The underdogs bare their teeth

Mexico's presidential race

Aug 11th 2005 MEXICO CITY
From The Economist print edition

The front-runners have challengers snapping at their heels

ASK any leading candidate in next year's presidential vote what he would seek to achieve if elected and the list tends to be much the same. More foreign investment to boost Mexico's flagging energy output; cuts in over-generous public pensions; a more efficient, “adversarial” judicial system modelled on America's; and of course, better education.

This is a contest not of ideas, then, but of personalities and party machines. Whoever wins, he is unlikely to enjoy a congressional majority. So one of the most important qualities in a candidate, besides the strength of the party apparatus backing him, is his perceived ability to persuade other parties' legislators to support what they would have supported anyway, had their own party's candidate won.

Since taking office in 2000, Vicente Fox, the serving president, from the conservative National Action Party (PAN), has failed spectacularly on this count. His heir-apparent, Santiago Creel, the interior secretary, looks no more promising. He is an uninspiring speaker and is considered politically inept. However, it is no longer clear that he will be the PAN's candidate. Felipe Calderón, a dynamic, young (43) former energy minister, has gained ground steadily and is now snapping at his heels.

A poll of PAN supporters commissioned by Mr Calderón shows he is now more or less tied with Mr Creel, having been 20 points behind ten months ago. Mr Creel's polls show his rival still trailing—but independent pundits think Mr Calderón's figures more reliable.

That Mr Calderón is a long-time PAN militant could hinder him, if the other parties' candidates successfully paint him as a time-serving apparatchik. Or it could help: Mr Calderón could be on to a winning formula if he convinces voters that his political savvy is the ideal complement to the technocratic competence with which he is already credited.

Anyone but Madrazo

Mr Calderón may have to fight other potential challengers, besides Mr Creel, for the PAN's nomination. Among them is Alberto Cárdenas, a former minister and state governor, whose star is also rising. But success for Mr Calderón should boost the governing party's chances against tough challenges from its two main rivals. The statist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has the strongest party machine, having governed Mexico for 71 years until Mr Fox's election. And the expected candidate of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Andrés Manuel López Obrador—until recently Mexico City's mayor—is overall leader in the presidential polls.

Until recently it seemed almost certain that the PRI's boss, Roberto Madrazo, would be its candidate. However, earlier this month a group of party big-shots joined together under the slogan “Everyone United Against Madrazo” and endorsed a common candidate. He is Arturo Montiel, who is about to complete his term as governor of the state of Mexico (the country's largest).

The PRI's internal contest is as vicious as the PAN's is gentlemanly. Asked what was the main respect in which he differed from Mr Madrazo, Mr Montiel said: “I like to tell the truth.” It may indeed count against Mr Madrazo that the public widely perceives him as falling short of even Mexico's undemanding standards of probity in public life.

However, Mr Montiel must in turn shake off his reputation as an unreformed PRI old-liner, more interested in party gain than policies. He cheerfully admits that, in an election in July to choose his successor as state governor, his top priority was to ensure that the PRI stayed in power (he succeeded). Only then came his other main goals, fighting crime and poverty.
Mr Madrazo, as party chief, may also be able to fix its primaries to nobble his internal rival. That the PRI has not even set a date for them has strengthened suspicions that Mr Madrazo may be seeking ways to avoid an open challenge.

The rising underdogs of both the PAN and PRI stand the best chance of beating Mr López Obrador, especially if at least one of two other well-known figures join the presidential race. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the PRD's failed candidate in three past presidential elections, may run for a smaller party. Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister, wants to run as an independent, though a Supreme Court ruling this week made this far more difficult. Neither stands much chance of winning but each could steal many votes from Mr López Obrador, whose position as the race's leader looks ever more fragile.

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