Politics: Fragile Presidential Nomination Process
Most major parties are facing a tough, uphill battle to come up with a winning presidential candidate at a time when a growing slice of the electorate is fed up with parties, and such voters are more inclined to cast their ballots for the candidates who appear to have the most appealing personality, charisma and background. There is considerable pressure on both the PAN and the PRI to agree on someone who can put up the strongest possible challenge to Manuel Andrés López Obrador. Those competing for the PAN nomination include some of the politicians registering the strongest poll numbers at this point, but their battle for the candidacy has generated significant internal tensions that could weaken or possibly even divide them in the general election. Nevertheless, it appears that the national party chairman, Ricardo Anaya, has the inside track, and that Margarita Zavala is not inclined to activate the nuclear option of striking out on her own and further splintering the anti-AMLO camp.
The situation is considerably more complicated in the PRI. In that party, an historically unpopular incumbent president currently wields all the levers of the nomination process, but has very few good options either to push through a loyalist (picking most of them would entail a bruising internal battle over the party’s by-laws) or even someone from outside his inner circle who is positioned to lead a well oiled campaign machine to retain Los Pinos in 2018 and avert major defections from a party that is increasingly susceptible to an erosion of its voting base.
The PRD’s last chance to remain a major player on the national political stage appears to hinge on its odds of establishing a coalition with the PAN, but the latter party’s internal squabbles could ultimately preclude any such alliance and leave the center-left project scrambling to come up with a candidate and campaign of its own while seeing how few are its options to hold onto its last few governorships and control of Mexico City.
The one exception to these complicated nomination scenarios is López Obrador, who will undoubtedly be chosen by acclamation by his National Regeneration Movement party.
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