Aside from the presidential race, Sunday’s elections will also determine who governs for the next six years in six states and the Federal District (DF) of Mexico City.
After 18 years in power, the National Action Party (PAN) risks losing control of Jalisco to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) represented by Aristoteles Sandoval or the independent Citizen’s Movement led by Enrique Alfaro. Gubernatorial elections are also taking place in Chiapas, Guanajuato, Morelos, Tabasco and Yucatan.
In a bid to see off competition from the PAN, the PRI has put forward several handsome and youthful candidates similar to presidential frontrunner Enrique Peña Nieto. With slick representatives such as Sandoval, 38, in Jalisco and Rolando Zapata Bello, 44, in Yucatan, the party aims to present itself as a “new PRI,” untainted by a 71-year spell of authoritarian rule.The only state the PRI is unlikely to win is Guanajuato – a PAN stronghold for several decades.
Although its stock is low in many states, the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) has a good chance of victory in Morelos and appears certain to retain power in the DF Legislative Assembly, where Miguel Angel Mancera enjoys huge support, partly due to the recent successes of PRD mayors Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Marcelo Ebrard.