Who's on First -the Mexican Election about 2 Months Out

One of the hot topics of discussion while I was in the Yucatan was the coming presidential election. On February 25 while I was sitting around the Mexico City airport I asked Where is Mexico Today - one person wrote in and repeated the polls at the time which should Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) in a 5-9% lead over Felipe Calderon and Roberto Madrazo. That race has narrowed, at least betwen AMLO and Calderon.

AMLO decided not to attend the first presidential debate and that may have been a significant mistake. Calderon seems to have won the debate without AMLO there in pretty good fashion. The various polls now show either a 2% lead for AMLO or a 3% lead for Calderon. Madrazo seems to have about a quarter of the vote and has not moved. But even without the duck in the debate AMLO's momentum seems to have stalled.

While I was in Merida I saw several political ads, interestingly enough none for Calderon - that may be because he is not advertising there. The AMLO ads are soft - they show a bunch of people in various settings and then close with a request for the vote. The Madrazo ads looked a bit strident to me - he looked a bit scary and his speech was high rhetoric. The lack of Calderon ads may be partially because of a decision by the Federal Election Commission to ask them to pull an ad which ended with the tagline - Lopez Obrador, a danger to Mexico. They may simply be out of cycle at this point with ads.

Among the people I came in contact with there is a pretty high level of interest in the election. Most of my friends are concerned that AMLO is a Hugo Chavez clone. Fox has made that assertion in a number of venues and it seems to be beginning to stick. As I said in the earlier post, there are a few PRD people in places that I have visited who are uncomfortable with AMLO.

What continues to impress me is the energy with which people are approaching the election. The change in 2000 was a fundamental one. While the political system is far from perfect there are some very good signs in a lot of places in Mexico that officials are thinking creatively about what the system could become. As I think I have noted, in my work with a couple of governors and in conversations with a host of officials from at least a dozen states there are serious and varied efforts at improving state government. There is real interest and activity in making state governments more transparent and better dedicated to serving their constituents.

One of the worries expressed early in this campaign was the notion that if AMLO was elected the country would regress back into an earlier era. At this point I have at least two reasons to believe that even if the worst comments about AMLO are correct and if he wins - that will not happen. First, the positive efforts in many states will serve as a counterpoint to any extreme. I have been very impressed with the Governors (like Luis Armando Reynoso Femat in Aguascalientes) and state officials (from places as diverse as Zacatecas, Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Veracruz and Campeche) who seem to have really thought out how to move their areas forward. These are not always in a perfect straight line - no democratic system is capable of that - but there are serious efforts to achieve results. Second, the inherent conservatism (not necessarily political conservatism) of the Mexican people will restrain any extremes. I came back from this trip more optimistic about the future.