Politics: AMLO and front vying for discontents
The latest public opinion poll conducted by GEA-ISA provides data on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the parties, and their actual or future candidates, and casts doubt on some widely held assumptions.
In terms of voter’s party preferences, the PRI, PAN, and Morena all enjoy about 20% support; the parties belonging to the Citizens’ Front for Mexico (PAN, PRD, MC) enjoy a combined 31%, but based on historical trends would likely deliver only about 80% of that sum or about 25% of the vote. The PRI’s prospects appear limited given both the limited appeal to date of its virtual presidential nominee and its having become the country’s most unpopular party.
Support tends to dovetail with party preferences but with some notable distinctions: Ricardo Anaya and Andrés Manuel López Obrador score a few more percentage points than their respective parties, but José Antonio Meade’s support is less than that of the PRI. Two likely independent candidates, Margarita Zavala and Jaime Rodríguez, are scoring about 11%, and 24% of voters are still undecided.
As can be seen, none of the three main contenders is sufficiently charismatic to significantly exceed the votes that his party would deliver in any event, in other words, attracting voters from other parties or from unaffiliated citizens, even in the case of López Obrador,
A simple analysis of probable factors explaining the opposition vote shows that Morena will not be the majority, much less the overwhelmingly dominant recipient of discontented voters, which belies assumptions that López Obrador is the contender who stands to gain the most the more government corruption is apparent and the more mistakes President Peña Nieto makes. According to the latest polling, those most disturbed and angered by the country’s bad situation and government mistakes are evenly divided in leaning toward the parties that comprise the FCM (PAN, PRD, and MC), and Morena. Then again, these trends are highly suspect to as yet unknown variables, such as whom the FCM will run for president, how many – if any – independent candidates will be on the ballot, and, of course, how each camp performs over the course of the campaign.
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