Have you ever heard the expression, “Things are the same all over?”
I’ve always interpreted this as meaning that people all over the world struggle with common issues. This saying could be applied to the current presidential election cycles in both the U.S. and Mexico. In the U.S., many people are dissatisfied with the track record of the Obama administration. The economy is still in tatters and the president seems unable to bring about any semblance of compromise in Washington, D.C., to be able to push forward his agenda. While the war in Iraq is effectively over for the U.S., the Afghanistan war continues without any clear end in sight.
While the situation would seem to heavily favor the Republican Party in the upcoming presidential race, bickering and infighting plague the candidates running for president. The candidates have had their personal lives and personalities skewered in the press, and this has led to much malaise among Republican voters. While the candidates’ race on the right side of the aisle is far from being settled, one has to wonder how damaged the eventual Republican nominee will be when he eventually wins.
In Mexico, the situation is strikingly similar. The PAN party has held the president’s office for the past 12 years. As part of his platform during his six-year administration, President Felipe Calderón has made a priority of fighting the power that drug cartels command in the country. This has resulted in not only 47,000-plus drug-related deaths in the past four years, but it has also decimated the commercial and tourism trade in places such as Monterrey, Juarez and Acapulco. Although incidents of violent crime seem to be subsidizing, if only a little, most Mexicans are fatigued with living in fear and danger. Calderón has been unsuccessful in convincing them that his fight against the cartels has been successful, and this has tainted other positive developments, such as the growing the economy and the upsurge in the maquiladora industry.
The unpopularity of Calderón’s administration seems to be prejudicing the attitude that many Mexicans have against PAN candidates Josefina Vazquez Mota, Ernesto Cordero and Santiago Creel. Most Mexicans, whose political intuition I trust, feel that the presidential race is the PRI party’s to lose. The PRI, which held power in Mexico for 71 years before the PAN took over in 2000, still has a huge voter base and political machine throughout the nation.
However, much like what is happening with the Republican Party in the U.S., the PRI seems intent on shooting itself in the foot with voters. Former governor of the State of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, is the presumptive PRI nominee, and appears to have the backing of the PRI leadership. Young and handsome, Peña Nieto has proceeded to stumble out of the gate, eerily similar to Rick Perry in the U.S. When asked at a high-profile book fair about the three books he has read that have most influenced his life, he could not readily provide an answer. When he finally responded that the Bible was the most influential book, he couldn’t reference any passage or character in the Bible who had influenced him. He then further stumbled by confusing an author with a book he didn’t write. He then named another author, but couldn’t remember any specific books he had written.
Peña Nieto’s teenage daughter, Paulina, was incensed at the criticism her father received from the book incident and issued a tweet calling his critics “idiots” from the “proletariat who criticize those they envy.” This condescending remark did not sit well in Mexico, where the divide between rich and poor remains a sensitive issue. Further compounding Peña Nieto’s public image is a video posted on YouTube of him attempting to read a statement in English to demonstrate his proficiency in this language, only to stumble over words and freeze.
The PRD party, whose candidate, former Mexico City Mayor Manuel Lopez Obrador, barely lost to Calderón in 2006, is again fielding Obrador in the race. After losing the race, Obrador refused to concede and declared the formation of a parallel government, which was never taken seriously but did alienate support from a wide section of Mexican voters. The PRD’s disruptive strikes and Obrador’s rantings about allies such as the U.S. alienated even more potential supporters.
Despite Peña Nieto’s gaffs, the race appears his to lose and he seems intent on doing everything he can to make it close. Given the choices that Mexicans are facing in the July presidential elections, a state of malaise has set in with the voting population, much like the political malaise in the U.S. A general feeling in both countries is that the elections can’t be over soon enough to allow the winners to take their respective offices in order for some real work to be done.
Jerry Pacheco is the executive director of the International Business Accelerator, a nonprofit trade counseling program of the New Mexico Small Business Development Centers Network. He can be reached at 575-589-2200 or at jerry@nmiba.com.
