The PRI Wins Big in Mexico's State Elections; What Next for the PAN and PRD?

Duncan Wood

Office of the Simon Chair

As predicted by pollsters and this blog, the PRI won each of Mexico’s gubernatorial elections on July 3, trouncing the opposition in the Estado de México (Edomex), Coahuila and Nayarit (it also won the local level elections in Hidalgo). The size of the victory in the Edomex was surprising to some, with the PRI’s Eruviel Ávila taking more than 62 percent of the vote there. Afterwards, the PRI began celebrating and the party’s Senate leader, Manlio Fabio Beltrones, announced that he would seek an extraordinary session of Congress to approve essential reforms in the areas of labor policy, politics, and national security. This highlights how the party is finally preparing the way for what it sees as an expected victory in the summer of 2012. The reforms are indeed important, and will help future governments to tackle crucial problems (even though the labor reform package does not provide a radical change from the status quo).

Although the PAN’s Edomex candidate, Luis Bravo Mena, accepted the PRI victory without question, the PRD’s Alejandro Encinas immediately questioned the validity of the results and the size of the landslide, though there is little question that the PRI actually won the election. Encinas’s failure to make a dent in the PRI’s support, combined with the fact that he is a protégé of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who refused to accept a unity candidate with the PAN in the Edomex, leaves Encinas a discredited figure. These events also raise serious questions for the PRD. Should they reconsider the notion of a unity candidate with the PAN in 2012? It seems impossible that this would happen given AMLO’s threat to leave the party if an alliance with the PAN is negotiated. Who, then, will be the party’s candidate? Although AMLO leads the polls among party members, Ebrard is a more acceptable candidate to the nation at large. Ebrard has come out and publicly attacked Encinas over his refusal to accept an alliance with the PAN, while also blaming him for the humiliating loss in the Edomex. Ebrard himself has stated that the party must have one candidate decided by November. Of course, if the PRD goes with Ebrard as its candidate in 2012, there is the strong risk that AMLO will desert the party and run as a candidate with a rival left-wing coalition, destroying what little chance the PRD still has. There is a spoken agreement between Ebrard and AMLO to respect the decision of the party, but AMLO is nothing if not a maverick and it is possible he would not honor the pact.

The PAN faces a similar challenge, albeit slightly less complicated. There now appear to be three leading contenders for the candidacy: Santiago Creel, Josefina Vázquez Mota, and Ernesto Cordero. Vázquez Mota is rising in the polls, but Cordero has now begun to campaign, and made the first populist move this week when he announced that, as finance minister, he would be ending the much-hated tenencia (road tax) in 2012. We should expect a series of such measures over the next twelve months as the government attempts to capitalize on a rebounding economy, an improvement in the public perception of security, and healthy government finances. But the party must decide soon who is going to lead them into the election year if they are to succeed in unifying support behind that person, and in making the party platform clear and attractive to a disaffected Mexican electorate.

For daily updates on the Mexican elections scenario, follow Duncan Wood on Twitter @MexElection2012