Mexico's Oddly Not Very Green Green Party Reaps Success, Criticism and Controversy The Ledger
go to original May 15, 2015

Mexico's Green Party is not very green. Yet like many "green" products on supermarket shelves, it has benefited from a very slick marketing campaign, one that has made it the country's fastest-growing - and arguably most controversial - party.

While it markets itself as a fresh solution to Mexicans' day-to-day problems, on all major issues the Greens vote in lockstep with President Enrique Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party. But despite scandals over illegal campaign advertisements and giveaways, the tiny party is gaining strength in polls ahead of the June 7 midterm elections.

To intellectuals and activists calling for its dissolution, the Green Party is nothing more than a front for the PRI, as the ruling party is called, and further proof the president's party is abiding by an old playbook.

The PRI ruled Mexico uninterrupted for 71 years before losing the presidency in 2000. When voters soured due to economic crises, the party often used alliances with small parties to freshen its image and ensure its grip on power. This election cycle, the PRI seeks to hold onto a coalition that puts it just a few votes shy of a majority in Congress, despite its own corruption scandals and public outrage over issues such as the disappearance of 43 teachers college students last fall.

The midterm elections, in which 500 members of congress, 17 state legislatures, nine governors and more than 300 mayors will be chosen, are mostly viewed as a referendum on the president's performance half-way through his six-year term.

As the PRI loses ground in the polls, the Green Party has surged. And critics say that is no accident.

Read the rest at The Ledger

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