Mexico goes to the polls Sunday, July 5 to elect a brand new 500-seat Chamber of Deputies – the equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives or Canadian lower house.
Meanwhile, candidates in Jalisco are also battling for seats in the state Congress, as well as city councils in all 125 municipalities.
As stipulated by law, the campaigns wrapped up several days prior to polling day. The final national opinion polls gave the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) a slender five percentage point lead over the incumbent Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) – 35 to 30 percent.
Translated into votes, this would change the balance of power in the federal legislature, which is now controlled by the PAN.
If, as the polls suggest, the PRI becomes the majority party in the chamber, the party’s hierarchy would have to decide whether to allow their lawmakers to support President Felipe Calderon’s reform proposals expected to be presented in the next session in key areas such as labor law, tax and energy.
Calderon hopes not to experience the same fate as Vicente Fox, who saw his party lose control of the Chamber of Deputies in 2003 and was stymied by the opposition in his bid to reform many of Mexico’s antiquated laws.
But Calderon is likely to encounter a very different PRI in 2009, one that is looking ahead to 2012 and retaking the presidency. Putting up a stonewall to reform would not endear the PRI to the electorate. The party does not want a repeat of the 2006 fiasco when an unpopular PRI presidential candidate trailed in a dismal third.
PAN’s vote will inevitably be affected by the depressed economy, even though Calderon enjoys favorable ratings due to his brave decision to tackle organized crime and drug cartels with a massive show of force. But 400,000 Mexicans have lost their jobs since the beginning of the downturn last year. Even recent indications that the worst of the recession may be over probably won’t be sufficient for the PAN to close the gap on the PRI.
July 5 may turn out to be a nightmare for the Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD), the left-of-center party that has failed to capitalize on the gains of 2006, when its fiery candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lost to Calderon by a mere 300,000 votes.
The PRD can expect to lose a hefty chunk of its 121 seats in the federal legislature to the PRI and will probably pick up around 15 percent of the national vote. With Lopez Obrador on the verge of quitting (or being expelled) from the party, the PRD is in disarray, beset by internal divisions, most personal rather than ideological. The post-election scenario looks even worse for the party, with the prospect of mass desertions to a possible new party set up under the leadership of Lopez Obrador.
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