* A new boss in town: PRI jefa Beatriz Paredes, via Mexidata.
More than half of Mexico's voters stayed away from the polls on Sunday for the mid-term congressional election. Of those who did show up to mark ballots, around 6 percent nullified them on purpose, an act of protest as part of the voto nulo movement. The rest can say that they participated in an election that began turning Mexico to the dark corners of its past: The PRI, the folks who maintained a bloody and authoritarian single-party government in Mexico for more than 70 years, were declared the victors of the July 5 election.
The ruling PAN conservatives lost five of six open state governor races to the PRI, except in Sonora, where the horrible day-care fire of early June left the local PRI government politically vulnerable. Internal fights on the left -- within the PRD and the PSD, notably -- gave the insurgent PRI even more openings. The party is now positioned to control the agenda in Congress for the second half of Felipe Calderon's term, a remarkable revival considering the PRI was booted from power in 2000 and ran a distant third for the presidency in 2006. So many people thought they were finished.
Now no one -- not Calderon and his conservatives, not the more progressive wings of the opposition -- will be able to get anything done without support from PRI's majority creepy alliance bloc in the Chamber of Deputies. And what will PRI's agenda be for the next three years? Keep rebuilding the party, keep rebranding and rebranding, and gear up to go for the gold in 2012: Taking back the presidency.
The reality is people are fed up with the never-ending narco war and impatient for boosting economic reform. The current administration has been unable to mitigate either. In the face of so much uncertainty, few options are apparently more attractive than a return to the past.
* My headline report for Free Speech Radio News on Sunday's election is here.
she looks terrible.
Posted by: claroquesiputa | 06 July 2009 at 06:30 PM
... Well usually Paredes dresses pseudo-indigena. Good branding strategy?
Posted by: Daniel Hernandez | 06 July 2009 at 06:46 PM
I wouldn't say she looks terrible. Fierce, I think. She could probably kick my ass. I kind of want to make a "Mi Vida Loca" comment here (is it the long, curly, moussed hair?) but I won't.
Posted by: Lesley | 06 July 2009 at 06:59 PM
Election fall-out update #1:
German Martinez, leader of the PAN, quits after overseeing a losing mid-term campaign.
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/610360.html
Who's axed next?
Posted by: Daniel Hernandez | 06 July 2009 at 07:35 PM
She looks like a chola without a Barrio
Posted by: Cheezzemoso | 08 July 2009 at 12:18 PM