“Candidates are chosen by political parties, meaning they tend to be individuals twisted by involvement in a deeply-rooted system who are usually not the most adequate persons to hold office nor to the liking of the average citizen,” laments former Chapala Mayor Raul Robles Puga (1992-95) in reflecting on the 2015 elections.
In a recent chat with the Reporter, the silver-haired local attorney scoffed at this year’s campaign debate forums.
“In my opinion they only served to give the candidates a platform to discredit and offend one another and an opportunity to lie about their qualifications for the job, bragging about backgrounds and work experiences that don’t prove anything about their abilities to run the government.
He qualified the slew of campaign rallies as shams, distinguished by hordes of outsiders brought in by party leaders to give voters a false impression of massive popular support. “The candidates spewed grandiose proposals that we’ll never see come to fruition,” he carped.
To be successful, Robles thinks the next mayor will have to prove himself as a skilled manager and canny administrator capable of keeping a lid on the payroll and running government business on Chapala’s shoestring budget.
“He must take into account that most of the municipality’s own resources go into the treasury during in the first few months of the year. Otherwise he’ll be tempted to believe that the money will keep flowing, only to find that nothing more than petty fees and fines will trickle in over the remaining months.
By August he’ll be forced to suspend public works and implement cutbacks. A good administrator has to be wise enough to set aside a kitty to cover year-end aguinaldos (bonuses),” Robles observed.
“A competent mayor knows how to develop good relations with state and federal officials in order to secure financing for public works without having to rely on municipal funds. He must handle the projects with strict honesty, keeping proper records to justify expenditures. And he has to realize that he won’t have a magic wand to deal with the obligations and steep debts left by his predecessor. “
Robles Puga in a nutshell
Former Chapala Mayor Raul Robles Puga stands out as the first man to be elected under an alternate political banner after generations of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
He was elected in February 1992 as candidate for the National Action Party (PAN), beating out his PRI rival by a 536 votes. He won over many voters with a down-to-earth personal style that included arriving at campaign events on horseback and belting out popular ranchero songs instead of pat speeches.
Hailing from Santa Cruz de la Soledad, he was also the first mayor born outside the municipal seat.
Among major accomplishments he cites prodding the University of Guadalajara to take Chapala’s Preparatoria under its academic wing, spearheading the donation and restoration of the former railway station and rescuing management of local property taxes from the hands of the state government.
His most controversial initiative was installing parking meters on Avenida Madero, a measure promptly scrapped by his PRI successor and revived in 2011 to much public dispute.