A shake up of unknown dimensions

MEXICO - In Brief 23 Apr 2018 by Esteban Manteca

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On Sunday night, the wonderful Palacio de Minería in Mexico City hosted the first of three debates in the presidential campaign. The five candidates had a magnificent opportunity to present and compare their proposals before the voters. As we noted in our brief last night, the debate was going to be an opportunity for the two candidates lagging in second and third place to concentrate their attacks on the first place of the race. And for the two independent candidates, the debate gave them the best chance to communicate with the voters through a massive media. AMLO, as the leading candidate, had only one goal: to leave the debate as unscathed as possible. In the aftermath of the debate, there are five conclusions we can draw. Ricardo Anaya, the candidate of the coalition "Por México al Frente" did best in presenting his arguments and placing good punches on his rivals. His main points centered in underlining the corruption in the Federal Government, and criticizing AMLO's proposals, in particular those regarding security and his political alliances with corrupt politicians. It was clear, from the very beginning, he had trained carefully for the debate: he had powerful slides, witty comments to come back to his rivals and a very accurate time management strategy. José Antonio Meade did quite poorly. Although according to GEA-ISA's poll he enjoys almost universal name recognition, as the other candidates do, he began several of his interventions introducing himself, as if he was a new figure in the Mexican political firmament. He could present only three damaging arguments, one against Ricardo Anaya, by pointing out the ongoing real estate scandal Anaya is in, and two ag...