Politics: A Tale of Four State Elections

MEXICO - Report 28 Oct 2015 by Guillermo Valdes and Esteban Manteca

The electoral calendar was shaken up late last week as the Federal Electoral Tribunal decided to annul the gubernatorial elections held in the Pacific Coast state of Colima last June, in which the incumbent PRI edged out the PAN by a mere 0.17% of the vote. The tribunal cited evidence that the current PRI administration had illegally tried to throw the election in favor of its party. The special election will likely be held at the end of December or in January.

28.6 million citizens – 33.5 % of the national voter rolls – will be eligible to vote on the first Sunday of June 2016 to fill 975 elected posts in 13 states. In three of those states – Puebla, Oaxaca, Sinaloa – the sitting governor was elected as the joint nominee of the PAN and the PRD. In a fourth – Veracruz – the two parties are likely to form an alliance because the increasingly unpopular PRI governor, whom even prominent PRI politicians accuse of leading a corrupt administration, presides over the incumbent camp. The PRI has never lost the governor’s mansion in this state but a PAN-PRD alliance could bring that 70+ year streak to an end.

A PRD-PAN alliance currently governs in Oaxaca even though the PRI retains a dominant presence in the state legislature and in many of the state’s 500 municipalities. The campaign in Puebla will have special national significance as Governor Rafael Moreno Valle hopes a successor of his choosing will strengthen his chances of being the next PAN presidential nominee. To that end he has tried to eliminate the threat of any independent candidates and is working to assure the PRD’s support. Should the PRI return to power, it would hand that party a state that has more than 4 million registered voters. In both these last two states, Morena could be a significant wildcard in the race.

It looks as though the elections in Sinaloa will be hard fought. Although the PAN-PRD alliance is technically the incumbent political force in this state, it will effectively be running as the main opposition, but do not rule out the prospect of a strong independent gubernatorial candidacy by Manuel Clouthier.

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