Monday, July 12, 2010
Mexico's Electoral Lessons and Looming
PRI Trojan Horses
'Bajo Reserva' Column, El Universal
Several analysis firms, as well as Mexican and foreign
specialists like the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, assign four lessons regarding the PRI [Institutional Revolutionary Party]
after the [July 4] elections.
The first derives from the defeats in Puebla, Oaxaca
and Sinaloa: Voters, they agree, do not forgive candidates or governors who are accused of human rights violations or under
suspicion, albeit minor, of being connected with drug traffickers.
The second is that, in order to express its discontent,
the electorate is able to rise to ideological cohesions; the vote for an alliance of the left and right demonstrates this.
Third, the PRI has shown a unique ability to reform
itself in order to retain power: as a result it regained states and won nine of the 12 [gubernatorial] elections.
And a fourth is that the [PRI] learns not only from
its mistakes, but too from the success of others: no one rules out that, in coming weeks, it will launch itself against the
alliances, but for now the PRI may be building its Trojan horse for 2011 and 2012: that brings together whomever it needs
in order to achieve [its] electoral goals, the analysts say.
President Calderón already closed the Hidalgo election,
where his [National Action] Party seeks to challenge. [On July 6] he congratulated Carlos Lozano de la Torre, the virtual
PRI winner in Aguascalientes, as well as Francisco Olvera of the same party, the virtual winner in Hidalgo. The candidate
of the PAN-PRD-Convergencia alliance in the latter state, Xóchitl Gálvez, conceded defeat on Sunday night [7/4] but something
happened; on Monday she announced that she would go to court. Maybe this to take a third tack, after Calderón basically failed
to recognize her nonconformity.
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"Bajo Reserva" is a collaborative column written
by a team of El Universal journalists and contributors. El Universal, Mexico City, July 7, 2010; edited translation:
MexiData.info
