Guest Blogger on the Mexican Presidential Election

The story of the day, IMO, is the presidential election in Mexico. My knowledge of Mexico is entirely second or third hand, and mostly limited to what I read in the press and at various online sites. However, friend and TBV reader/commenter Tim D spends half his year in Mexico, and is not your regular gringo retiree/vacationer. He speaks and reads Spanish, and is a devoted political observer. So, I asked Tim to write what I hope will be the first of a series of pieces with his thoughts on the Mexican political scene. He was gracious enough to respond with these musings:
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By far the best organized democratic election I have witnessed in my life was the 2005 gubernatorial election in the Mexican state of Guerrero. In the one week before the Sunday vote the two leading candidates (Torreblanca from the PRD party and Estudillo from the PRI) held rallies in Acapulco with the attendance for both rallies exceeding 100,000 persons.

Can you imagine a candidate rally anywhere in the USA that would fill the Rose Bowl to standing room only? Now imagine Acapulco hosting two such rallies in one week.

The entire city was energized. I watched in awe as the PRI pulled out all the stops for its candidate with a full-court press of high visibility media, neighborhood canvassing and street corner information booths. I was equally amazed at the grass-roots organization of the PRD that seemed to counter the PRI professionalism.

The work of both parties (the PAN, Fox’s and Calderon’s party, pretty well sat out this state election) paid off in voter education and interest. Everyone I asked had an informed opinion about the election.

People would tell you for whom they were voting, followed by a detailed explanation for their choice. I still recall listening to the political analysis by a maid in our building who succinctly listed the high points of both candidates’ platforms and then explained the reasoning for her vote. Seldom have I heard any American talk so rationally or so thoroughly about an election and its implications for the common good.

I talked with business-owners, cab drivers and waitresses. Ask “Quien es mejor? Estudillo o Torreblanca?” and you would be treated to a ten-minute discussion about Guerrero and its future.

On the morning of the election my jogging route took me past three polls. At one poll the line was nearly two blocks long at 8 a.m. When I saw the long lines I was thrilled for these democrats – and I was sad for my own country.

I’m going on about this Mexican election because I sincerely believe most Americans haven’t a clue about how democracy is supposed to work. Nor have they any idea about what it means to be an “informed” voter or an active participant in the political process.

Give up five hours to attend a political rally? Take the time to read all candidates positions on key issues? Stand in line for hours at a poll? Americans do these things out of their sense of duty or a sense of obligation to the future? I don’t think so.

When it comes to a functioning democracy, present-day Mexico has it all over us.

As I am writing this, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the PRD candidate, is supposedly addressing a rally in Mexico City’s zocolo where he will demand a total recount of last Sunday’s ballots in Mexico’s presidential election. It is reported he will make his case by citing voting irregularities and by claiming political bias on the part of certain members of the Federal Election Commission. It is also reported he will seek a decision by Mexico’s Supreme Court that will demand a ballot-by-ballot recount.

So what will Americans make of Lopez Obrador’s reluctance to accept the official vote? My short answer is this: it doesn’t matter what we will make of it; it only matters what the citizens of Mexico will make of it. And my informed guess is that the citizens of Mexico, with their deep hope and commitment to a transparent democracy, will take these charges of so-called election fraud far more seriously than we did in our own 2000 and 2004 elections.

If my hunch is true and this challenge continues to play out in the coming months, then the American mass-media will continue its bungling record of accurate reporting. Already I’m seeing an active downplaying in our broadcast media of what’s happening in Mexico. We’re getting innocuous stories about President-elect Calderon’s position on the Border Fence (duh, he’s against it – as if any Mexican President would ever be for it) and a whole lot of stressing that Calderon is a “conservative.” Never mind that there’s a big difference between the conservatism of the PAN, Felipe Calderon’s party, and that of our Republican right-wing.

I suspect the “official” response by the American media will be to treat Lopez Obrador as a “sore loser,” with lots of editorial calls for him to accept the official results like a “good sport.” But again I repeat: it’s not important what we or our media think of all of this. It’s only important what the Mexicans think about it.

So if you can’t trust the American media to be either thorough or accurate about the situation in Mexico, where do you go if you want accurate reporting?

Laura Carlsen, director of the International Relations Council’s Americas Program in Mexico City, has a good article at Commondreams.org which, though perhaps left-leaning, gives you most of the background and the rationale for Lopez Obrador’s dig-in-your-heels response.

If you can read Spanish, then I’d lead you to three Mexico City dailies: El Universal, La Reforma and La Jornada. The websites for all three can be accessed through worldpress.org. (N.B. I find for the most complete and balanced information I must surf all three papers.)

In my opinion, the only newspaper in the states that does an adequate job of Mexico reportage is the Miami Herald, largely because the Herald publishes the only English language daily in most of Latin America.

Right now my thoughts and hopes are with the people of Mexico during this difficult time.
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To add to Tim's thoughts, I pass along a Guardian article from yesterday by Greg Palast: Mexico and Florida Have More In Common Than Heat.

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