Mexico's Elections Will Test Reforms, Set Stage for Remainder of Pena Nieto's Presidency Brianna Lee - International Business Times
go to original June 5, 2015

Unaffiliated candidate Jaime Rodriguez, nicknamed “El Bronco,” is polling neck-and-neck with his main competitor of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. (HoyEstado.com)

Sunday marks Mexico’s largest national election ever, with nearly 2,000 electoral seats up for grabs. Voters will choose mayors, governors, local council officials and federal lawmakers that will help determine how far President Enrique Peña Nieto’s reform-oriented agenda will go in the latter half of his term. But the vote will also be a referendum on Peña Nieto himself, as his government’s been badly bruised over scandals, widespread disaffection and a streak of violence in the pre-election season.

All 500 seats in Mexico’s lower house of Congress are up for election, along with nine gubernatorial spots, more than 800 mayoral positions and a slew of local council seats. The vote will test some of the major electoral reforms put into effect last year, including a newly created election oversight body, and the first-ever inclusion of independent candidates on the ballot.

There are only 138 independents running - and they have far fewer resources than their competitors - but the presence of independent candidates at all is a significant step for Mexico’s democracy. It’s also generated excitement in the gubernatorial race in Nuevo León state, where Jaime Rodriguez, a folksy, often profane, unaffiliated candidate nicknamed “El Bronco,” is polling neck-and-neck with his main competitor, Ivonne Alvarez of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Out of the pool of independent candidates he’s the only one considered to have a real shot at victory. And a win for Rodriguez, a former PRI politician who rejected the party and now draws support from those disillusioned with traditional Mexican politics, would reverberate across the country, analysts say.

“Marches and demonstrations don’t really have an effect,” Luis Carlos Ugalde, a former election commissioner in Mexico, told the New York Times. But, he said, a loss for the PRI in Nuevo León would shake the ruling party. “A triumph by El Bronco would be an important symbol.”

On the federal level, recent polls show Peña Nieto’s PRI party will likely remain ahead in the legislative elections. But it won’t likely win a majority – no single party has held a majority in the lower house of Congress in the past 15 years – and the makeup and partnerships of the rest of the body will determine how parties will wield power in the chamber and shape laws in the coming years.

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