Politics: Everyone wins, and everyone loses
Although the PRI managed to pull off two close yet crucial victories in gubernatorial races at the beginning of the month, its share of the vote was halved in both states, and its barefaced abuse of public resources, apparent ballot-stuffing and theft of ballot boxes, as well as heavy-handed management of the local election authorities, in particular in Coahuila, may prove damaging to the party, and more importantly in the long run, to the credibility of the electoral system in general.
That will depend in part on how well opposition parties mount challenges to the election results in those states, an issue that will have significant implications for the PAN and its choice of presidential candidate for 2018. That party remains divided over its choice of presidential nominee and the strategy to pursue next year, as does the PRD, which emerged reinvigorated from this contest with a strong third-place finish in the State of Mexico and major victories in both Nayarit and Veracruz in coalition with the PAN.
Meanwhile, although Morena turned in an impressive result in the State of Mexico, it ultimately fell short there and in Veracruz in a possible sign that the party’s leader and future presidential nominee may have less appeal in 2018 than he did during his close finishes in the previous two presidential contests.
Perhaps most crucially, these elections underscored the urgent need to shore up the legitimacy of the country’s electoral institutions. There level of voter turnout was exceptionally high this month. The total vote increased by almost five percentage points in the State of Mexico, while in Veracruz more people cast ballots than even in last year’s intensely contested gubernatorial contest, despite the fact that municipal and state legislative races are usually the ones that generate the least voter interest.
That level of citizen participation can easily be undermined when the country’s electoral institutions begin to lose the public’s trust. For that reason it will be crucially important to closely observe the challenges made to these elections and how those appeals fare, as well as how the political parties behave in the aftermath of the final rulings.
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