The run for the Mexican presidential seat has begun and the entire country is excited, waiting for a new president who can hopefully change the fate of the country.
The candidates are seeing 2012 as a new beginning, and are doing everything to win the attention of the electorate. They are promising more jobs, security, education, and have even launched [some rumors] [How many rumors, Significant?] about each other to discredit their opponents. The 2012 presidential election is promising to be tough, yet Mexico is ready to choose a new president.
Like the United States, Mexico has a political system that works as a democracy. Every six years, Mexican citizens not only change presidents, they choose a new senate. Just like in America, Mexico has political parties, but instead of Republicans and Democrats, the parties are: The Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI), The National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN) and The Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD). The parties pose different ideologies, goals and importantly, their own histories.
The current president, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa is a part of PAN. This particular party has been in the administration for the last 12 years. First, with the former president Vicente Fox Quesada (2000-2006), a president who promised to resolve the conflict in the state of Chiapas in five minutes, but he couldn’t even get close to the Sub Commander Marco. Hinojosa, has declared a direct attack against organized crime and thanks to this, the country has been living in one of the worst waves of violence in its history.
There is one more thing to say about PAN: it has an extremely close relationship with the Catholic Church, and in some states, has made laws based on Catholic beliefs. For example, a law that prohibits every kind of abortion in Guanajuato, states that if any woman who commits this crime will go to jail.
The PAN has to make a great and clever campaign if they want to win this election, so the party has begun strong; launching a woman as a presidential candidate. Josefina Vázquez Mota is not the first woman running for president in Mexico, but she is the first one from a dominant party. Mexico is a nation ruled by men; most of the male citizens disagree with the idea of being ruled by a woman. However, the numbers say another thing: 53 percent of the Mexican population is female, and 40 percent of these women are in charge of the household.
Mota gave a speech saying how she too is a homemaker and knows how hard every day women in Mexico work for their families. The conservative party’s bold decision is working. In the last days, Mota has increased her numbers in the polls and the running has just begun.
Before PAN was in charge of the country’s administration, PRI governed Mexico for decades. There is not much to be said about this party except for the corruption, ineptitude and the several bankruptcies the country suffered through the party’s administration. Though PRI claims it is a new and different party, history is not on PRI’s side; the Mexican people remember it all too well. Over the last 70 years the PRI has been dishonest and manipulated the elections. Every six years Mexico’s citizens could see how the PRI chose the next president of the country, and the nations democracy was a mere joke.
In 1988, PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari won the presidency with an overwhelming advantage over PAN candidate Manuel de Jesús Clouthier del Rincón. Rincón disagreed with the result and asked for a new vote count. The Electoral Organization denied the proposal and gave the victory to Gotari. On Oct. 1 1989, Manuel Clouthier died in a mysterious car accident.
Another shocking example is the 1994 assassination of PRI’s own candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta. Murrieta would have been the successor of Salinas, but he was murdered in the middle of a crowd on national television, in a rally campaign in Tijuana. Although authorities caught the alleged shooter, Mario Aburto Martinez, eye witnesses claims Martinez wasn’t the actual shooter, and there was more than one.
Even though PRI has these delightful backgrounds, polls say PRI is winning the presidential election. PRI’s candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, started a strong and early campaign, and thanks to his good looks, is moving up in the polls. However, not everything is flowers and rainbows for Peña.
In December 2011 the presidential candidate attended a book fair in Guadalajara. Asked what have been the most important books he has read in his life, Peña couldn’t give a straight answer. First, he confused the name of the authors of two famous books in Mexico and finally he mentioned the Bible. Peña is pushing hard in this election, but his charming presence is vanishing through his stupidity.
PRD, the last and youngest party founded in 1989 by former PRI-members, has used every kind of resource to get the attention of the electorate. The left-wing party has approved controversial laws like rights for same sex marriage and abortion in Mexico City. The opinions about PRD around the country are divided. On one side, some Mexicans believe PRD’s ideas are refreshing and innovative, but on the other side, some people believe that PRD is just populist.
Andres Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) is the PRD candidate, and is well known in Mexico. In 2006, he lost against Felipe Calderon in a tight election by a margin of 58 percent. AMLO didn’t accept the defeat, so he gathered thousand of people in downtown Mexico City. The socialist candidate demanded a vote recount “vote by vote,” and after a new recount of 11,839 ballot boxes in 155 districts the victory went to the PAN candidate. AMLO is running one more time for the presidential seat but it would probably be a good idea for him to avoid the tantrums.
The candidates are showing their faces, values and ideologies to the entire nation. The Mexican citizens will have to decide who will be the best option: the pretty boy, the conservative homemaker or the socialist kid with the temper tantrum.
