Development & Aid, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, Population, Poverty & SDGs

MEXICO: The Myth of a Country Divided Between Left and Right

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Sep 7 2006 (IPS) - Mexico’s Jul. 2 presidential elections and the subsequent standoff have left the impression of a country sharply divided between left and right, rich and poor – a perception that has taken deep root and is expanding in the midst of the ongoing crisis. But a closer look at the statistics and opinion poll results points to a much more nuanced reality.

“This idea that there is a country split between two ideological positions is a deceptive fabrication of the political actors and the candidates,” Alberto Saracho, director of the non-governmental Idea Foundation, which advocates citizen oversight and participation in politics, told IPS.

The way Mexicans voted in July and several opinion polls show that political preferences are not clearly split along socioeconomic, political, ethnic, age, regional or party lines.

Although president-elect Felipe Calderón of the conservative governing National Action Party (PAN) won in the majority of the states of northern Mexico, the most developed and industrialised part of the country, and his leftist opponent Andrés López Obrador triumphed in impoverished areas in central and southern Mexico, other political parties also garnered significant support.

According to the official vote tally, Calderón took the votes of just 20.8 percent of the 71.3 million voters registered in this country of 106 million, while abstention amounted to 41.5 percent.

Meanwhile, López Obrador of the “For the Good of All” coalition made up of his Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and the small Convergencia and Trabajo parties, won the votes of 20 percent of registered voters.

The leftist candidate earned more than 50 percent of the vote in three of the country’s 32 states, while Calderón did so in just two states.

And each of the two candidates was defeated by Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) – which ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000 – in several states.

With respect to the legislative elections, held simultaneously on Jul. 2, the candidates of the leftist coalition took five percent less of the votes than López Obrador, and the PAN congressional candidates took two percent less than Calderón.

The result was a Senate with representatives of seven political parties and a Chamber of Deputies comprised of legislators from eight different parties, none of which have an absolute majority, although the largest blocs are made up of the lawmakers of the PAN, the PRD, and the PRI, in that order.

“In Mexico there is political pluralism, not a division between two sides – a false idea fed by the parties’ discourse and the social inequality and poverty in the country,” said Saracho.

During the aggressive campaign, Calderón accused López Obrador of being a “danger” to Mexico and labeled him a “populist.”

The leftist candidate responded that Calderón represented the right and the wealthy, and that he himself was the only candidate who represented the poor, and “the people” – a position that López Obrador still holds today, while complaining that “the powerful” and the elites stole the election through fraud.

The vote count shows that there were voters who cast their ballots for either López Obrador or Calderón as president and for the PRI candidates as legislators.

“It is intellectually dishonest to maintain, as political leaders are doing in city squares or in private, that the country is politically divided between right and left or rich and poor, when reality shows otherwise,” political scientist Rossana Fuentes, at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, told IPS.

The simplification of the confrontation to two positions or candidates “disregards the pluralism that defines any society, and distances civil society from the political system,” said Fuentes.

“Pluralism is the mandate of the ballot boxes. That is how I must govern,” said the president-elect after Mexico’s electoral court certified his victory Tuesday.

López Obrador responded that he would not concede defeat, and that he would never give in “to the classists, racists and fascists.”

The leftist coalition has announced that it will hold a “people’s assembly” on Sep. 16 to elect a “legitimate” president (López Obrador). It also said it would not enter into dialogue with the government or other political forces unless Calderón, who is to take office Dec. 1, resigns.

“We have been stripped of a legal and legitimate triumph that was awarded to us by a majority of the Mexican people,” said López Obrador, whose charges of fraud and calls for a total vote recount were rejected by the electoral court.

“The word ‘polarisation’ is in style in Mexico, but all you have to do is look closely at the numbers to see that this polarisation between left and right doesn’t exist – either in society or in politics,” said Saracho.

In a nationwide survey of 2,100 people carried out by the daily Reforma just before the elections, 29 percent of low-income respondents said they would vote for López Obrador and 22 percent for Calderón.

The breakdown, meanwhile, was 30 percent for each candidate among the lower-middle income respondents; 29 percent for each candidate among the upper-middle income respondents; and 25 percent for López Obrador and 47 percent for Calderón among the upper income respondents.

When broken down by gender, the survey showed a tie between the two candidates, and it found only slight differences with respect to educational level, although López Obrador was preferred by respondents who had a medium level of education and Calderón was more popular among those with university-level studies.

With regard to ideological orientation, 54 percent of those who defined themselves as left-of-centre said they would vote for López Obrador and 14 percent for Calderón, while 36 percent of those who identified with the right said they would vote for Calderón and 21 percent for López Obrador.

The two candidates had the support of equal portions – 29 percent – of respondents who see themselves as in the centre of the spectrum.

“No politician should argue that he has a monopoly on ideas or social support, especially in a country like Mexico, which is so complex and heterogeneous,” Fuentes concluded.