Michoacan elections could be a way point, not a harbinger for 2012
2011-11-15
Posted by: badanov
For a map, click here. For a map of Michoacan, click here. To read the latest full Rantburg report on the growing Moreira debt scandal, click here
By Chris Covert
The Mexican national press has made it a point not to make too much of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) victory in Michoacan Sunday. The leaders of two of the rival parties, PRI and Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) did their share Sunday, one of them by running victory laps in the press before the polls even closed.
American press outlets have also helpfully weighed in to the post election analysis calling the Michoacan state elections "key".
To be sure Humberto Moreira Valdes, in his office as leader of PRI only nine months is probably pretty happy to be informed the Michoacan elections were key. Beats telling supporters that a Michoacan loss would not cost him his resignation.
Senor Moreira should also be worried. PAN leader Gustavo Madero exercised a bit of hubris to claim based on exit polls of a PAN victory in the governor's house, but that tiny bit of silliness could be the only harbinger any political organization can hope for going into 2012, including PRI.
Of the elections in 2011, save for Baja California Sur (which went PAN), Moreira can claim credit for five wins. Governorships in Guerrero, Nayarit, Mexico state and Coahuila, plus sweeps in all statehouses and municipal council elections. His feat mirrored the string of victories achieved by his predecessor, Beatriz Parades Rangel when in 2010 her efforts led to PRI flipping or retaining 11 of 14 statehouses.
Clearly with those strings of victories, any leader of PRI can work with some confidence that that momentum can carry into the 2012 presidential elections.
But for Michoacan.
Madero decided to draw the line at Michoacan apparently just after the July trouncing the other two mainstream parties received at the hands of PRI, including Partido Revolucion Democratica (PRD), Mexico's mainstream leftist political party.
In mid August Madero decided to make Moreira the focus of attacks, instead of PRI or its candidate, the latter being illegal in Mexico. His attacks come almost a full month following a report by the Procuradoria General Nacional (PRG) or attorney general's office which took notice of the suspicious nature of the ballooning public debt.
The reason for that delay is pretty clear along with the seemingly half hearted nature of the attacks. Madero wants Moreira as leader of the PRI. Moreira resigning is not an option because then PAN has little to go after PRI with.
PAN is suffering greatly politically from six years of warfare on the streets of Mexico as President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa attempted to deal with the increasingly violent Mexican organized crime cartels. Attacks against the president and his policies, even though PRI has funded those very policies have taken their toll. PAN's political fortunes are on the decline.
Madero knows it, and before August there was little he could do about it.
Now, almost three months after Madero's attacks began and two former Coahuila state officials are facing federal indictments for fraud, four months after an embarrassing pasting at the hands of the PRI, come the Michoacan state elections.
But for its order in state elections in 2012 and the fact president Calderon's sister Luisa Maria "Cocoa" Calderon Hinojasa ran under the PAN banner, the Michoacan election would be just another backwater electoral contest involving less than one percent of the total population of Mexico.
It is in the Michoacan state Chamber of Deputies and the governor's seat that Madero realized the dividends from his strategy. Of 24 seats, PRI managed to take only 11. It took the plurality of seats but not a majority, which compared to the overwhelming victories earlier in the year is an amazing accomplishment. A majority, 13, are held by PAN and PRD, neither party strangers to coming together to oppose PRI in local elections and the inevitable wrangling over state resources.
Madero probably now realizes dividends from his attacks would pay off if PRI lost somewhere.
The governor's race, however, had had established for it a number beyond which the contest amongst the three candidates -- but in reality between PRI and PAN -- would not be considered close. The numebr was 60,000 or roughly six percent of eligible voters.
Calderon Hinjosa ended the election with 520,333 votes or 32.67 percent versus PRI's coalition garnering 563,598 for 35.39. The difference is 40,375 votes.
If the Michoacan elections are a harbinger for 2012, the lesson to take would be that 2012 will be street brawl. As this writer has said in the past, if Madero has an ace up his sleeve for 2012, that ace is a wildcard by the name of Humberto Moreira Valdes.