...Enrique Peña Nieto !
The election is over. It was feared an increase in tensions, demonstrations or even violence. Finally, nothing happened.
Sunday 1st July 2012 was election day in Mexico. In fact, all elections are held on the same day every six years: municipal, parliamentarian (federal and for each state) and presidential elections. This allows to maintain a relatively good level of participation. After 3 years will be the midterm elections.
Three major parties were in the race for president: the PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolutionary, left wing party), PAN (National Action Party, right wing party) and the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party, "centrist").
The PRI, the ruling party for decades, ousted by the PAN during the past two terms, returned to power.
According to some people we met, none of the three was really worth being elected. Peña Nieto first.
Concretely, what elections are like in Mexico?
Before: candidates are using every possible means to seduce and convince potential voters: campaigns, gifts of all kinds (thermos, t-shirts, fans, watches etc.), posters plastered on every place imaginable (cars, walls, etc.), manipulations of all kinds especially with the most disadvantaged and illiterate to "buy" their votes.
During: queues of hundred meters in front of polling stations, polling booths, ballots to tick depending on the party you vote for (like on the poster of Josefina PAN), various ballots to be inserted into the corresponding boxes, thousands of election observers and the ley seca (48 hours ban alcohol sales in bars and shops)..
After: results with a wide gap for the presidential election leaving little doubt (in spite of probable fraud), more questionable results at the local level, counting and recounting of votes. For now, we did not see protests.
These elections can only be resonant with what we lived in France: how free are the voters, regardless of media manipulation and the parties themselves? how real democracy works? A glimmer of hope: Students are beginning to be indignant against media manipulation and the absence of public policy with the movement "Yo soy 132" movement born after the confrontation of 131 students at the University Iberoamericana with the president elect. A step forward to act on the reality and to move towards greater democracy and social justice.
(Article written by Karine, one of my best friends who came from France to visit me in Mexico for three weeks, and editor in chief for the occasion)
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