Image Courtesy of Xalaca Mexico
By Octavio Augusto Gutiérrez Salcedo
This summer Mexico is facing one of the most important elections of the last couple of years. Although there is no change in the presidency, fifteen states are choosing a new governor, as well as over thirty states choosing new mayors and representatives for Congress. With the electoral period starting at the end of February news broke out regarding the budget for this year’s elections. It wasn’t a surprise to see how much public funds were given to the political parties for the upcoming elections. Over 3 billion Mexican Pesos are being distributed amongst eight political parties with the biggest proportions being received by the following parties: Morena, PAN, and PRI. The main focus of this article is to explain how political parties in Mexico are doing more harm to the country than actually improving, as it should be their main priority. The misuse of funds given to them, the quality of the candidates being pushed by each party as well as social scandals that some candidates face before the elections are just a few issues that demonstrate the awfulness and how dangerous the parties have become for the success of Mexico.
In the state of Sonora, it has been reported that the election will have a cost of over 500 million Mexican Pesos (the equivalent to around £17,000,000) just for one state. From this money around 180 Million Mexican pesos (£6,500,000) will be given to the parties. Even with the global pandemic this is the highest budget for a local election, so there are concerns on how this money will be used and if it will be properly used. In 2017 it was reported by the current president himself, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, that politicians and parties steal over 10% of the budget given to them. So, if we would say that from the reported 5 billion Mexican Pesos 10% of those funds are misused, that would come to 500 million Mexican Pesos that in today’s world and specially in a pandemic could have been used for vaccines and funding the medical sector which is the one that has been dealing with Covid-19.
The next and probably the biggest reason that Mexican Parties are not doing any good for the country is the quality of the candidates that are pursuing a public service job with the support of each party. It is obvious that the main focus of each party is to have the most control amongst their competition, and thus having more influence over the Mexican Society. The main issue with this ‘philosophy’ is that parties have decided to stop pushing well prepared candidates with not only political backgrounds but at least a university degree which is not the case in many scenarios of the upcoming election. Political Parties have been recruiting candidates that are ‘popular’ under the public eye. Many of these candidates do not have a proper formation for a public service job, any background in politics or even an ideology on the way they want to govern. They are simply the face of a party that is using their popularity to retain power, thus betraying each party’s vision upon which they were originally created.
The first case that I want to present is the current candidate for governor of the State of Baja California one of the most important states for Mexico’s economy. The party PAN in coalition with PRI and PRD chose Lupita Jones to be their candidate. She is a former Miss Universe winner with no background in politics or any prior work that would prepare someone to govern the state with one of the most important borders in the world, Tijuana.
Another example is Jorge Campos who is seeking a public office in Acapulco one of the main tourist destinations in Mexico and Latin America. He is famous for being one of the best goalkeepers Mexico has ever seen. He has no studies, but he does have a loyal fan base which his party is taking advantage of. This is not the first case where a football player is chosen into office. Back in 2018 Cuauhtémoc Blanco, one of the best Mexican footballers, was chosen as Governor of Morelos. Under his office, the state became one of the most insecure states in the country, proving how harmful this can be for the people.
The final case I want to present is not of someone famous, but it is someone who has an open investigation for sexual harassment and wants to become the governor of Guerrero. His name is Felix Salgado Macedonio, and earlier this year once he spoke about wanting to become governor, several women raised their voice accusing him of sexual harassment. This issue has been even covered by the international Media, with the New York Times even writing about this. The main issue is that he is a friend of and supported by the president of Mexico. AMLO has defended him over the last couple of weeks, and to many this should be considered an insult to the victims of gender violence. All of these cases exemplify the idea that nowadays political parties are approaching people to vote for someone famous with no political ideology or preparation and are just competing to see who the least bad candidate is. This pushes the public to not be interested in voting thus giving control of the country to people who are only seeking their own personal agenda.
In conclusion, the problem Mexico is facing is one of the most important ones in its history and to solve this it will be an extensive task that will take time and strong actions from society. To finish this article, I propose three ideas to fight the current situation. Firstly, the process to become an independent candidate should be easier. Nowadays the requirements for someone to become an independent candidate makes it almost impossible, and thus discouraging many well-prepared members of society that do not commune with the political parties of pursuing a public office to make the change needed. Following this, society should make a claim to reduce the amount of money that is being given and used by parties during the electoral process. These funds should be targeted to the sectors that actually needs them like the health sector, which is struggling in the current times,instead of giving them to people that are only trying to become rich through the taxpayer’s money. Lastly, young people should be engaging in the political discussion of the country since it is up to the next generation to change the current landscape of the political system that currently reigns in Mexico. That was the case of Pedro Kumamoto in 2015 who become one of the youngest congressmen in the history of Mexico and won as an independent candidate without the money that was given to political parties but by convincing the citizens of the state of his ideology.
For Mexico to see a change these ideas as well as many others that can be presented, should be implemented by Mexico’s Society to create a positive change that is needed in the country. This will make political parties come up with well-prepared candidates, not using the absurd amount of taxpayer’s money given to them every electoral year. If the political parties are not able to change to the needs of the people, they would seize to exist for the amelioration of Mexico which is desperately needed if the country doesn’t want to fall behind in the global agenda of the upcoming years and the new world post Covid-19.
Octavio Augusto Gutiérrez Salcedo is a second-year English Law and Spanish Law student at King’s College London. He enjoys debating and writing about sports and politics.
Bibliography:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/world/americas/felix-salgado-macedonio-basilia-castaeda.html
https://www.milenio.com/politica/ano-politicos-roban-10-presupuesto-amlo
https://elpais.com/internacional/2015/06/10/actualidad/1433965144_500663.html
https://www.unotv.com/nacional/elecciones-2021-en-mexico-cargos-a-elegir-del-proceso-electoral/
https://www.forbes.com.mx/realmente-sirve-quitarle-dinero-a-los-partidos/
