MEXICO: Record Protest Vote Amid Sweeping PRI Gains

• by Diego Cevallos (mexico city)
• Monday, July 06, 2009
• Inter Press Service

But the overwhelming victory went to abstainers: as many as 45 percent of the 77.4 million registered voters stayed home. And an unprecedented six percent of ballot papers were spoiled, a triumph for the social movement that called on people to express their protest against politicians by casting a blank vote.

'While they (the parties) are celebrating or mourning the results, I hope they wake up and understand that the spoiled votes and the low turnout rate are showing that the majority are expressing social rejection, and that changes are urgently needed to put some substance into democracy,' Paula Mondragón, a young marketing student active in the null vote movement, told IPS.

The percentage of spoiled votes was double that recorded in previous elections, and higher than the number of people who voted for small parties, like the Labour Party and Convergence Party, which back former left-wing presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

However, the electoral laws disregard both the high abstention rate and defaced ballots when it comes to determining the winners.

The movement that called for blank votes has a second phase before it, which will include exerting social pressure, public debate and greater citizen participation, Alberto Serdán, projects coordinator for the Mexico City-based Propuesta Cívica (Civic Proposal), one of the groups advocating spoiled ballots, told IPS.

Sunday's ballot was held to elect the 500 seats in the lower house of parliament, as well as 1,128 governors, state lawmakers and mayors.

Most of the positions were won by the PRI, which governed the country from 1929 to 2000, when it lost the presidency. At the time, the party's defeat prompted some analysts to predict its demise - a prospect that must now be ruled out.

Projections based on the preliminary results, after 97 percent of the votes had been tallied, indicate that the PRI bloc in the lower house of Congress will increase in size from 106 seats to 233.

If it maintains its traditional alliance with the Green Party, which as a result of Sunday's vote grew from 17 seats to 22, the PRI will command an absolute majority in the lower house. That will give it great power over the government of conservative President Felipe Calderón, whose National Action Party (PAN) lost heavily in the elections.

The PAN is estimated to have lost 60 of its lower house seats, declining from 206 to a mere 146.

The left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which in the July 2005 elections became the second largest party in the lower house with 127 seats, will be relegated to third place with only 72 seats in September 2009, when the newly elected lawmakers are sworn in.

The PRI's sweeping gains are due to voters turning against the PAN government, 'basically because of the economic crisis,' but also due to the 'institutional disaster' that has overtaken the PRD, some of whose supporters have voted for the PRI, said political scientist Esperanza Palma, a researcher at the Metropolitan Autonomous University.

But the PRI's success is also the result of its campaign strategy, which presented it as a 'renewed' party, Palma told IPS.

'We're building a 21st century PRI' was its campaign slogan, created by its self-styled social democratic leadership.

The PRI is therefore well positioned for the general elections in 2012.

The PAN government has been battling since 2008 with an economic crisis which could cause GDP to fall by eight percent this year, the worst contraction in decades. In addition, this country of over 107 million people is afflicted by an escalating scourge of drug-related violence.

Although Calderon's presidency has a more than 60 percent approval rating, according to polls, this did not translate into support for PAN candidates.

Meanwhile, the PRD is torn by internal divisions. López Obrador, for example, gave his backing mainly to Labour Party and Convergence Party candidates during the campaign.

A lot can happen in the three-year run up to the presidential elections, but the PRI is the largest political force, and is contending with the seriously weakened PAN and PRD, said Palma.

Opinion polls carried out since last year on potential presidential candidates put Enrique Peña, the PRI governor of Mexico state, clearly in the lead.

During the campaign, Peña vigorously supported his party and was the darling of the country's two main television broadcasters, Televisa and TV Azteca, which gave him generous coverage.

In Sunday's poll, six state governors, 565 mayors and 434 local government lawmakers were also elected. The preliminary count awarded five governorships and most of the other positions to the PRI.

Founded as the National Revolutionary Party on Mar. 4, 1929, the PRI's initial role was to unite the ideas and interests of the strongmen who emerged from the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Its rule was regularly tainted with accusations of electoral fraud and corruption.

'We are a renewed and responsible party that provides results and will enter into dialogue, as always, with the government of the hour and with the other political parties,' said its president, Beatriz Paredes.

She and other PRI leaders gave the media plenty of interviews Monday, in contrast to the PAN and PRD leaders who were more reticent.

Nevertheless, spokespersons for all three major parties acknowledged that the message sent by the low turnout rate - which was in line with recent trends - and the record blank vote protest, must be taken seriously.

Without any funding or central organisation, solely by means of social networks on the Internet and some columnists in the media, the movement encouraging people to spoil their ballots captured mass attention in the campaign.

It marked a sharp contrast with the customary bombardment of state-financed party propaganda characterised by mudslinging between candidates and an absence of sound proposals.

An exit poll carried out on Sunday by the Fundación Este País, with support from the Mexican Autonomous Institute of Technology and the National Polytechnic Institute, provided some interesting findings.

Six out of 10 interviewees said they thought political parties listened to citizens very little, or not at all, and nearly half said they did not feel represented by their elected lawmakers.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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