Monday, January 25, 2010
Some Strange Bedfellows in This Year's Mexican Elections
By Patrick Corcoran
For the past six years or so,
the most irreconcilable enemies in Mexican politics have been the National Action Party (PAN) and the Party of the Democratic
Revolution (PRD). Ideology explains much of the enmity, with the right-wing positions of the PAN in obvious conflict with
those of the leftist PRD on a range of issues, from oil reform to same-sex marriage. Specific events have also played a big
role, notably Felipe Calderón’s narrow win over Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the 2006 presidential election, and the
latter’s refusal to recognize it. And the gap has been reinforced by different styles and leading characters, best exemplified
by the populist rhetoric of López Obrador versus the egg-headed calm of President Calderón.
Against that backdrop, one piece
of recent news is somewhat shocking: PAN and PRD leaders have announced a plan to unite behind a single, still-to-be-determined
candidate (though he or she will be from the left) in the upcoming governor’s race in Hidalgo. Similar arrangements
were to follow in Puebla, Oaxaca, Durango and other states where the PRI's rule is ironclad.
This plan is a striking reflection
of the utter corruption of many PRI governors, deemed the leaders of "authoritarian governments" by PRD President Jesús Ortega.
That two parties with such serious disagreements about public policy and political practices as the PAN and the PRD are willing
to combine forces against a common adversary is a testament to the uniting power of governors like Puebla’s Mario Marín,
who is believed to have ordered the kidnapping of a journalist and to have protected a network of child pornographers.
Such alliances would be a small-scale
return to the political climate of the second half of the twentieth century, in which parties on the left and the right often
made common cause in opposing the authoritarian PRI. The return of such a state of affairs seems to have worried the PRI (Senate
leader Manlio Fabio Beltrones oddly referred to the alliances a “deformity,” as though by uniting against the
PRI the two parties were disobeying God’s great political plan), and it should.
One big reason is that the governors
are an enduring source of the PRI’s power. After it got spanked in the 2006 elections, the PRI was able to regroup and
recover in large part thanks to its large stock of state executives, who offered an alternative image of governance in more
than half the country, kept the party’s electoral machinery from rusting, and were a major reason for the PRI’s
electoral domination in last July’s mid-term elections. Without the governors, the PRI would likely have had a harder
time rebounding from its devastating losses in 2006.
Beyond that, the PRI’s
recent success is to some extent predicated on the idea that the years of authoritarianism are history, and that the party
operates on a level playing field with its electoral rivals. If voters who have recently migrated to the PRI thought that
their votes would enable a return to Mexico’s authoritarian past, the party’s recent increase in support wouldn’t
have occurred. The PRD-PAN alliance is a reminder that such authoritarianism is not entirely in the past, which could help
erode the PRI’s recent good fortune.
For the PRD, the alliance strategy
is logical (in that it gives them a chance to win) and beneficial (in that it is Mexico's best chance to rid itself of some
of the most retrograde politicians), but it is also troubling. The PRD's recent travails are well documented, and a radically
different approach to politics is needed, but making common cause with the PAN is indeed tough medicine to swallow.
That’s even more the case
for the PAN. Before the 2009 elections, party leaders were dismissive of the PRD, making it clear time and again that the
PRI was their only real rival for power. After the PRI trounced them in last July's elections (which in turn followed a series
of PRI victories over the course of the past two years), it surely dawned on party brass that if there was a PAN-PRI rivalry
for power, it was one-sided. But failing to run its own candidates in gubernatorial races is also an admission not only of
a bad run of electoral luck thanks to a down economy, but of something resembling second-tier status for the PAN.
The reluctance to admit how far
their parties have fallen helps explain the largely dismissive reaction of heavyweights in both the PRD and the PAN. Former
President Vicente Fox of the PAN, López Obrador, and PRD founder Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas were among the heavyweights whose reaction
was less than positive. Perhaps most damningly, given his present position and his closeness to Calderón, Interior Secretary
Fernando Gómez Mont referred to them as a species of “electoral frauds.”
With every reaction like Gómez
Mont's, such alliances seem less likely to play a lasting role in Mexican politics. If that means more governors in the style
of Oaxaca's Ulises Ruiz, too bad for Mexico.
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Patrick Corcoran (corcoran25@hotmail.com) is a writer who resides in Torreón, Coahuila. He blogs at Gancho (http://www.ganchoblog.blogspot.com/).
