Small parties in Mexico seek power
By Barnard R. Thompson
While scandals, bickering and stalled monopolization
continue to plague Mexico’s major political parties, a presumed rearrangement of the system is being engendered by smaller
movements, blocs and splinter groups that all want a piece of the establishment pie.
This because the race for the 2006 election year prizes is already underway, and all eyes — big and small —
are on not just the finish line but the many pesos and perks available en route.
Also waking up those involved is the federal election
calendar, with dates earlier set by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) starting to come due. This coming July 31 is especially important among those dates, as it is the deadline for political associations
or groups to file their notices of intent to form a political party — a requisite first step towards eligibility to
participate hereon in the 2006 presidential and congressional campaigns and elections.
Once the new organizations meet the various requisites
to qualify as national parties they will be granted provisional registration, with their permanency dependent on a qualifying
percentage of the vote in 2006. But once a provisional registry is approved the
new parties immediately start to receive truly large sums of money.
As such, the shuffling and reformation within the
political order can be seen nationwide in Mexico, with a number of developing actions having just occurred.
While claiming more noble purpose than to seize an
opportunity, a neophyte organization calling itself “Citizen Mexico Political Party” (MC) sent IFE a notice of
intent to form the party on May 14. However it is hard not to see the mostly
social democrat group as opportunistic since its primary stated goal is to become the party of record for self-proclaimed
presidential candidate Jorge Castañeda, Mexico’s past foreign minister.
Last March Castañeda announced his candidacy with
defiant suggestions that he is entitled to run for the presidency as an independent, without a party, regardless of what Mexico’s
electoral laws might say. And he threatened to take whatever legal measures might
be needed in a counteroffensive against the “partyocracy,” to use his neologism.
But all of this is easier said than done, and considering constraints of time agreements have apparently been reached
for a marriage of convenience with the MC.
During this time a number of Mexico’s leftist
parties have also been regrouping, by and large to support the presidential candidacy of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the
“progressive left” mayor of Mexico City. This over and above the
support López Obrador receives from his own party, the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.
A number of leftwing groups lost their conditional
party registries in 2000 and 2003, when they failed to win the percentage of votes needed in national elections to maintain
recognition as permanent political parties. Among others, some of those with
modified facades are again seeking provisional registrations in the run up to 2006.
One of the groups, now calling itself the Socialist
Alliance, announced its formation in April. The goal of this organization, that
reportedly has been meeting regularly, is to bring a “socialist and revolutionary anti-capitalist party” into
being. And while it was made clear that this alliance is not part of the PRD,
its spokespersons did spell out the need for a united future front in order to get López Obrador elected president.
Another movement supporting López Obrador, with origins
dating back to Mexico’s guerrilla movements and student upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, has agreed to form a national
political organization according to news reports. So far identifying itself as
the September 23 Socialist Revolution, many of those identified are aging guerrillas and protestors who now lead different
social and political organizations in 12 Mexican states. They and their fellow
travelers are scheduled to meet in Guadalajara, on June 26, to decide what they will do next.
While all of the new groups and organizations may
claim authenticity, the credibility of many still has to be challenged. And this
is just what the IFE is now doing in a number of cases.
A recent IFE statement charges that “phantom”
groups are seeking to register as political parties in order for those involved to get their hands on public funds. The latest rejections of applications, from three so-called social organizations that were seeking to become
political parties, were shown as examples. With nothing more than letterhead
addresses and telephone numbers to answering machines, the IFE found the Campesino Liberal Central, the Political Association
for the Mexican Revolution and the Truth Club all to be phonies.
