by Emma Volonté
El Reportero correspondent in México
Mexican campesinos vote in Chiapas. (PHOTO BY MOYSÉS SANTIAGO ZÚÑIGA)
Enrique Peña Nieto is the new president of Mexico. In the 1st July elections, the candidate of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) won with around 38 percent of the vote, against 31 percent for progressive Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the PRD (Democratic Revolution Party). Peña Nieto left only 26 percent to Josefina Vazquez Mota, from the governing PAN (National Action Party), and 2.5 percent to Gabriel Quadri de la Torre from the New Alianza group.
In Mexico there is only one round in the presidential election: who gets more votes wins. The president’s term is of six years and he cannot run again. The election day has developed normally, although there were several complaints of irregularities in a context where, according to a survey released a few days before the election, 71 percent of the voters believed that there could be fraud.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party is a conservative group, born from the ashes of the Mexican Revolution, who ruled from 1929 to 2000. It was over seventy years of cronyism, corruption and impunity, which did not end when the PRI was forced to cede power to the PAN, an even more conservative party.
In the 2006 presidential elections, the centerleft leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who had obtained only 250 000 votes less than Felipe Calderon accused the right-wing of election fraud, and along with his supporters he occupied the downtown Mexico City for three months.
According to analysts, the decision of Felipe Calderon – shortly after his election – to start the so-called “drug war” was just a demonstration of strength to his progressive opponent.
Mexican voters wanted to close twelve years of PAN government, exasperated by the drug war (which in six years has killed nearly 60,000 people), the economic crisis (the Mexican economy is 14th biggest in the world, but its GDP went from 6.9 percent in the period 1950-1982 to 1.97 percent today) and inequalities in the country (Mexico produces the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim, and at the same Mexico is the country with more migrants to the world). Mexicans have removed the PAN by choosing the alternative promoted by the media: according to research from the prestigious British newspaper The Guardian, from 2005 the PRI has paid the network Televisa to promote their candidate and to discredit the opponent Lopez Obrador. The student movement I Am132 was born last May to expose the media manipulation by the Televisa-TV Azteca television duopoly.
It was created as “anti-PeñaNieto” and finally stated to be nonpartisan. With his appearance on stage at last month’s election campaign, the student movement has been an obstacle to the triumph of the PRI candidate- which according to early polls was over Lopez Obrador by twenty points – and has reopened the campaign.
Enrique Peña Nieto was the controversial governor of Mexico State, a body located in the center of the Republic of Mexico. The most obvious failure of his term as governor was recorded in 2006 in the town of San Salvador Atenco, when a police operation against people who resisted the construction of an airport caused – according to official figures – 2 dead, 201 arrested and 23 allegations of rape by law enforcement.
Another element that creates pessimism among human rights defenders on the future mandate of Peña Nieto is the inclusion of the Colombian General Oscar Naranjo Trujillo in the ranks of his foreign advisers on security. Naranjo, who was Director of the National Police of Colombia during Uribe’s administration is accused of being one of the leaders of Operation Phoenix – namely the bombing occurred in 2008 by the Colombian army, to a FARC camp in Ecuadorian territory that killed four Mexican citizens – and to have strong relationships with drug-trafficking (for example, in 2006 his brother was arrested for cocaine trafficking in Germany).
“With organized crime there will be no agreement or truce. The fight against crime will continue, with a new strategy to reduce violence and protect, above all, the lives of the Mexicans”, said Peña Nieto, without specifying what kind of strategy he will use against drug cartels or whether he will withdraw the army that occupies much of the country’s streets. In economic policy, Peña Nieto will undoubtedly promote neoliberal capitalism and dependent on exports, which will create debt. It provides a plan of privatization of public companies, notably Pemex, the state company that has a monopoly on oil.
Regarding foreign policy, Mexico will continue watching from afar the Latin American integration process driven by the progressive governments of the region, which is strengthening its sovereignty, and will align with the countries of the Pacific Alliance, the most faithful allies of the United States in Latin America: Colombia, Chile and Peru.
