. Independents. A few are not unlikely. Say, the governor of Nuevo Leon ("El Bronco") could run (though it is too early in his term).

[ag]

I will come back just for this one quick post. No intention of coming back otherwise, but just want to clarify some things about this election.

Right now the entire race is about who is going to be the anti-AMLO. Nominating Meade is a grand gambit for PRI: they trade properly PRIista nominee (Meade is not, really, one of them) for the chance  to actually be able to stay in the country after the election.

As a gambit it has a certain genius in it: it does poach the PAN space, as Meade as such would be the sort of a president most PANistas could leave with. The problem, though, is that it leaves too much space on the other end of the spectrum: Meade is clueless about PRIista machine, has no appeal to the traditional dino crowd, has no faction of his own. In contrast, AMLO is an old-time PRIista apparatchik, who has been very successful attracting the disaffected chunks of the old machine. The danger is, the traditionalist PRI wing is going to be poacheable by AMLO.

This is why they are doing the entire pageant of the old-time PRI nomination, with the, presidential "destape", "sectores" represenatives pledgin allegiance and siging ditties about Peña today and Kurbreña tomorrow and such. For the moment, they are safeguarding their own machine, of which they are uncertain.

But that also has a downside: the entire spectacle is causing nausea among the anti-PRI segments of the society, including a lot of PANistas. None of them are going to vote for AMLO, but voting for PRI, especially after the corruption and misgovernment of the Peña administration, is a step that would be difficult in the best circumstances. The manner of Meade´s nomination is making them actually vomit. There are a lot of people who are praying for any credible candidacy from the PAN-PRD combine to take over the second spot. Not because they dislike the PRI candidate: Pepe Meade would, for many of those doing the praying, be the ideal candidate were he to run on the PAN line. But they had spent first half of their lives HATING how PRI used to do things. Being reminded of that now is causing a revulsion towards the guy they should be liking.

The outcome of this is that PAN-PRD has a surprisingly high floor for the moment. How durable that is, is a question. Presumably, after he gets control of the party organization, Meade is going to try to appeal to his former comrades. How successful he is going to be would depend on how strong is AMLO, of course. But also on the emergence of any strong alternative. At this point far too many PANistas would be willing to even go for a moderate leftist, somebody from the PRD, ideological coherence be damned. That would have an added virtue of  limiting the space available to AMLO. Mancera is not popular either among PANistas or among PRDistas, but if he can provide a credible race for the second, a lot of people would go for him: he may no be popular, but nobody would vomit while marking a ballot for him.

But, alas, it would seem Anaya has the control of the process, and if he uses it for himself, one has a feeling he will, eventually, get slaughtered. He is not a bad guy, but he has no charisma or weight. Any weakness on the PAN-PRD side, and people will report to duty and vote for Meade. Better 2 minutes of self-loathing behind a curtain, while marking the ballot for PRI, than 6 years of AMLO.

The danger, of course, is also that PAN will run on the right of Meade (which would be consistent with Anaya), leaving ample space for further PRI and PRD defections to Morena. Mexico is a leftist country: having two rightist candidates is not a way to win.

[ag]

This is quite controversial within the Left. There were protests today during the registration of the alliance. Among the protestors there were prominent people: for instance, Elena Poniatowska. PES is very socially conservative.

There is a reason for AMLO to do this. He is, clearly, trying to poach the social conservatives from PAN (in case it remains the major competitor) or prevent them from moving to Meade (otherwise). Being able to do this with no sacrifice in power (as PES has no powerful politicians inside it) is an added bonus. Ideologically, for him it is no problem whatsoever. He is personally extremely socially conservative, and has only tolerated the socially liberal declarations of his supporters over the years with visible disgust. He might not be exactly a Santorum on those issues, but he is a conservative Catholic with very old-fashioned provincial mores.  He is a traditionalist national socialist - gay marriage or even abortion is not something he approves of in the least. At best, he may tolerate them if it is useful: he would be more comfortable banning both if he could without political damage, but he does not consider either important enough to take a stand on.

He has said this almost openly in the past, and he has been very happy to confirm this today. "There is no contradiction: I am .... a guadalupano". Interesting choice of a word, though - and a dangerous one. While traditionalist rural Catholics will love this, "guadalupano" is the dirtiest word out there for the evangelicals here: when they say that Catholics are "guadalupanos" they mean they are "not Christian". So, while this has a potential to help among the faithful community, his choice of words limits the target audience.

Still, it make a lot of sense, if he believes that the urban lefties are sufficiently attached to him to tolerate the betrayal, rationalizing it with something like "he has to appeal to the masses". If they do, they are idiots. But, of course, love has a tendency to cause blindness.

[ag]

Looks like ex-PAN President Fox who backed PRI's Nieto will now also back PRI's Meade.  Not sure if he is even in PAN if he is going to break with PAN for 2 election cycles in a row.  Back in 2012 you can argue that Fox backed PRI to stop AMLO.   Not sure what is his logic this time.  Any he says "I'm with Meade, not with the PRI" when asked about this.

Well, unlike EPN, Meade is not a proper PRIista. He was specifically nominated to appeal to Fox-type PANistas: moderately religious, with technocratic or pro-business preferences. Except for the party that nominated him and the manner of his nomination he is unobjectionable to Fox. In fact, supporting EPN was a much bigger step than supporting Meade, who could well have been a PANista candidate to begin with. And, obviously, Fox thinks Meade is a stronger candidate than anyone the PAN-PRD alliance will nominate. On that he is, probably, right. So, the "stop AMLO" logic still works.

[ag]

It seems the MORENA PT PES alliance will divide up the 300 Lowe House seats MORENA 150 PT 745 PES 75.  It seems AMLO is prioritizing getting PT and PES to back him for Prez race than seats in the lower house.  MORENA strength is clearly greater than the sum of PT and PES.

The 150-75-75 division does not, in fact, much matter. There are easily 150 districts where MORENA has exactly zero chance.  Even if they give some 10 non-impossible seats to PT, they can keep 140 for themselves. The PES seats will all be duds - the party leadership will get a seat or two high on the PR lists and will be happy about that.

[ag]

Yeah, Anaya is playing it well, and Meade has done everything wrong. Pretty much the only people who think he still has a chance work for the government at this point. Anaya is slowly but surely emerging as the anti-AMLO in this race. The problem for him is that at this point, among those who respond to this question, he is losing one-on-one to AMLO 38% to 46% - though this is much closer than either of them is demolishing Meade one-on-one. 

The important thing now is what the PRI machine will do. Of course, the Atlacomulco group is going to stick with Meade - Peña Nieto has enough control there. But as for the rest, chunks are going to simply try to concentrate on other offices, while other chunks will try to make the deals with AMLO and Anaya. Here, alas AMLO should have an advantage - he is an old PRI apparatchik, who knows how those people tick. But the technocratic wing of the party is about to go to Anaya, methinks. In fact, if a month ago some people were evasive, these days they increasingly are prone to say both that Meade has no chance and that they personally would rather not vote for him.

Now, it is still Likely AMLO - he is still ahead even though consolidation of those who hate him has started. And he does have a lot more charisma than Anaya. But Anaya has gone a lot further than I would have thought possible and he is about to dispose of Meade.

[ag]

I contend that AMLO will not make it to the end. A deep state DOES exist in Mexico, made up of the same military/police/intelligence agency complex that undid Morsi in Egypt. The Mexican deep state loathes AMLO and will unleash every cryptic, underhanded deed it can on him.

The AMLO wave will recede (by hook or by crook).

The real race will be between those two dissolute, venal parties every Mexican loves to hate and dreads having to choose between, the PAN & the PRI. The swell of distaste for Pena Nieto (and his party) is quite heavy (if you live in Mexico, you've probably heard an earful).  I predict this distaste, this urge for something "new' (i.e., a switch from one breakable musical chair to another), will be enough to send ANAYA to Los Pinos this year.

Let us not forget, that AMLO is the master of Mexican machine politics. He is an old-time PRIista apparatchik, and most of those people who have simbolized the ancien regime now work for him (including such dinosaurs as Manuel Bartlett, the guy who pretty much personally stole the election from Cardenas back in 1988). He is actively expanding the political machine by making tie-ups with some of the least savory characters, both in politics and in business. So, let us not be oversimplistic of who is in cahoots with the "deep state", whatever that means.

Of course, a lot of people find him scary, and it has already twice cost him election in the past, when much of the electorate consolidated against him. But he will, certainly, be among the two front-runners, and, at this point, his chances of victory should be taken to be something like 2:1. Alas, Mexico is in for a bout of the old national socialist restauration - except, this time, on a personalist basis, unrestricted by the old party institutions. How long it will take us to recover I do not know, but I would conjecture that the next 2-3 decades will be lost.

[ag]

I am surprised at how badly Meade is doing and that we seem to be headed toward a re-run of 2006.  Meade is nowhere as unpopular as Madrazo was.  I have to imagine some sort Meade recovery as the headlines move away from all those PRI ex-governor scandals.

Also without knowing much I think if Anaya thinks he can dispose of Meade in the polls and then face off with AMLO and win just like Calderón did in 2006 he might be in for a surprise.  The issue here is that Anaya has shown himself to be a ruthless political operator.  The PRI machine in the North had no problems backing Calderón in 2006 to stop AMLO because they figured Calderón was not a threat to their existence whereas AMLO was.  They might view Aanya differently given his track record so far and it is far from assured that they will back Anaya to stop AMLO.  It might end up being the other way around especially when it seems AMLO learned his lesson from 2006 and this time around show he is willing to work with the establishment.  In other words Anaya seems to think he will get to run against Lula 1994 when he might be getting Lula 2002 as his main opponent.

It is not the PRI governor scandals. The biggest scandal is EPN himself, anyway, and that is not going away. But the main thing is that Meade has tried to square the impossible: he is far too PANista for PRI, but too PRIista for PAN-PRD. They tried to play it by the PRI handbook, with all the pageant of the dedazo, and it sounded fake for the PRIistas - and it poisoned it all for the PANistas. I daily exist in the circle, which should be the natural base of support for Meade - he is not catching on. People who should be jumping up and down, his friends and peers, increasingly speak out in favor of Anaya. There is still a bubble around the candidate himself, in the government, within which it seems they are doing well - but even that is getting thin.

Anaya is a ruthless operator, sure. He killed of, in sequence, calderonistas, Madero, Zavala,  PRDistas and is about to dispatch Meade. But he presents no obvious threat to the PRI machine in the North - it is not like he is taking it over. AMLO would, if given any chance: so, yes, he is dangerous. It is more that big chance of PRI machine will, in fact, be susceptible to move to AMLO side - capturing parts of the machine has been his way of operating since he split from the PRI all those decades ago. AMLO is a "real" PRIista - he knows how talk that language. Anaya does not (nor does Meade).

The mistake people are making is identifying PRIista machine with the technocrats - the two have very little in common. On occasion they are allies. But the real PRI machine has a lot more in common (both ideologically and in their approach to politics) with AMLO than with either PAN or to the technocrats. PRI is in its origin, like Morena, a national socialist party. And those national socialist views are still remarkably strong among the party operators. This is precisely why AMLO is much more dangerous for PRI than Anaya could ever be.

[ag]

I'll tell all readers now, AMLO will NOT be President of Mexico.

From your lips to His ears.

[ag]

I doubt PRI would perform that badly. They do have some local machines that are in good form. Even if they are indifferent on Meade, they will work hard for their guys. PAN is known to be relatively bad at machine politics, so at least some of the Senate PRIistas should make it in the first spot. At the very least I would expect EdoMex, Hidalgo, Sinaloa, Durango, Coahuila, Sonora, Campeche, Chiapas (with the Verde) and, possibly, a couple of others. If it performs as bad as this suggest, it would still be a shock.

Also, if it is such a complete collapse on the Senatorial level, Meade will be roasted alive. This, basically, means PRI machines defecting en masse - and, I am afraid, they would be defecting to MORENA.

[ag]

Anaya is, obviously, not the guy who would kidnap and shoot your grandma to get a nomination. But he has proved to be surprisingly good at dispatching those in his way, irrespective of previous alliances.  Clearly, he has to be taken seriously. Alas, he still has very little charisma. He has not, really, endeared himself to anybody I know - but he does not cause indidgestion in most, which might not be a bad position to be in. And he is consciously running to the left, not to the right - which is the way to do it (frankly, I had hoped they would find a good PRDista to take on AMLO - but, alas, they did not). Still, I have a hard time seeing how he defeats AMLO one-on-one. If he does, he is a true wunderkind of politics.

[ag]

That CEDE poll looks very fishy to me. Look, I am a part of the "righ-wing neoliberal" crowd. I know very few people who are confident AMLO will not win, and I am not seeing much traction for Meade except among the people who are either very close to him personally, or close to the current administration. The conventional wisdom is AMLO is a favorite and Meade is not doing very good. This is the conventional widsom among those who hate AMLO and who are, on average, within one degree of separation from Meade in terms of personal relations. Of course, this circle is not very represenative of Mexico at large - but, if anything, you would expect most pro-Meade attitudes imaginable here. I have no clue who else would like Meade more. And, alas, daily I find myself among the more pro-Meade people in the conversation - and even I would, probably, vote for Anaya (though I do think that Meade would be a better president), and even I would consider AMLO the favorite at this point.

[ag]

Yeah, actually, it is a bit surprising. Of course, within Mexico City the only hopeless district (15th, Benito Juarez) went to PES, but then the difficult Miguel Hidalgo district goes to Morena. I Guanajuato Morena did take the ony district where they stand any chance whatsoever (Valle de Santiago), but also a lot of hopeless ones. Morena also takes several Nezahualcoyotl districts - even though this is one of the last real pockets of PRD strength (ok, perhaps they are just trying to destroy PRD and think they can). PT, though, is stuck with the PRIista Atlacomulco and likely PANista Naucalpan. But nothing is that clear.

Of course, it remains to see who are the actual candidates. PES does not have many people to staff the lists. It could well be that they will simply take obradorista guys who would have otherwise run as Morena, and the only think PESista or PTista about the candidates would be the money that the vote for them will send.

[ag]

Mexico City population has been stationary for a very long time now. No surprise there whatsoever.

Overall, good for PAN - much of the growth is concentrated in states they govern (Guanajuato, Queretaro, Quintana Roo, Tamaulipas), or where they are relatively strong (Jalisco).

[ag]

BTW, I have not been watching closely, but there have been tensions between PVEM and PRI, ostenstibly over Chiapas. Rats?

[ag]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/ex-mayor-ebrard-joins-amlo-campaign-team/

Looks like former head of Mexico City after AMLO Marcelo Ebrard who left PRD and joined up with MC a few years back has joined the AMLO campaign.

Ebrard was a good (though somewhat corrupt) mayor, and he would have been president now had AMLO let him run in 2012. But he has been politically destroyed since. At this point he is just trying to attach himself somewhere, to may be try to reestablish himself. I doubt he has enough power left to affect anything. This, though, does show who he thinks the winner is likely to be.

[ag]

Well, it does seem unfair to apply a no-reelection clause to a governor, whose term has been cut to 2 years!