Old power looks to regain hold in Mexico
Old power looks to regain hold in Mexico
By
Guy Taylor
“We’re talking about a margin of difference that’s probably going to be a lot larger this time around,” says AS/COA's Christopher Sabatini ahead of the Mexican presidential election.
Mexicans voted for a new president Sunday after a campaign dominated by calls for economic growth and debate about how to proceed with a bloody war on drug cartels that has killed nearly 50,000 people since 2006.
Enrique Pena Nieto, a 45-year-old with boyish good looks from the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), held a significant lead as lines formed outside voting stations in Mexico’s 31 states.
His victory would mark the return to power of a party whose system of top-down politics and patronage controlled the Mexican presidency through much of the 20th century...
...Christopher Sabatini, who directs policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas in New York, said it is unlikely that Mr. Lopez Obrador’s supporters would be able to galvanize an election challenge as effectively as they did six years ago.
“We’re talking about a margin of difference that’s probably going to be a lot larger this time around,” said Mr. Sabatini, adding that Mr. Lopez Obrador’s supporters may stage demonstrations challenging the legitimacy of Mexico’s overall political system, but they likely will struggle to claim the race was stolen in a close vote.
“I don’t think he’ll directly contest the elections,” Mr. Sabatini said. “I think what they’re going to contest is the corruption of the system generally, a system under which the old PRI machinery has now roared back to life in the wake of the PAN’s failure of the last 12 years.”
