Mexicans should take advantage of the elections in 2018 to dismantle the current party system, argues Jorge Castañeda Gutman, an intellectual and former politician who served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the government of President Vicente Fox (2000-2006).
In a sensational new Spanish-language book, “Only One Way: An Independent Citizen’s Agenda,” Castañeda urges political mavericks to challenge traditional parties, which are privileged by public funding and exclusive access to TV spots.
Just as the election in 2000 led to the removal of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the next presidential election could topple the main parties, the book contends. Castañeda outlines his proposal for a new citizen candidate, who he believes should run on an ambitious anti-corruption and justice platform.
The writer also takes on serial presidential candidate and veteran leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who Castañeda criticizes for posturing as an anti-establishment candidate.
Two reforms introduced in 2009 and 2014 opened the way for independent candidates to challenge the status quo. Last year, Jaime Rodriguez “El Bronco” Calderon became the first independent to win a governorship when he triumphed in Nuevo Leon. Jalisco’s own Pedro Kumamoto also secured a seat in state Congress at the tender age of 25, running on a platform that emphasized openness and citizen participation.
The slim, essay-style book is divided into three chapters. The first argues that President Enrique Peña Nieto is already a lame duck, even with three years left of his term. According to the author, Peña Nieto’s fate was sealed before he even donned the presidential sash. Castañeda alleges that the current president agreed not to investigate his predecessor on corruption and human rights charges, in return for tacit support of his own campaign.
The second chapter details the need for an independent candidate. Current politicians, he argues, are unwilling to tackle corruption as they are “prisoners of their past” and are unwilling to “undress completely before the public gaze.”
The final chapter outlines the necessary steps needed for an independent to be successful in 2018.
Castañeda, who has not ruled himself out as a potential candidate, enthuses about a society ready to cast of party allegiances. He also warns of the dangers of the opposite happening, a situation which will place Mexican before “the triumph and consolidation of the old party system, and the permanence of mediocrity.”