Two days ago, Mexicans returned the PRI to power after 12 years in the political wilderness, with Enrique Peña Nieto becoming President. The leftist Obrador as well as PAN’s Mota lost. I don’t know much about Mexico but this is how I interpret things.
(1) The PAN seem to be full of neoliberals, who serve foreign and corporate interests and don’t care much for ordinary Mexicans. They favor a hyper-militarized approach to the War on Drugs, but this hasn’t yielded successes, as the Mexican homicide rate doubled in the past 5 years. The socialist Obrador is a poseur, who does not much like democracy (as per his Orange Revolution-like attempts to overturn the results of the 2006 elections). In general, the opposition to the PRI is quite thuggish while attempting to paint itself as transparent and democratic; much like the Russian opposition to United Russia. See the impudence of the Yo Soy 132 student protesters, rich self-entitled thugs who think it cool to physically threaten their political enemies.
(2) The PAN hasn’t had much success in the past 12 years. While north-bound migration has fallen, this was due to economic difficulties in the US as opposed to Mexican success. It doesn’t seem to have become noticeably less corrupt nor did it achieve significant economic growth relative to the developed world (see right).
I don’t think this was mostly the PAN’s fault. After all, Mexico is pretty much where it should be as dictated by its (very modest) level of human capital or national IQ; its position relative to the US hasn’t budged over the past century. That said the PRI is still the better choice. It is the party of the majority, respectably corporatist but also nationalist and mindful of workers’ interests. The same cannot be said of the PAN, who pander to the interests of foreigners and Mexican elites; their electorate are oligarchs and emigres. As for Obrador he is a dangerous demagogue. Mexico made the right choice.
I love the PRI. Calling the One-Party dictatorship that ruled for decades the “Institutional Revolutionary Party” is appropriately über-Orwellian.
I am no expert on Mexico but the performance of the Mexican economy under the PAN government seems to have been pretty dismal. Here is Mark Weisbrot’s view both of the economy and of the question of whether or not earlier elections were stolen. For what it’s worth I suspect they probably were.
http://www.zcommunications.org/mexico-s-election-it-s-the-economy-stupid-by-mark-weisbrot
PS: There is a famous quip about Mexico often though probably falsely attributed to the dictator Porfirio Diaz: “Poor Mexico! So far from God, so near to the USA”.
I have just heard that Obrador’s followers are going to “prove” that the election was stolen by uploading videos of election violations at polling stations. I wonder where they got that idea from? Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
Alex,
You might be interested in this dispute between John Ackerman and Diego Gomez, the PRI’s foreign media co-ordinator, published in The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/article/left-wing-comeback-mexicos-presidential-elections/web-letters#
Ackerman and his wife Irma Erendira Sandoval Ballesteros are members of the PRD which is part of the left-wing coalition led by Obrador. Both are claiming the PRI rigged the results of the 2012 Presidential elections by media manipulation and vote buying. Ackerman admits that his wife received research funding from both Harvard University and the National Endowment for Democracy as she is a full-time researcher in politics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Funny how you don’t have to look very far to find the NED somewhere in the background.
there is plenty of evidence that back in 2006 Obrador actually won. Your comparison of the orange revolution and Obrador’s tactics makes no sense… specially if you take into notice that the US supported the orange movement, and certainly opposed Obrador. Having a pink Mexico next to the US? Unthinkable.. borrorwing the term pink from the so called pink tide of latinamerica
Are you suggesting that the Orange side didn’t win those elections?