On Sunday July 1st Mexican voters headed to the polling stations oh what has been the largest election in Mexican contemporary history: Over 3400 seats were out for grabs at local, state, and federal levels, including the president of the country and the whole Congress.
This election should also be remembered for other aspects equally pressing: Personal backbiting from all political parties, and the second one leaving 113 candidates from all political parties murdered prior to the Sunday elections. An unprecedented event yet unaddressed throughout the political campaigns by every candidate. Mexico is also has the lowest levels of faith in democracy.
An approximate of 62% of electorate turned out to vote in this past elections. While still a decent figure, it still shows that winners in recent elections have been unable to attract a significant number of the electorate in Mexico. The total of the nominal list for this 2018 election was 85, 953,712 million people; 63.45% of those turned out to cast their votes. (54, 537, 000 million people approximately) The virtual winner, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) obtained 52.96% of the votes, which mean 28, 359,567 million people elected the future president of the country, not even a third of the total nominal list. This is a result that has been present in the last 4 presidential elections and that should not be dismissed at all.
What is evident though is that this result brought to the forefront of the political agenda that Mexican voters are so fed up with the ruling class that they have decided to take a chance the only option that was left trying. This, again, should not be taken lightly, the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) and its candidate AMLO did not win supporters and votes because of his proposals for national policies. A large portion of the people that casted their vote for him did it as a punishment vote out of sweeping, profound frustration to the last 3 administrations.
AMLO’s victory ushers a four-year old party into the presidential seat with practically little governing experience and whose outsized leader has promised to radically and peacefully transform the country. Among his campaign promises are prevalence of the rule of law and democracy; rule with honesty and end privileges and immunities; decentralisation of ministries; fix the prices of agricultural products; deal with the energy crisis; eliminate corruption; fight insecurity and poverty; economic development controlled by the state; guaranteed jobs and access to free education to youngsters with a monthly stipend; paid apprenticeships to those currently not studying nor working; increase the pension of the elderly; guarantee 100% admission rates to university studies; and live humbly.
While on paper, these policies look certainly promising, AMLO has made seemingly contradictory statements throughout his political career and during his campaign. He has also steered clear of declaring a firm stance on many matters and avoided going into concrete ideas as to how he plans to achieve his campaign promises. While he has claimed to be in favour of transforming Mexico radically, his post-election speeches hint that he will hardly pursue a rapid and revolutionary upheaval to shock the system to the core. One of those contradictions is that whilst he has promised repeatedly that he will uproot corruption and live humbly, he has send signals he refers to everyone else but himself and his inner circle: He is backed by the multimillionaire Alfonso Romo; he postulated former mining union leader Napoléon Gómez Urrutia accused of stealing millions of pesos from workers to the Senate, and various family members of former Teacher’s Union Elba Esther Gordillo are among MORENA’s supporters.
While this is indeed a seismic change, it is still to early to brand it as the final step in the consolidation of Mexican democracy and the end of party rule as we know it, or at least the end of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The same was argued after the elections of 2000 and 2006, and the party was able to canalise the errors of the back then incumbent administration. Secondly, MORENA as a political organisation, despite claiming it is not a political party, it resembles in every way one, and in many aspects emulates the practices of the former hegemonic PRI party: one man at the top – AMLO, and dubious, non- transparent practices to select their candidates to governmental positions. Thirdly, there is no real ideological party affiliation in Mexico – Majority of the Mexican electorate do not vote for concrete political parties ideologies, as the election of AMLO shows, they voted for him because there was nobody else they considered better to vote for. Lastly, the long-criticised clientelism, nepotism and opacity that characterised PRI for 71 years are present not only in the rest of the political organisations but in society as a whole. Many of MORENA members were previously affiliated to other political parties and decided to get on MORENA’s bandwagon in search of a governmental post they considered unattainable with their former political parties. The old authoritarian system has been preserved out of convenience and this is the main hurdle to overcome.
How will a Mexico ruled under AMLO look like? That is one of the most pressing questions in the immediate aftermath of the elections. There are still many open-ended questions as to which AMLO will govern: The pragmatist or the firebrand one. It is still up in the air whether some of the inconsistencies, incongruencies, flip flops, ironies, choice of candidates, and lack of clarity regarding his policies were an electoral tactic or a worrisome trait. It will not be until he takes office that we will be able to grasp a more granular understanding of his ruling style.
AMLO will also have to rule a country mourning over 150,000 people murdered over the last 18 years and face a tightening grip over oil pipelines by criminal organisations as well as the uncontrolled spiral of violence in the country. His administration will coincide with the increasingly fragile and deteriorated relations with the United States, and many of AMLO’s proposals to deal with security may be further tied up by Trump, especially if he is unable to curb down insecurity in the short term. The Mexican government still relies on the US intelligence data to catch criminals. Mexico’s next president needs to fully understand the motivations behind Trump’s view of Mexico. For him it is a personal issue imbued by a political electoral dynamics crucial to mobilising his base. Arguing that the strategy should be to make Trump respect Mexico is not only a Panglossian attitude but it is doomed to failure. Both leaders stand today at crossroads and they can either be partners in success or accomplices in failure.
