For many countries around the world, 2012 is a very important year. No, I’m not talking about the Mayan hype. Rather, a number of countries will have elections this year, meaning there’s potential for a lot of change. On July 1, Mexico will hold federal elections in which a new president and 128 members of the senate will be elected to serve six-year terms along with 500 deputies to serve three-year terms in the Chamber of Deputies. Besides that, six states will have gubernatorial elections.
Mexico presents an interesting electoral process that requires less time, less money, no vice president picks, and a bit more structure. On the other hand, U.S. elections drag out for more than a year of messy campaigning and require millions of Super PAC-fundraised dollars spread out among way too many nominees (at one point there were nine Republican nominees, nine!). And about vice presidents, let’s just say things might have been a bit simpler without Sarah Palin on the ticket last time around.
The electoral process in Mexico is different than what we see here in the United States. Therefore, it presents an interesting model that contrasts with the current U.S. model of more than a year of heavy campaigning for a party nomination that typically turns into a circus.
Presidential candidates are chosen in a very different fashion. The whole process is much faster, and much cheaper. There’s no parade of candidates, vicious attacks on television, or long debates. Mind you, those are just saved for the actual federal elections.
In Mexico, every election is a non-incumbent election because of its multi-party system, with three political parties at the head, and a number of small ones. Alliances and coalitions are common in elections and usually are done at the state level. Typically, these alliances end up being a combination of one of the three major parties with any number of the smaller parties.
The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR), a leftist party, announced Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO to his followers, as their candidate in November. He received the nomination after an internal campaign. This is his second time running for President since losing in 2006 to the National Action Party’s (NAP) Felipe Calderon Hinojosa by less than 1 percent. AMLO, like any democracy-loving individual, called the elections a fraud and hosted massive protests.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (IRP), a center-left party, officially chose Enrique Pena Nieto as their presidential nominee. The process was also an internal one, but one in which Pena Nieto incidentally ran unopposed.
The NAP, the right wing party and the current party in power, chose the first serious female contender for the presidency, Josefina Vazquez Mota, as its nominee.
Lastly, the most recently formed party, the New Alliance Party, chose Gabriel Quadri de la Torre as its nominee for the federal election.
The four parties have similar ways through which they choose a nominee. All pre-candidates to the presidency have to submit applications for the pre-candidacy within their own party. Each party has a different variation as to what qualifies people to apply for their party’s nomination. Once the applications are reviewed, pre-candidates are allowed to do internal campaigning within the party. In the case of the PDR and IRP, this year the selection process was not a very difficult one seeing as both candidates virtually ran unopposed. The NAP, on the other hand, held primary elections to choose Vazquez Mota. However, these are not primaries like the ones that we see here in the United States. These primaries happen a lot faster.
The actual federal election also happens a lot faster. Official campaigning doesn’t start until March 31. This gives the nominees a little under three months to actually campaign throughout the country.
This makes the entire process a little less of the media circus that it has become in the United States. Although this doesn’t mean there’s no circus at all. Pena Nieto was the target of heavy criticisms after he couldn’t mention the name of a single book when he was asked about the last book he had read. Another occasion, when someone asked what the price of the tortilla was, he replied by saying that he wasn’t the lady of the house, therefore he didn’t know the price.
The Federal Electoral Institute organizes federal elections, which is an autonomous entity that is not supposed to have any connection to any political party and follow the political constitution of the nation. Elections can be divided into two types. On the one hand there are ordinary elections, which are held every three years on the first Sunday of July.
Political parties register their candidates at the Federal Electoral Institute. Campaigning is only a few months and must completely stop three days before the election day. On the election day, voting booths are open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. unless there are still people in line waiting to vote, in which case the booths have to wait to close until the line is gone.
