Understanding Mexican and ‘Potosino’ politics 101
Quick guide to this electoral year in the country and the state.
If you are an expat living and working in Mexico (maybe even in San Luis Potosi), it may come in handy to know some of the most important elements of politics in the country and state, to see how this 2021 will unfold and how it may have an effect on the commercial and economic situation.
For starters, this year is an electoral one: on a federal or national level, we’ll have the intermediate election, which will see the whole lower house of Congress (the ‘Camara de Diputados’, which is equivalent to the House of Representatives in the US, the Japanese ‘Diet’, the German Bundestag or the UK House of Commons), formed by 500 congressmen, 300 from the federal electoral districts and 200 designated from the political parties, according to their voting results; go to the ballots.
This election is crucial to Mexico’s future, as the current president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (accused by opposition parties of being a leftist populist), is betting on obtaining an absolute legislative majority, which will allow him to push through what he perceives as necessary reforms to the country’s political and economic system, including the elimination of several regulatory entities, like the Federal Public Information Access Institute (IFAI), which guarantees anyone the possibility of assessing how the government uses its resources and has uncovered several questionable situations in various federal offices.
In a way, the Federal Congressional election is a midpoint referendum for Lopez Obrador, whose personal popularity remains strong countrywide, although internal strife in his party, MORENA (National Regeneration Movement), might help the opposition avoid getting steamrolled.
Parallel to this national election, 17 states (out of 32 federal entities) will also have local elections; of those, 15 will change their executive authority (governors), their local Congress and their municipal officials (Municipal Presidents). As such, it entails a huge shakedown, with inevitable economic repercussions.
San Luis Potosi is one of the states that will have local elections, at governor, Congress and municipal levels, so for all the international companies established in one of the industrial parks of the state, it is a good idea to understand how the whole process will unfold.
As there is no reelection, current Governor, Juan Manuel Carreras Lopez will be leaving office on the last day of September, this year; the election will take place on June 6th (the month’s first Sunday), and the main parties competing, will be an alliance between the PAN (National Action Party), PRI (Institutional Revolution Party -Governor Carrera’s party-), PRD (Democratic Revolution Party) and the state party PCP (Popular Conscience Party); the PVEM (Mexican Green Ecologic Party); MORENA (National Regeneration Movement), allied with the PT (Work Party); and several other smaller and new parties, plus at least two independent candidates.
At this point, there are already several candidates, but the most important are the PVEM contender, who will be federal Congressman Ricardo Gallardo; he’s also been mayor of the suburban municipality of Soledad de Graciano Sanchez and is head of an important popular movement known as ‘Gallardismo’; his father, Ricardo Gallardo Juarez, was also mayor of Soledad and of the state’s capital city, San Luis Potosi.
The PAN just elected its candidate, in a bitter internal selection process, which included the current San Luis Potosi mayor, Xavier Nava; senator Marco Gama; and ex city mayor and ex-senator Octavio Pedroza, who finally won this primary. PRI and PRD will have their internal selection processes, but it is almost a given that they will run with Pedroza.
Unfortunately for this alliance, Xavier Nava, the mayor, apparently is analyzing the possibility of running under a minor party… if that is so, he would not have a chance, but it would surely derail the three-party coalition effort and make it easier for Gallardo to win.
Plus, MORENA is in a curious and dangerous situation: it called out for whomever was interested in becoming candidate to take part in the internal process, which would be done through a statewide poll; thirteen men and women registered to participate. But, turns out the national party Committee unilaterally decided that, to comply with gender equality electoral regulations, (that determine that in 7 out of the 15 governorships to be elected, parties have to select a woman), San Luis Potosi would have a female candidate.
Besides throwing the party in a turmoil and risking several lawsuits, this move was perceived as the political payment from MORENA’s national president, Mario Delgado (who was the Congressional majority coordinator for his party), to Ricardo Gallardo (who was the Green party’s Coordinator in Congress and who aligned the PVEM with MORENA and helped Delgado pass through several key legislative issues). Turns out none of the female hopefuls in MORENA, in San Luis Potosi, are perceived as political heavyweights.
Anyway, that is the beginning of the electoral process… here in SLP, the state unicameral Congress will also be elected (27 ‘Diputados’, 15 from the local electoral districts that form the State and 12 from the political party lists, according to the voting percentage they get in the election); the 58 municipalities will also elect their authorities (the Municipal President and the city councils, called Ayuntamiento). Of these, undoubtedly the most important are the municipalities of San Luis Potosi state capital; the suburban municipality of Soledad; the municipalities of Ciudad Valles, Rioverde and Matehuala; and Villa de Reyes, as it is the administrative seat of the industrial parks where both the GM and BMW plants are located.
Of these elections, we’ll talk about next week.
