MEXICO .- The Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador will go to the exam on June 6. In the middle of his term, he no longer has excuses to look to the past, but he does have a path to the future that he dreamed of during 18 years as a candidate to reduce poverty, corruption and violence; He has already made his own mistakes, his successes and the voters will pass the bill at the polls to his party: Morena.
According to the survey carried out by Cabinet of Strategic Communication, company dedicated to public opinion research, the 64. 6% of those older than 18 years surveyed, among the 22 Y 23 said he was “very sure” of going out to vote; while the 14. 9% commented be “something”.
Currently Mexico has one of the largest nominal lists with 90. 3 million potential voters who will vote to renew 15 legislators and 500 deputies among others more than 18, 000 public positions in dispute that will define whether the president’s nation project continues or not from the most remote towns to the congress in the Chamber of Deputies.
In recent weeks of campaigns, according to polls, Morena leads in Baja California, Colima, Nayarit and Sinaloa, while the National Action Party (PAN) in alliance is ahead in Baja California Sur and Querétaro. Campeche in a tie.
An average of effective voting polls shows that López Obrador’s party maintains dominance in four of the six key governorships, but he is facing the collapse in Nuevo León, where his candidate Clara Luz Flores, a former PRI member past Morena’s ranks, was involved in a scandal over a recording where she asked the leader of the Church of Light for advice del Mundo, Naasón Joaquín García, accused in the US for pedophilia.
Political analysts agree that the elections pose a dilemma between the country model of the president — nationalist with state intervention, militarized and focused on rural development and social equality— and that of the more globalized opposition parties, with private capital and watched over by the citizenry.
But in the face of the strong presence of the president as a paternalistic figure of his party who bases his communication on daily press conferences, the opposition appears ce blurred, with little force and rather, on the defensive.
“Throughout this process there has been a clear strategy of the President, the government and the Morena party; and the others have been running after what the government has been proposing and marking ”, considered Daniel Ivoskus, president of the World Summit on Political Communication .
“It has been clear that they have sought to fragment the opposition in order to win. Also discourage the vote of those who are not going to vote for their electoral offer. ”
The presidents of the national leaderships of the PRI, PAN and PRD, Alejandro Moreno, Marko Cortés and Jesús Zambrano , respectively, signed on Monday 24 a manifesto to confirm their coalition legislative in search of snatching the majority from Morena in the Chamber of Deputies. It includes the nomination of 218 formulas of candidacies for federal deputies.
They thus intend to make the balances to stop some projects that they consider negative for the country, as happened with the reverse of all the reforms that former president Enrique Peña Nieto promulgated at the time. Among them, energy (now they bet more on oil and coal, not clean energy) or education that sought to take control of jobs from the union and thus stop the sale or inheritance of places.
If he loses the majority in congress, the president would be more limited to carry out his projects (which include many social benefits with money from the coffers public) because he would have to negotiate with the opposition that does not share many issues and would have to give in in some cases.
However, some political scientists such as Rubén Cortés, former director of the daily Contrarréplica, They believe that under this scenario, AMLO would have a plan B to carry out his plans.
“He will begin to govern by citizen consultation as he already did to throw away the Texcoco airport project, without surveillance of the National Electoral Institute (INE), in exercises organized by himself where obviously he would be victorious ”
Disorder
The federal congress did not legislate to make the declaration mandatory “3 of 3” and since the last six-year term, the candidates were left with “good will” to present information on the assets they possess, the taxes they pay and the personal and professional relationships they maintain.
The result for these elections was that only 18 of 117 candidates for governors made the statement; that is, only 15% of applicants, They have completely transparent the information in these three areas that seek to avoid future illicit enrichments, according to a monitoring carried out by the organization Transparency Mexicana.
Until Friday 21 of May, none of the candidates to govern the states of Chihuahua, Colima , Guerrero, Nayarit and Zacatecas presented their complete 3 of 3 declaration so that citizens can know this information.
In the rest of the entities where there will be elections, only some have done so: In Baja California, only one candidate out of seven: Marina del Pilar Ávila. In Baja California Sur, only two out of ten candidates: Víctor Manuel Castro Cosío and Francisco Pelayo Covarrubias. In Campeche, only three candidates out of seven have presented their declaration: Layda Sansores (with 36 real estate) ; Elíseo Fernández and Cristian Castro.
In Michoacán, only Carlos Herrera. In Nuevo León, Clara Luz Flores, out of seven candidates out there. In Querétaro there is no citizen platform for the presentation of the 3 of 3, but Mauricio Kuri presented his statement on his personal website; the others 13 have not said nothing. In San Luis Potosí, three candidates out of nine: Mónica Rangel, Octavio Pedroza and Francisco Javier Rico
In Sinaloa, four out of eight, Rubén Rocha Moya, Mario Zamora Gastélum; Gloria González Burboa,, and Rosa Elena Millán. In Sonora, where there are six candidates, only Alfonso Durazo and in Tlaxcala, only Anabel Ávalos.
Transparency Mexicana also reported that there is only public record that four candidates for governor (all de Sonora) presented their # 3 of 3 against gender violence despite the fact that on June 6 the majority of voters will be women: they will be able to go to the polls 36 millions of Mexican women who represent almost the 52 %.
Figures from the INE indicate that in the past electoral processes, the female participation rate with respect to the nominal list of voters was 66. 2% while that of men was 58. 1% and it is believed that in these votes they will be much more participatory because it highlights the application of new norms to guarantee gender parity such as the obligation of the parties to include them in the various candidacies.
In addition, this year 3.7 million more women are added from among 18 Y 20 years of age who will cast their vote for the first time and from which broad participation is expected in the 163, 000 checkboxes.
The inclusion of vulnerable groups to be represented through proportional representation or multi-member candidates has been overshadowed in recent weeks by protests from migrant communities or the homosexual community due to the simulation of parties to include candidates who are not part of these groups.
In Zacatecas for example, a group of gays, lesbians, transsexuals, intersex and queer people, among others headed by Mario Uvario Gaspar, alternate candidate to the mayor of Zacatecas regretted that there are those who had posed as homosexuals to become a cand idatura.
“We want a level floor, that we are given the opportunity. Those of us who are here agreed to a candidacy, but along the way many colleagues stayed, because there is simulation in the games, because the quota is not being met, and because we have had difficulties at IEEZ. ”
Similarly, in the migrant candidates, activists from various cities in the United States such as Los Angeles, Chicago or New York, ignored many of the people who appeared on the multi-member lists and denied that they were involved. of legitimate leaders to understand the problem of the diaspora.
“They do not represent us, they will not know how to expose the problems and the very specific needs that we have,” said Guadalupe Gómez, president of the Federation of Zacatecan Clubs of Southern California.
Violence
The presidents of parties, candidates and various social organizations point to the same enemy for democracy in the country: organized crime. It is not said who organizes it, although by tracking information it is known that they are included from local caciques, officials of all levels, drug traffickers and in many cases even the army.
The fact is that in communities across the country they are willing to do anything to include in the electoral process. The president of Morena in Michoacán, Raúl Morón, assured local media that candidates receive threats not to attend proselytizing events.
“They also threaten people.” “They do not allow me to attend candidates’ events, in some places there is no possibility of campaigning.”
Organizations in this region intend to retain control of the retail sale of drugs and the collection of land rights as a parallel State that collects illegal taxes, to taxi drivers, to businesses, to municipalities.
Juan Manuel Macedo Negrete, state leader of Progressive Social Networks in Michoacán, assures that in some areas, crime cartels have even imposed their candidates so there will be no way for them to be the voting booths have been installed.
“They asked us to withdraw and, to the good understanding, a few words,” he said.
Politicians who dare to denounce say that criminals do everything: ditches to prevent passers-by, checkpoints with armed men from La Familia Michoacana, Los Caballeros Templario s, the Tepalcatepec cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel.
In the worst case, when a leader stands out and is not one of them or does not want to be with them, they they give a bullet and thus impose their own. On 13 May they killed Abel Murrieta in Sonora while handing out ballots with his political proposals for the municipality of Cajeme in a key region for the passage of drugs and migrants.
He sought to be mayor for the Citizen Movement and became the politician 83 to be assassinated in this electoral contest, an increase of the 30% with respect to the intermediate vote of 2015 when there was 64 cases in nine months.
With this panorama, the Increasing violence is one of the accounts receivable in these elections from the party of the Mexican president since, far from appeasing the country as promised in the campaign, violent murders have increased to record numbers and the justice system continues to be useless with 98% of impunity.
López Obrador promised justice for political victims when asked at the press conference about political violence in the context of the murder of Murrieta, a former prosecutor in Sonora and lawyer for the Le Barón family, whose rebellion against criminals has cost a lot of blood.
The truth is that most of the murders are not clarified and, under the protection of impunity , criminals have been strengthened and maintain their own communication channels to exert influence.
From messengers for intimidation to social networks. A video recently drew attention where alleged armed hitmen of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) dissociated themselves from intervening in the elections.
“Our company does not get involved in politics, nor do we put candidates, since we are drug traffickers and we keep ourselves from that activity,” said one of them, hooded, to read a statement.
Anyway, the elections will take place. The National Electoral Institute declared itself ready for election day, it already has the ballots, minutes and screens and the electoral packages are assembled and the nominal lists for voting in the midst of the pandemic with the most relaxed health measures and with the challenge to mature the Mexican democracy that still stumbles.
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