Ruminations of an Expatriate

July 5th there will be elections for 500 deputies for the national Chamber of Deputies, which as of 2006 included one deputy for each 200,000 person in the nation. There will also be a number of different state and local elections.

Here in Xalapa for the last month or so there has been campaigning by organizations for the various candidates. The candidates set up almost daily along the centro plaza and Parque Enriquez. AMLO, who narrowly lost the 2006 presidential election, many say through fraud, was even in town yesterday speaking to the faithful.

There is a national campaign, “voto en blanco”, propagated it seems primarily through the internet, which advocates submitting a blank ballot and which seems to have gained a bit of traction. Recent polling indicates that 3% of those interviewed favored the “voto en blanco” approach.

The Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) has mounted a campaign encouraging folks to vote. Today, in fact, during my morning exercise walk, I encountered a group of young folks, representing the IFE, who presented me with a key chain and brochure informing me why I should vote. I informed the group that I was a foreigner and, thus, was unable to vote. A couple of the youngsters responded, in jest, with a couple suggestions of voter fraud.

There is a newer political party, the New Alliance party, running candidates. A view of the party’s website, though, features photos only of very light skinned folks. To the point that one might think it a web site for Scandinavian political party. I have no idea of how many candidates the party is fielding or what it represents, or much of anything else about the upcoming elections for that matter, except the polls indicate the PRI is in the lead.

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