Political: PAN Confronted by New Dilemmas

MEXICO - Report 10 Nov 2016 by Guillermo Valdes and Esteban Manteca

The National Action Party emerged from last summer’s elections with powerful momentum nationally while the incumbent Institutional Revolutionary Party has been thrown on the defensive by corruption scandals and President Enrique Peña Nieto’s increasingly depressed approval ratings. So much so that the strongest challenger to a probable PAN presidential nominee in 2018 might well be three-time candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with the PRI relegated to third place.

But the PAN is also facing major challenges. The contest for the party’s presidential nomination is shaping up to be a bruising one that has the potential to split the organization, and while it won most gubernatorial races in June by campaigning on an anticorruption platform that resonated with voters, it was caught wrong-footed in responding to a gubernatorial corruption scandal of its own. Just last week, news reports suggested that a potential presidential nominee has been living beyond what he could afford on his salary as PAN national chairman.

What is shaping up to be a three-way nomination battle pits that chairman, Ricardo Anaya, against Margarita Zavala, and outgoing Puebla Governor Rafael Moreno Valle. The Zavala camp is pushing for Anaya to rule out a presidential bid or relinquish the overwhelming advantage he enjoys as party chairman, something he has steadfastly rejected. Well-liked among members of her party and independents, Zavala’s best bet to secure the nomination would be to cut a deal with Anaya in which the chairman and his followers would be assured of prime candidacies down ballot and positions of power in a Zavala administration, but such a pact is unlikely given the enmity separating both camps.

The most significant bargaining chip Margarita Zavala holds is the threat of running for president as an independent, thereby splitting the party’s voters and assuring that the PAN nominee would lose out, albeit at the bitter cost of paving the way for López Obrador to become the next president. In any event, Zavala cannot wait until Anaya decides to announce his candidacy in late 2017 if she has any possibility of securing ballot status as an independent.

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