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Politics & Religion / WSJ on the Mexican Election
« Last post by Crafty_Dog on Today at 07:55:19 AM »The Election Stakes in Mexico
The big question: Will the ruling Morena party get a large enough legislative majority to rewrite the constitution?
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The Editorial Board
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May 19, 2024 4:57 pm ET
Mexicans vote to elect a new President on June 2, not that you’d know it from the lack of American media coverage of our southern neighbor. But the stakes are high, and the biggest question is whether the ruling Morena party of current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will be able to move closer to his vision of a one-party state.
AMLO, as the President is known, is term limited and won’t be on the ballot. But his handpicked Morena successor, former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, is leading in the polls and pledges to continue his agenda of leftwing nationalist economics and eliminating constitutional checks and balances.
Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez is a former National Action Party (PAN) senator. She’s running on an ideologically diverse coalition ticket that includes the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution, the centrist PRI and the center-right PAN. The parties have united in concern about a Sheinbaum presidency that could have AMLO pulling the political strings behind the throne.
Entrepreneurship, business competition, strong property rights and open markets are Gálvez campaign themes that set her apart from Ms. Sheinbaum and AMLO. Ms. Gálvez wants Mexico to live up to its free-trade commitments under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and insists the U.S. do the same. On a visit to the Journal in February, she said that as president she would seek closer cooperation with the U.S. on economic and security matters. Ms. Gálvez’s Mexico would be an ally of the West.
This would break with Mr. López Obrador’s foreign policy. He’s been using migration as a bargaining chip with the Biden Administration to ward off U.S. action under USMCA to force Mexico to stop discriminating against foreign energy investors.
AMLO’s Mexico is an ally of Venezuela and Cuba and home to large numbers of Russian intelligence agents, according to U.S. Northern Command in 2022. He claims to follow a policy of not intervening in other countries, but three of his ambassadors have been declared persona non grata for meddling in support of the left in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.
Cartel violence and extortion have long scarred Mexico, but they have spiked under AMLO. Mexico isn’t a failed state, at least not yet, but narcos now control large swaths of the country. The AMLO government has used financial investigations and confidential tax records against political adversaries. All of this has undermined the rule of law.
One irony is that AMLO is popular because Mexico has benefited from freer trade and the market reforms of his predecessors. Investment has flowed in as manufacturers seek to set up plants to serve the huge North American market. The Mexican peso has strengthened to nearly 17 to the U.S. dollar from more than 20 in 2018. Real wages are up and job creation is robust.
But AMLO’s policies put this economic progress at risk. The government forecasts a fiscal deficit of 5.9% of GDP this year despite a growing economy. It hopes to cut the deficit in half by 2025 with spending cuts that could easily turn out to be unrealistic. Pro-growth policies aren’t part of the Morena agenda, which favors heavy government spending and national corporate monopolies.
Mr. López Obrador is hoping that Ms. Sheinbaum wins with a big enough margin to carry Morena to two-thirds majorities in both legislative chambers. That would clear the way to amend the constitution and reverse the 2014 opening of Mexico’s energy markets, erode the independence of the Supreme Court and electoral authorities, and eliminate independent regulators. Morena now has simple majorities in both chambers and AMLO has used them to gradually change the Supreme Court.
High voter turnout would help Ms. Gálvez, who is trailing in most polls by double digits. AMLO’s government is using its media allies to claim the election is already over. But sampling bias and the potential of a large hidden vote could still produce a surprise. The future of Mexican democracy may depend on maintaining a check on AMLO’s designs