Despite a few isolated incidents, election day in Jalisco went off smoothly, with “nothing out of the ordinary” to report, according to Jalisco Electoral Institute (IEPC) President Carlos Manuel Rodriguez. Police arrested 40 people for “administrative violations” and most were subsequently released on bail.
The fireworks came after the polls closed Sunday with the realization that the political landscape in Jalisco had changed forever – no more so than in metropolitan Guadalajara.
Landslide victories in the key mayoral races of Guadalajara and Zapopan, as well as huge gains in the state congressional and federal deputy elections, underlined the emergence of the left-of-center Citizen’s Movement (MC) – characterized by its bright orange eagle/snake logo – as a major political force in the state (see story page 7). Meanwhile, electoral authorities this week began a recount in Tlaquepaque, where the MC led the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) by less than 1,500 votes after Sunday vote.
The MC not only fared well in Guadalajara but also in the larger provincial towns, taking the mayors’ contests in Jocotepec, Ciudad Guzman, Puerto Vallarta, Zapotlanejo, Ocotlan and Tepatitlan, and coming a close second in Chapala.
It was a bittersweet day for the ruling PRI, which managed to hold on to its majority in the federal Chamber of Deputies but felt the full force of voters’ discontent in Jalisco.
The most astonishing result was in the municipality of Guadalajara, where MC’s Enrique Alfaro crushed Ricardo Villanueva of PRI by a whopping 23 percentage points. The wide margin of victory stunned many pundits, given that some polls had called the race neck and neck throughout the campaign.
Alfaro’s triumph in Guadalajara ended 27 years of alternate governments headed either by the PRI or the right-of-center National Action Party (PAN).
The election was a disaster for the PAN and demonstrated how far the right-wing party’s ballot box appeal has plummeted in just a few years.
Former mayor Alfonso Petersen fell short of ten percent of the vote in Guadalajara, while the PAN failed to win a single (directly elected) seat in any of the 20 districts in the Jalisco Congressional election.
Following the preliminary results, it appears no single party will enjoy an overall majority in the State Congress, with the PRI-Green Party alliance taking ten seats and the Citizen’s Movement nine, with independent candidate Pedro Kumamoto sensationally winning the race in Zapopan’s District 10. Recounts, however, are under way in Districts 3 and 4.
The victory of 23-year-old Kumamoto was perhaps the most surprising of the entire election. With independent candidates permitted for the first time, and working with no official funding, he built a solid base of support among young people by using social media to great effect, winning hearts and minds with his pledges to break the mold of party politics and involve citizens in the running of their districts.
MC mayors will govern more than 60 percent of Jalisco’s population but the party triumphed in just 24 of the state’s 125 municipalities. Although recounts are taking place in eight municipalities, preliminary results show the PRI to have triumphed in 44, the PRI-Green Party alliance in 17, the PAN in 25, the PAN-PRD alliance in five, the PRD in five, the Partido del Trabajo in two and the Partido Humanista, the Nueva Alianza and Partido Encuentro Social in one each.
While the PRI’s vote nationally fell slightly, President Enrique Peña Nieto will breathe a sigh of relief that his party is still the biggest faction in the federal Chamber of Deputies. Many senior PRI figures had feared the worst after the president’s popularity dipped dramatically in the wake of the government’s inept handling of the missing students saga in Guerrero.
Other election news
–Eight governorships were up for grabs on Sunday. The PRI triumphed in five (San Luis Potosi, Campeche, Guerrero, Sonora and Colima), the PAN in two (Baja California Sur), the PRD in one (Michoacan), while independent candidate Jaime Rodriguez Calderon’s (“El Bronco”) won Nuevo Leon. Fond of cowboy boots and swearing, Rodriguez Calderon is a survivor of two assassination attempts by the Zetas cartel and fought his campaign on a “crime fighting” ticket. Political analysts say the rise of independents such as “El Bronco” and Kumamoto threatens the established political parties, which are privileged by public funding and exclusive access to TV and radio.
–In the Federal District (Mexico City), Morena, the new party of former left-wing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, looks set to be the second force in the capital’s Legislative Assembly, with its ideological rival, the PRD, losing its absolute majority for the first time in 12 years. Morena also took the fourth highest number of seats in the national election for the Chamber of Deputies and snatched five of Mexico City’s 16 boroughs. The PRD, which had previously governed 14, now controls six.
–Former Mexico soccer captain Cuauhtemoc Blanco, a polemic character both on and off the field, was successful in his campaign for mayor of Cuernavaca with the tiny Social Democratic Party (PSD). But not everyone was impressed with his victory, Cuernavaca poet and activist Javier Sicilia described him as “violent and without political talent.”
–The town of Fresnillo, Zacatecas elected Mexico’s first openly gay federal deputy. The next stated aim of Benjamin Medrano, 48, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), is to become governor of his state.