On Sunday, the day of the elections for the federal Chamber of Deputies here in Mexico and for some other offices as well in some states (though not in Veracruz), Jim and I took one of our drives from up into the folds of Cofre de Perote via the small road to Tonalaco. This is the road that goes past Guillermo's family's rancho. In the little towns we passed through, there were lines of people voting and waiting to vote. Voting places had been defined by red tape, and they could be anything from the front of a store to a school room to I think maybe even someone's house. We don't know a single Mexican here in our area who isn't skeptical at best, cynical more normally, about politicians, but they have sufficient faith to keep on voting. This time around, the turnout was considered low at 44.68%. In the state of Veracruz the turnout was 47.54%. For very a very good presentation of the data, see this link.
Eight parties were in the elections, and in some states, four of the parties combined into two coalitions of two of the parties each. The dominant parties are the PAN (National Action Party in English), President Felipe Calderón's party, most often compared to Republicans in the US, though it is nothing like the current US Republican Party; the PRI (Institutional Revolution Party más o menos in English), the old dominant party, probably best characterized as center-left and not really like US Democrats, and the PRD (Democratic Revolution Party, más o menos), more left and populist and having lots of organizational problems at the moment. PAN lost big-time: PRI took over control of the Chamber of Deputies, giving the party control of the entire Mexican Congress which is, as it is in the US, a two-level institution. The upper house is comprised of senators and is currently and still dominated by the PRI.
Overall, the PRI received 36.68% of the vote, the PAN, 27.98% of the vote and the PRD, 12.20% of the vote. The Verdes, the Greens, got the next number of votes with 6.50 %. The Green Party is a very strange party (to me) and I will try to address it in the future. It was started by one family, considers (-ed?) itself a conservative environmental party, was more aligned with PAN in the past, but this time made up a coalition party with PRI in a number of states. Like all the parties, it has faced corruption charges.
The states vary dramatically in size, so talking about state votes isn't necessarily significant on a national level, but there are some interesting quirks. In nine of the thirty two states (if I counted correctly) the PAN outvoted the PRI, but in 3 of those states, the PRD outvoted the PAN (and thus, the PRI as well). These states are Chiapas, Mexico DF (Mexico City, counted as a state here), and Michoacán, and therefore won. I didn't look very closely, but if I'm not mistaken, where the PRI outpolled the PAN, it always took the state.
In our state of Veracruz, the PAN took 33.83% of the vote; the PRI, 45.20%, the PRD 5.37%. In our district, sexy Silvia Monge, the PAN candidate, lost to the PRI candidate, the pleasant-looking Jose Yuni Zorilla by roughly 27,000 votes to roughly 70,000 votes. PAN won in only three districts, and only in one of them by a significant margin: 48,600-44,000 votes. (roughly).
It is interesting that the PRI so dominated here. The governor, Fidel Herrera Beltrán, is PRI, but he is not generally liked. Practically anyone you talk to says he is involved with narcos (perhaps, but only perhaps, one of the reasons the state has a low crime rate: the Port of Veracruz is, after all, a huge port and ports traditionally have a role in the drug trade.) It is said that he claimed to win the lottery a couple of times, which seems a good way to funnel drug money. These are rumors. But he is not popular, for sure: he has sponsored not bridges to nowhere as has a famous US governor (as far as I know) but he has sponsored roads to nowhere. Local public works projects have flashy signs hanging over them crediting the PRI -- and also often advertising the incredibly high prices for the projects. I'm never sure whether people are supposed to be amazed that the government spent so much on their behalf or what.
Anyway, in general, in recent years, the IFE, the Federal Electoral Institution, has been a model of efficiency and pretty much of honesty in running elections. Mexicans in fact went to Iraq with Mexican voting machines to assist in setting up voting procedures. Again, as naturally skeptical Mexicans may tell you, IFE is great in theory but sometimes rough around the edges in practice.
Here is a copy of a ballot from the State of Coahuila:
Next to each party's icon, the party's name is printed on top, the candidate's name underneath. Since only one office was being voted on, there is only one name for each party. As I understand it, when more offices are being voted on, for instance, governor, senator and local dog catcher, then there are additional sections for each office. But the party icon is always to the left of each candidates' names, because it is the party icon of each candidate that you put a big "X" in to indicate your vote. This enables people who can't read well or at all to at least identify the party they want to vote for. When Jim and I first saw election ads, we saw something like this:
In the lower right corner of Dr. Jorge Quiroz Díaz's banner you see a big X through the Convergencia icon. We thought this meant DON'T vote for this party. We were wrong. It meant DO vote for him: that's what the X means. Dr. Quiroz Díaz was a candidate in our area for a smallish party called Convergencia. The man on the left, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was the PRD candidate for President in 2004. He lost narrowly and perhaps unfairly to Calderón. Since then, the Left has been struggling and AMLO and others have loose alliances with some smaller groups and they endorse each others' candidates.
Below is a ballot from previous election. The voter wanted to indicate very strongly that he wrote in a candidate.
Here is a Mexican voter ID card. The voter ID cards are in fact national identity cards required kind of the way drivers' licenses are in the US. Everyone is supposed to have one. It's a good way to build up the number of eligible voters. (I took this image from the IFE site where it the circle was drawn to show where to find your voting section.)
And finally, a last glimpse of Silvia Monge. I inserted this by mistake, but a new glitch in Typepad is preventing me from deleting it!