Mexico: Voting for Changesbi life

On Sunday 1 July, 2012, Mexican citizens will go to the polls to elect a president, a national congress, and, in some jurisdictions, state, local officials. This event will determine the nature and direction of Mexican politics for the next six years, but first, a bit of background might prove helpful.

Mexico’s Electoral System:

Mexico’s president is chosen through direct election and serves a 6-year period. There is no provision for re-election. The Congress of the Union is divided into two chambers: the Senate and Chamber of Deputies. The senate consists of 128 members of which three per state (31 states and a federal district) are selected through a first-past-the-post system (two seats to the winning party and one to the next largest party). Thirty-two seats are distributed on a proportional basis from national lists. The chamber of deputies is composed of 500 seats, of which 300 are allotted on a first-past-the post basis in individual constituencies with members serving for 3 years. These seats are distributed among the states and federal district according to population. The remaining 200 seats are allocated on a proportional basis with incumbents serving for 3 years in multi-member constituencies. The Chamber will be renewed through a mid-term election in 2015. In some states, federal elections coincide with gubernatorial, state assembly and/or municipal elections.

Elections are administered by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE). The IFE was constituted in 1990 as an independent body to ensure free and fair elections. While there was some question as to the fairness of the 1994 elections, the Institute subsequently built a strong level of credibility as an impartial, independent and professional body. Since 1993, IFE has accredited both domestic and foreign observers (in 1994, IFE approved 943 applications from foreign observers, and 398 for the 1997 mid-term elections).

The 2000 elections:

After the polls closed in 1994, the early count suggested that the ruling Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) was trailing. Then came a pause in the issuance of results, after which the PRI recovered and President Ernesto Zedillo was declared victorious with 48.7% of the vote, against the National Action Party (PAN) with 26% and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) with 16.6%. Many believed that the pause during the counting phase was when the PRI machine seriously manipulated results in its favour, and there were fears in certain quarters that the same would happen in 2000.

Nonetheless, in 2000 the domination of the PRI was broken, after 71 years in office. The PAN’s charismatic Vicente Fox won 42.5% of the vote, the PRI’s Francisco Labastida, 36.1% and the PRD’s Cuauhtémoc Cardenas, 16.6%. This was after public opinion polls leading up to the election suggested that the PAN and PRI were running neck-to-neck. Exit polls, however, had projected a result of 43% for Fox against 34% for Labastida, which turned out to be an accurate snapshot. While there may have been incidents of electoral manipulation, they were not considered widespread enough to have affected the final result. Also helpful, both the outgoing president and the PRI candidate conceded defeat shortly after the polls closed, and while counting was still incomplete. President Zedillo publicly offered his full support to ease the new administration’s transition, and there is little to suggest that he did otherwise. Mexico owes a debt of gratitude to Zedillo. Mexico’s media also played a pivotal role through its extensive coverage of the lengthy campaign, its in-depth daylong coverage of the voting process and its speedy announcement of exit polls and quick count results.

Notwithstanding Fox’s convincing victory, the PRI remained the party with the most seats in Congress. Some pundits suggested that this was the result of strategic voting – Mexicans wanted change, but not drastic change, and wanted some form of control over the new president. We believe it was a case of split voting, with three credible parties with national reach dividing the vote. The PRI’s strong showing was also partly due to its historic dominance over the rural vote, particularly in the poor south and southwest. The PRI had long been charged with pressuring and buying the rural vote and doling out governmental assistance (seeds, tools, fertilizer) as if it came from the PRI, while suggesting that a change of party could jeopardize these benefits. There was some evidence that local political bosses still dominated the countryside and closely controlled the polls. Access to other political opinions and civic education in general, was also weak in the countryside. In their post-electoral reports, several Canadian NGOs noted the persistence of undemocratic or illegal practices that were common before the most recent electoral reforms. While the exodus of the country poor to the cities has been huge – and there is evidence that the PRI stranglehold over their vote is lessened in urban context – the remaining “campesinos” constituted a significant voting bloc for the PRI in 2000. This was particularly true in the state of Guerrero.

Electoral observation and the rural vote:

The authors enjoyed the unique pleasure of observing the 2000 elections as part of the Canadian Embassy, Mexico City team. Accredited as observers through the Mexican NGO Alianza Cívica, we were assigned to the interior of the state of Guerrero in southwest Mexico. This is a particularly troubled area, which has been home to various violent groups, including the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) that was still active in the state in 2000. Guerrero is one of the poorest states in Mexico, with a high illiteracy rate (21%), and some 400,000 marginalized indigenous people out of a total population of 3,000,000. The tourism boom in Acapulco and along the Pacific coast has not had much of an effect in the interior, where the majority are subsistence farmers.

We observed the opening of the polls in one of the poorer districts of the state capital Chilpancingo de los Bravos (population: 167,000). The common complaint there (and elsewhere) was the slowness in opening the polls. While most polling officials arrived by the 08:00 starting time, voting did not begin until 09:00, mostly because those appointed to run the polls were unfamiliar with procedures. While we watched from the street, several cars drove by. The occupants noted that we were observers and shouted at us to go into the interior where irregularities were being committed. Over the course of voting day, we visited 10 polls, beginning and ending in Chilpancingo (4 urban polls in Chilpancingo, one each in the small towns of Tixtla de Guerrero and Chilapa de Alvarez, one village poll in Acatlan, and 3 rural polls).

The urban polls were well organized, particularly in middle-class districts where people were used to working in offices, filing or processing papers. Most had scrutineers from the three major parties and were held outside in bandstands, under awnings or verandas - in general under public purview. Debate was lively and electoral material was evident for all major parties and candidates. The press was evident in Chipancingo, as were observers from several Mexican NGOs. In one case, however, a film crew from a major Mexican channel arrived after the scheduled time for closing the polls, but given that there was still a long line-up, they stayed open beyond the 17:00 deadline in order to accommodate those in line. The TV crew herded a number of women together and invaded the voting station (a bandstand) getting the women to chant “We wish to Vote”, even though we had seen several of these women vote already. The TV crew continued filming in the middle of the bandstand while citizens continued to vote. We believe this violated the principle of secret ballot. The TV crew eventually left and the poll continued to receive voters until 19:30 when they ran out of ballots.

The ambiance at the rural voting stations was quite different. We were struck by the lack of people on the roads, no line-ups at polling stations, and in several cases we saw no voters in over a half an hour of observation at a specific poll. In one case, a rural polling station was on the veranda of a government dispensary for agricultural tools, food, and seed, which may have given voters the message that if you don’t vote for the PRI, these “gifts” will no longer be available to you. Another rural poll was headquartered in a school, with PRI party markings on the outside wall. The proper number of electoral officials and scrutineers was assembled, but no one would answer our questions except for a man, better dressed than the others, wearing dark glasses and sitting facing the polling table. When we asked who fulfilled a particular function at the polling station, he would point to someone and say “he or she does”, after which the person would nod and smile nervously. Any question we asked was answered with a nervous shrug from the table. Every now and again the man in sunglasses would make a statement such as “In Mexico all citizens enjoy full democratic freedoms”. The rest would nod. During a 45-minute period only one person came in to vote. She was an older woman, very poorly dressed. Proper procedures were followed in identifying her, giving her ballots and sending her behind a screen to mark her choices. She came out, showed the ballots to the man in dark glasses, asked him whether she had done her task correctly, after which he smiled, nodded and told her to deposit her ballots in the urn (which was not sealed with tape as per regulations). The results from this polling station were very favourable to the PRI.

One strange event occurred in the main square in Acatlan where there were several polling stations in the open air. During the half hour we were there, no one came to vote, but a school bus stopped, and a brass/guitar band of about 30 men dressed a black with red neckerchiefs got off, formed a line and walked/marched through the plaza playing country music. They snaked through the square between the polling stations for a few minutes before getting back on the bus. The women working at the polling station completely ignored them and continued with their knitting!

We returned to Chilpancingo to observe the closing on one poll and the counting process. The open air station was on a pedestrian street with a large crowd huddled around. The chairwoman of the poll held up each individual ballot, showed it to the crowd and announced the winner for each ballot. The results were tabulated and posted on a nearby wall at about 20:30. We were most impressed by the dedication and pride of these workers, but doubt the same level of transparency existed in several of the rural areas we visited.

In 2000, the PRI maintained its hold over the state of Guerrero, despite the Fox phenomenon that swept much of Mexico. This was largely due to the PRI’s dominance over the countryside. In the 2006 elections, much of that support was swept aside, when enthusiasm for the charismatic candidate for the PRD, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador soared.

Presidential Vote: Results from Guerrero