“We’re back!” bellowed Ricardo Anaya Cortes, national president of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) after last Sunday’s gubernatorial elections in 12 states saw voters turn their backs on the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in what many pundits are calling a “punishment vote.”
The PAN triumphed in seven gubernatorial races in the states of Puebla, Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, Quintana Roo, Durango, Veracruz and Aguascalientes. Three of these victories were achieved in an unorthodox alliance with the left-of-center Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). The two parties put aside their ideological differences to defeat their common enemy – the PRI – in Durango, Quintana Roo and Veracruz, the latter a stronghold of the ruling party for the past 86 years.
The PRI retained five governorships – Sinaloa, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, Zacatecas and Oaxaca – but the margin of victory fell markedly in all these states compared to six years ago.
Both President Enrique Peña Nieto and PRI National President Manlio Fabio Beltrones conceded the day had not gone well, but put the poor results down to a case of midterm fatigue rather than admit their party had lost the confidence of the Mexican public.
Most political analysts put a very different spin on the results. The Economist said bluntly that Peña Nieto had received “a good kicking.” Others said the Mexican electorate had made a strong statement about the unacceptable levels of crime and violence, corruption and lack of economic opportunities in the country.
Without a major resurgence in fortunes for Mexico’s economy and some imaginative leadership from Peña Nieto, the PRI is in serious danger of loosing the presidency in 2018, many analysts are saying. Much will depend, however, on whether the PAN can maintain its momentum and recapture the kind of nationwide following that saw Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon win back-to-back elections in 2000 and 2006.
Writing in the Miami Herald, respected Mexican commentator Andres Oppenheimer said the stinging defeat for the PRI on Sunday could pave the way for a populist leftist victory in 2018.
While Morena, the party created by former presidential candidate and left-wing maverick Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, did not win any governorships, it fared much better than expected across the board, and almost scored unexpected wins in Veracruz and Zacatecas. Moreno also won a majority of 60 seats up for grabs in the constitutional assembly that will draft a constitution for the newly formed Ciudad de Mexico (CDMX), which was recently granted statehood.
According to Oppenheimer, Lopez Obrador will have several advantages in the race for the 2018 elections: “He presents himself as an anti-corruption champion at a time when corruption has become one Mexicans’ top concerns. And he proposes to change Mexico’s orthodox economic policies, which he says have benefited only the rich and have resulted in decades of weak economic growth.”
As Lopez Obrador has already hinted at his intention to make a third run for the presidency in 2018, the focus in the coming months will inevitably turn to the potential contenders emerging from the ranks of the PRI and the PAN.