Frontera NorteSur
Although it is still two years off, Mexico’s 2012 election campaign is picking up on both sides of the border. In an early instance of cross-border politicking, Mexican Congressman Cesar Nava traveled to Los Angeles this week to recruit members for President Felipe Calderon’s conservative National Action Party (PAN). As a long-time migrant destination and home to millions of Mexican nationals, California could be a factor in the 2012 elections which will decide a new president and federal Congress.
Mexican migrants residing in the United States were allowed to cast ballots from this country’s territory for the first time in the 2006 election that resulted in Calderon’s disputed victory. Official election results gave Calderon the 2006 migrant vote, but few migrants actually participated and the mail-in procedure was widely criticized as confusing,
cumbersome and expensive.
It remains to be seen if migrant voting procedures for the 2012 election will be different than in the previous election.
Congressman Nava’s Los Angeles jaunt was part of an international campaign by the PAN to increase its membership. So far, the party claims to have enrolled 161,000 new Panistas during its current membership drive. Actor Alfredo Adame, actress and singer Mariana Ochoa and professional wrestler Atlantis are among the new militants.
Despite widespread criticisms and even electoral law changes shortening Mexican election campaigns, Mexico is witnessing a similar process as in 2003-04, when jockeying for the presidential succession intensified.
Unofficially, candidates are being groomed by the big media players and traditional political forces. Many analysts, for example, consider this year’s constant, televised promotion of Mexico state Governor Enrique Pena of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) as nothing short of a pre-campaign for president.
Considering the PAN’S trouncing by the PRI in the 2009 congressional elections, Nava’s Los Angeles trip should be viewed as an effort to recoup the center-right party’s losses and regain some political momentum over its opponents.
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico.