The history of electoral democracy in Mexico can be told in two great moments.
There was a time when one party, the everlasting PRI, won the presidential elections by a landslide majority;
Even in 1976, only one presidential candidate appeared on the ballot: PRI member José López Portillo (of course, he won).
The electoral table changed in the 1990s, after the turbulent elections of 1988 - the
fall of the system
- and citizens' demands for greater democratic openness.
The IFE (predecessor of the INE) was created as an autonomous authority of the Government to organize and monitor the elections and, starting with the 1994 elections, a more or less consistent board of three electoral forces was configured: the PRI, which represented the ruling party centrist;
the PRD, the left;
and the PAN, the institutional right.
In the presidential elections every six years, despite the emergence of new political formations and the disappearance of others, Mexicans always chose between three projects.
In other words, there was never a dispute only between two opposing options, but there was always a third offer that excited a large part of the electorate and played an important role in terms of useful votes.
This was the case for three decades of democracy.
Until now, when there are two leading candidates—the ruling party Claudia Sheinbaum and the opposition Xóchitl Gálvez—and a third option—Jorge Álvarez Máynez, from Movimiento Ciudadano—placed at the bottom of the polls, with voter intention figures so low that They even put the survival of the party at risk.
Specialists agree that, for the first time, Mexico will experience a presidential election with the characteristics of the runoff and the second round, contested only between two opposing options.
Xóchitl Gálvez at the closing of his presidential pre-campaign. Cuartoscuro
In Mexico there is a single-vote electoral system in which the candidate who obtains a simple majority wins.
There are no primary elections nor is there a second round (Argentina is the example of a country that combines both stages).
Some Mexican congressmen have tried to establish the runoff system, in which, if a candidate does not obtain an absolute majority - more than 50% of the votes - in a first vote, he goes to a new and definitive election against the second place.
These initiatives have not prospered in Mexico.
This year's election, however, will be a kind of laboratory, where the undecided and the useful vote will play a key role.
“We had not seen an election that was not in thirds, or in which one of the thirds, even if it was reduced, was as small as apparently could occur in this election,” says Alfredo Figueroa, former counselor of the National Electoral Institute (INE) and specialist in public opinion studies.
“In this electoral scenario, the growth of whoever has the most preference today naturally causes a 'double drop', as occurs in the second round or ballot systems: a point that goes up, is lowered by the candidate who is in second place, and the Conversely, a point that the candidate in second place goes up is a point that the candidate in first place goes down,” he explains.
The third in history
Enkoll's latest survey for EL PAÍS, with data collected in January, gave Sheinbaum, the standard bearer of Morena, the Green Party and the Labor Party, a gross preference of 54 points;
He was followed by Gálvez, candidate for the PAN, PRI and PRD alliance, with 27 points;
In a remote third place was Álvarez Máynez, from MC, with 3 points (all surveys, in general, give Máynez a single-digit advantage).
Enkoll's measurement also included 16% of undecided voters, which Figueroa calls the “
switcher
vote .”
“The useful vote is much easier to explain when there are only two options.
The useful vote is the typical vote of the runoffs, of the second rounds.
It will be A or B, if [the idea of] 'I have nowhere else to take my vote' permeates among citizens.
You vote yes or no.
Yes I want this or I don't want this.
And the electorate is defined in those terms,” says the specialist.
Since 1994, in every presidential election, third place was competitive and always obtained a double-digit vote, sometimes very close to second place in the race.
In the 1994 elections, the PRI candidate, Ernesto Zedillo, triumphed, although far from the overwhelming votes of yesteryear.
The candidate in third place, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, of the PRD, obtained a vote of 16%.
In 2000, Cárdenas, who tried again, again had 16% of the votes.
That election was important because, for the first time in decades, the PRI lost the presidency, against the PAN member Vicente Fox.
Jorge Álvarez Maynéz and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in a photo spread on Maynéz's social networks, in 2020.RR.SS.
In 2006, the result was very close and the difference between first and second place was tenths.
Felipe Calderón, of the PAN, won the election over Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of the PRD, by a difference of 0.56%;
The PRI candidate, Roberto Madrazo, sent to third place, however took 22% of the vote.
In 2012, citizens ousted the PAN from the presidency and returned the PRI to power, with Enrique Peña Nieto, which ended the period of alternation.
The candidate in third place, Josefina Vázquez Mota, from the PAN, obtained 25% of the votes.
In 2018, López Obrador finally won the presidency and became the federal president with the most votes in three decades, with 53% of the votes;
The third loser, PRI member José Antonio Meade, had 16%.
“In the country there were three large groups or political forces;
Today two of them, PAN and PRI, are united;
The third, Morena, emptied a good part of what the PRD and PRI were.
This left a bipartisan or bi-coalition logic,” explains Figueroa.
“The most important political forces are concentrated in two large coalitions.
And the third offer, MC, in an election whose overtones and elements are precisely those of political polarization, is relegated to a party whose 'third way' narrative does not seem to be working."
The MC problem
Figueroa considers that the blurring of the Citizen Movement in this election is a consequence of the internal confrontation between the national leadership, headed by Dante Delgado, and the Jalisco Group, led by the governor of the State, Enrique Alfaro.
The process of defining the presidential candidacy confronted the two leaders to the point of breaking up.
MC is expected to retain the governorship of Jalisco, but at the presidential level the votes will go to the two leaders, mainly Sheinbaum, and not to Máynez, according to a Reforma survey
on
February 6 (in that measurement, the Morenista candidate obtains 69 % of voting intention, Gálvez 23%, and Máynez 8%).
“The Jalisco Group, which has long maintained the MC registration, clearly does not accompany Máynez.
Furthermore, with Jalisco voting for one of the two [leading] options, I find it difficult for Máynez to obtain a high vote.
In politics anything is possible, but that scenario seems very unlikely to me, because MC does not have the Jalisco Group,” explains the former counselor.
Heidi Osuna, director of the Enkoll polling firm, affirms that Máynez's candidacy should not be ruled out from this moment, since the presidential debates and the campaign are on the horizon.
However, she recognizes that the circumstance that sent the orange party to the bottom of the measurements is having chosen Máynez as standard bearer from among the possible cadres.
The specialist affirms that the most competitive MC politician was Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas, mayor of Monterrey and son of the PRI presidential candidate murdered in 1994, the endearing Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta.
In a survey from July last year, in a confrontation in which Colosio was placed as a possible MC standard bearer, he placed second, with 19% of the electoral preferences, above Gálvez, who had 18% ( Sheinbaum won 48%).
Dante Delgado and Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas.Moisés Pablo Nava (Cuartoscuro)
Colosio, however, did not want to be his party's candidate.
When searching for a replacement, Delgado removed Alfaro, who wanted that position, although his numbers were not as high as Colosio's.
Finally, the national leader opted for the governor of Nuevo León, Samuel García.
In November, the brand new candidate registered 17% of the preferences and tended to grow.
But his aspirations were short-lived.
The PRI and PAN in the Congress of Nuevo León torpedoed the governor's plans to compete in the presidential elections and forced MC to change candidates again.
After weeks of uncertainty, the orange party finally chose Máynez.
That decision brought with it the collapse of MC, which between November and January went from 17% to 3% of voters' preferences.
“MC's problem is that it did not have a candidate.
If he had had Colosio on the ballot, I believe that today the party would be second place.
If I had had Samuel García, with the growth trend he had, today he could be close to second place,” says Osuna.
The specialist also explains that MC generates sympathy among citizens, since it does not carry the bad reputation of other parties.
In an Enkoll survey from July 2023, MC was the second best evaluated party by the population, after Morena.
“MC is a healthy brand at the national level;
obviously it is not as powerful as Morena, but it is a healthy brand;
The problem is that it lacks paintings,” says Osuna.
The key to the undecided
In a zero-sum circumstance, where generally the points gained by one option are lost by the other, the vote of the undecided is crucial.
Osuna affirms that, after the replacement of García by Máynez, potential MC voters were rearranged between Sheinbaum and Gálvez, on the one hand, and among the undecided, on the other.
“The extremes, the two-party systems, leave many citizens without representation.
Citizen Movement feeds on the extremes, on those who are disenchanted with the PAN-PRI-PRD and those who are disenchanted with Morena-Verde-PT.
That is why, in a month and a half, the two candidates grew in practically the same proportion, due to the collapse of MC.
Let's see if MC can recover those votes or if they stay with the candidates," says the expert.
Osuna and Figueroa agree that it is possible that an undesired effect of the concentration of the electoral offer in two single options demotivates citizens and reduces the level of participation.
“Imagine someone who does not want to vote for the PAN, PRI and PRD because they have governed the country for many years, mainly the PRI, and who currently disapproves of President López Obrador.
I wouldn't find an option.
So what would happen to the citizen?
Well, it is very likely that he will not vote,” explains Osuna.
“If the results of the election indicate that there is a high abstention rate, it means that the country is not polarized like the political offer is, that it is not at two extremes, that the country needs more options.
And that is when the door will open for us to once again have more candidates from more political parties or independent candidates,” he adds.
Manuel Velasco and Claudia Sheinbaum during the Green Party event.
Daniel Augusto (CUARTOSCURO)
Figueroa maintains that the levels of participation will be decisive in this election.
“A scenario of low participation is an election where the ruling party has greater possibilities.
The greater the participation, it means that people did find something in the candidacies to get to the ballot with enthusiasm, even if it was the enthusiasm of not allowing some to continue,” he points out.
The specialist estimates that Sheinbaum and Gálvez have the possibility of attracting the electorate if they offer a certain degree of political change.
“Sheinbaum's main challenge is to speak to people who are not convinced of the continuity of the Fourth Transformation, showing a new face for the undecided voter who is still far from the 4T, offering greater plurality, greater freedoms, less imposition, greater dialogue capacity.
Not a 'second floor', but a much less authoritarian face,” he explains.
“And Gálvez's challenge,” he adds, “will be to persuade that volatile voter that she represents the most pluralistic and least corrupt option in political history, a change toward the future without the components that led the country to discard the regime.” previous matches.
It is the story of change against continuity;
not regression, but change,” he adds.
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