Zamora Epilogue: Elections of 1 July

One May Sunday evening, among the food stalls and children’s amusements in our local plaza, Jan and I met the candidate for the federal congress of the MORENA party, Yolanda Guerrero Barrera. We wished her good luck, but I assumed that in this conservative, deeply Catholic, part of Michoacán she could not win. After all, Zamora had long been a bastion of the conservative PAN (Partido Acción Nacional). I was wrong: Yolanda’s Facebook page now proudly declares her to be the representative of the 5^th District of Michoacán. Her rival, Sergio Flores, the PRI candidate, received 12,222 votes. Yolanda’s share of the vote was 49.6%.

Yolanda was not alone in her triumph. MORENA won 15 of the 24 seats of the state congress, including Zamora where the new congresswoman is Teresa Mora. PAN won the other nine seats. The PRI, which had run the state for much of the 20^th century could not win a single district. The PRI fared no better in the election of a new federal senator. Toño Ixtlahuac, whose retouched photo smiled at us from numerous billboards, was defeated by Antonio García Conejo, a member of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD: Revolutionary Democratic Party) allied with the PAN and Movimiento Ciudadano (Citizen’s Movement). García Conejo made his name by stripping off his clothes in the congressional chamber during the debate on energy reform, a policy designed to end the monopoly of the state petroleum company, PEMEX.

In Zamora, the new Presidente Municipal (mayor) is another MORENA candidate Martín Samaguey Cárdenas, who received 35% of the votes. He has promised to reduce municipal salaries, including his own by 50%. The municipal government will be responsive, with staff who are honest and committed to helping the citizens of Zamora. His immediate actions include buying 40 dialysis machines, and establishing a refuge for the homeless and a shelter for street children.

The story was rather different in Zamora’s smaller neighbour, Jacona. There Adriana Campos Huirache of the PRI received 7,512 votes, enough for her to become the first female Presidenta Municipal. Adriana has held several positions in the municipal government and was Jacona’s representative in the state congress.

The elections that gave Yolanda her seat in the legislature in Mexico City, were truly momentous. For a century Mexico was ruled by the PRI (or its predecessors), with a 12-year interlude from 2000-2012 when Mexicans elected two Presidents of the PAN, Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón. It is quite possible that the outgoing president, Enrique Peña Nieto, may be the last PRI politician to hold the highest office. MORENA, led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO) crushed the PRI’s candidate, José Antonio Meade Kuribreña, and the PAN’s Ricardo Anaya. Some 47 million Mexicans voted on 1 July and 53% of them (24.9 million) voted for AMLO. His predecessor received the votes of 15.9 million.

Eight of Mexico’s 31 states elected governors on 1 July: four of the states were won by MORENA, 4 by Pan or a party allied with PAN, none by the PRI. In addition, the new MORENA head of government in Mexico City (the most populous place in all of Mexico) is Dr Claudia Sheinbaum, by training a physicist and energy engineer (she received 48% of the votes). And it seems that AMLO’s colleagues will have a majority in both the Federal Congress and Senate. Since the end of the PRI’s one-party rule, no president has held in his hands so many of the levers of power.

All of this is an enormous change in the politics of Mexico. The real question is what it all means. AMLO ran on promises to end corruption and to improve the lot of Mexico’s poor. He promised respect for human rights and to combat violence.  Concerning, public safety, AMLO declared that the armed forces should not be deployed in “civilian functions” nor to suppress popular movements. The programme is expressed in quite general terms. We must wait to see what it actually means and how he intends to implement it. Those of you who can read Spanish will find the MORENA programme at: https://lopezobrador.org.mx/programa-del-movimiento-regenracion-nacional/

The response of the Mexican people is a huge cry of frustration and despair, directed against parties that have not effectively addressed Mexico’s many problems. The desire for change combined with a large majority of the popular vote, should enable AMLO to act decisively. It is inconceivable that the problems can be addressed in one six-year term, but perhaps AMLO can make a positive start on which his successors can build. The danger is that he has raised expectations that he may severely disappoint.

Finally, you may have noticed that several of the elected officials mentioned in this bulletin are women. Mexico has yet to elect its first female president (but then this is also true of its northern neighbour), but women hold political office from humble municipalities like Jacona to ministerial positions in Mexico City.

Lastly, since this is definitely my final Mexican bulletin, I hope I have told you enough of Mexico’s many wonders and its people to entice a few of you to visit the country. If you would like tips about where to go (or, alas, where not to go) feel free to ask me.