For a map, click here
PAN implodes
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
With the first full month of campaigning about to conclude, the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) presidential campaign of Josefina Vazquez Mota is showing all the signs of a campaign that has imploded. What the Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE) gave last week, PAN internal politics take away.
Troubled before it even began, the Vazquez Mota camp took some measures to counter those troubles, but waited two weeks after the start to try to bolster its position in the polls. Among the measures was adding several PAN stars to its lineup of advisers including former Mexican finance minister Ernesto Cordero, former Jalisco state governor Francisco Ramirez Acuña and current PAN president Gustavo Madero.
Accompanying those additional advisers was a series of negative campaign ads which accused Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto of lying about his record while governor of Mexico state. The ads were greeted with accusations from PRI party leaders, such as PRI president Pedro Coldwell and Nuevo Leon governor Rogelio Medina de la Cruz as acts of desperation.
The ads were actually very mild and fact based. The IFE voted last week that the ads do not adversely affect democracy in Mexico, which wound up a huge win for Madero.
The one sure sign of the campaign's implosion came last week as a Durango senatorial candidate distanced himself from the attack ads, a sure sign of an internal and potentially disastrous revolt in the party.
But the most stunning sign was the announcement made last Thursday that Madero was to return to the senate, while continuing to serve as PAN president. Somehow, Madero had hoped to convince the Mexican press that he could run PAN, advise the Vazquez Mota campaign and be a senator, all at once.
Proceso, the leftist news weekly last week expressed its doubts, as have other Mexican writers that Madero is actually going to do all that. The hint now is that Madero exited the PAN presidency just before his replacement is found. No one in PAN nor the Comite Ejecutivo Nacional or National Executive Committee are talking about the news yet. As in everything else having to do with national politics, PAN is coming off in the press as weak and flat-footed in its politics. This is a very bad sign, not just for Vazquez Mota's campaign, but for its hopes in the Chamber of Deputies and in the senate as well.
A writer publishing an opinion piece entitled "Josifina's Boat" last Saturday in El Siglo de Durango news daily put PAN's problems most succinctly:
The keel of the vessel is attached to the bottom, rudder strokes are of little use. They need high tide (perhaps "a miracle" as Fox puts it) because they do not move, but the boat is "leaky." The sailors jump ship, either by choice or by orders of the port.
The reference to Fox is former president Vicente Fox, who in the first days of the campaign said the Vazquez Mota would need a miracle to defeat Pena Nieto.
That barb didn't prevent PAN from a very public display of affection as well as unity when Vazquez Mota received a hug and a kiss from Fox last week, who later declined to aid her campaign. The display was so genuine that Madero could not forebear but to protest the affection Fox displayed was real.
But it is the affection that Mexican president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa has for the Vazquez Mota campaign that could be the most telling of all. While Calderon, by virtue of his post as president is not allowed to conduct a campaign on behalf of Vazquez Mota, giving a campaign advisor, Ramirez Acuña, an ambassadorship in Spain in the midst of an election campaign of an ally is a most telling sign of his disdain for Vazquez Mota.
Vazquez Mota was not Calderon's first choice for president. It was Cordero, but Vazquez Mota had the support of Madero throughout her campaign and in fact defeated him and Santiago Creel. a former interior minister under Vicente Fox, and cousin to Madero.
Meanwhile leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador filed his complaint against the campaign of Pena Nieto, charging he had evidence the campaign overspent their IFE imposed limit. The amount overspent is a reportedly MX $39 million (USD $3,008,284.50).
Lopez Obrador was told at the time the IFE would rule on the case after the July 1st election.
It was not all bad news, as a poll by the Reforma news daily released midweek put Lopez Obrador three percentage points ahead of Vazquez Mota. But the bad news is that both Vazquez Mota and Lopez Obrador are still 20 percentage points behind Pena Nieto, where they have been from the start.
Last week, Pena Nieto spoke to farmers in Tlaxcala state and government workers in Puebla state where he promised additional federal support for municipalities.
Said Pena Nieto: "...my interest is to establish a very strong strategic alliance with all local governments, with state governments bringing resources and effort..."
Understanding the nature of Mexican federalism, his promise had more the tone of a threat.
In Mexico state, his home state, Pena Nieto promised to start an unemployment insurance program.
In Guerrero state Vazquez Mota promised to rescue Guerrerans from kidnapping and murder, promising to be not only the president of education, but also of peace. In Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, she promised to improve government support for tourism.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com