Over the last few weeks some have asked me who I will be voting for in the upcoming Mexican elections. “Pati,” a frequent poster on my blog, also asked who I was going to vote for on my Mexican elections primer. I’ve been thinking about who deserves my vote for president over the last few months. As a Mexican citizen, it is not only incumbent upon me to vote, but it is also my duty to select a candidate I feel will keep México on the road it has been on for the last decade, or two. Today’s post is not about whether México is on the road to success, or not. I’m sure we’ll be debating that in the future. For today’s post, I’d like to focus on who I’ll cast a vote for in July.
I’m uncomfortable sharing with you who I’ll cast my vote for because I feel secrecy in the vote is essential to a democracy. I also feel that who I cast a vote for is a personal matter between me and the ballot box. I’m not sure why I feel it is personal because intellectually I see no reason to keep my vote secret, but my gut instinct demands that I keep it a secret. However, I don’t have to decide now about whether to tell you who my vote is going to because I have not made up my mind up on whom I’ll cast my vote for.
But, I’ll share some of my thoughts with you.
First, I think it really would be a cool thing if México were to elect a woman as president. This historical event would add to México being the first North American country to elect a black president, Vicente Ramón Guerrero Saldaña in 1829. He was president for about eight months until he was captured and executed a few months later. I’ll have more on Guerrero in an upcoming post. For now, let’s get back to a woman president for México.
There are four candidates vying for the presidency. One of them is Margarita Zavala, the wife of former PAN president Felipe Calderón. Zavala is running as an independent after leaving the PAN party over a conflict with its leadership. Zavala has served in Congress before resigning to help her husband campaign for the presidency. Although it would be cool to have the first female president in North America, I am still not convinced about several of Zavala’s public policy stances.
Likewise, on the other candidates, PRI’s José Meade and PAN’s Ricardo Anaya, because of the convoluted process of aligning several parties under a campaign banner, their stances on several public policy issues is confusing at best or something I disagree with.
All three, Anaya, Meade and Zavala are still contenders for my vote.
There is one candidate that will not be receiving my vote. Andres Lopez Obrador is running for a third-time. His tenacity in running is not the reason why I’ve decided to vote against him.
Obrado is running under a populist theme much like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and America’s Donald Trump. Clearly Venezuela’s economy has been destroyed and it will be generations before the quality of life goes up. Hugo Chavez and cohorts have destroyed Venezuela under the illusion that socialist populism is the way to run a country.
It is not.
On the other hand, you have another populist in office, Donald Trump.
As you can see from how divided America is today, a populist president, whether effective or not is a dangerous experiment. The people of México cannot afford to experiment with populism politics, especially those from someone like Andres Lopez Obrador that has staged shadow governments and populist shutdowns of services to complain about perceived electoral injustices. Andres Lopez Obrado has hurt México through his political shenanigans.
I cannot, in good conscious, cast a vote for Obrador because of what he has done in the past to hurt México.
Over the comming month’s I’ll be thinking about who I will vote for and I will be thinking about whether to share my choice with you. Stay tuned as I go through my process. Whatever I decide, I will let you know.
Vote for the one who doesn’t kill journalists.
Jerryk, or not the one who may kill his successor like Salinas. I have Mexican family members and they say well all the PRI and PAN have done for years is steal money. Watch Jalapeño Nieto and La Dueña steal all they can on the way out. Many say it may be time to have an Anti PRI or PAN vote and do exactly what the USA did in electing Trump. Clean the swamp of this shithole 3rd world country.