Unlike the U.S. elections, where everything happens so
smoothly, Mexican elections are always noisy and complicated.
Since I can recall, we haven’t had an election free of
complains about the process itself or about the resulting outcomes.
Complaints are intrinsic to any democratic process, especially
when there are more than two parties involved in the competition for the
popular vote. In the case of Mexico, we can’t forget that it’s a democracy that
is still in diapers. It was not too long ago, in 1990, when the Federal
Electoral Institute (IFE) was created as an independent institution to regulate
the electoral process, but it was not until 1996, that the institution gained
its real autonomy from the executive power. Although it is difficult to assure
that 100 percent of the population is convinced about the autonomy of the IFE,
it would be impossible to deny that the institution has helped to make the
electoral process more transparent, equitable and fair for all the
participants.
The structure of the IFE is replicated in all the Mexican
states. However, the majority of those electoral institutes don’t have the same
grade of credibility as the federal institute. One of the main complaints is
that the citizens’ representatives in those institutions don’t really represent
the citizens, but the politicians and their political parties. For that reason, the critics say, there
are not consequences for the candidates who break the rules of financing or
fair competition.
On July 4, 14 Mexican states will elect 1,500 officials. This
coming Saturday and Sunday, most of the candidates will end their political
campaigns in the middle of unsolved accusations of using public resources to
attract voters. In some states and towns, candidates have been linked to drug
trafficking organizations and just a few of investigation are going on about their financing.
In some other states, the elections have been contaminated with political
espionage.
What is interesting is that before the year 2000, most of
the complaints were against the candidates of the Partido Revolucionario
Institucional (PRI), the party that ruled Mexico for more than 70 years. But
now, the same kind of complaints and accusations are being levied against candidates
representing all the parties, from the right-wing Partido Accion Nacional –who now rules the country–, to
the leftist Partido de la Revolución Demócratica (PRD).
What this means is that the long-time PRI-monopolized
practice of “compra de voto” (buying your vote) became widespread and useful
for all of Mexico’s political parties.
That is the current state of Mexican democracy and our state
electoral institutes are still not strong enough to guarantee fair, transparent
and credible elections.
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