On Saturday, June 15, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) installed its Permanent Political Commission in Tijuana, Baja California, as a way to support its candidates to city government, local Congress and, specially, its nominee for the Governor post, Fernando Castro Trenti, on the coming July 7th elections. PRI aims to reclaim the landmark state after 24 uninterrupted years of PAN administrations, at a time in which the aforementioned party appears to be weakened. Nevertheless, the picture is not clear by any means. Even though in the very few surveys that have been published (for instance, the ones provided by Covarrubias house pollster or the local newspaper Frontera) the PRI candidate had an advantage between 5 and 7 percentage points, leading members of PAN and PRD claimed on the past Tuesday that their allied candidate, \u2018Kiko\u2019 Vega, was leading the race by almost 8 points on the surveys published by Mitofksy and Mendoza y Asociados house pollsters. What is really going on in Baja California? What are the possible outcomes?
\nEven though most of the major PRI politicians were part of the act held in Tijuana (such as Camacho Quiroz, Beltrones, Gamboa), Castro Trenti seems to have been \u201cabandoned\u201d by Mexico\u2019s ultimate PRI member: Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto. The silence of those who are closest to the President and the lack of support to Castro Trenti \u2013 and other PRI candidates throughout the country \u2013 seek to avoid accusations of not complying with the Pact for Mexico\u2019s addendum (which conditioned the PAN and PRD permanence in the agreement if the federal government didn\u2019t intervene within local elections), with the goal of prolonging its existence. However, if PAN ends up winning the local election, will it really be due to the circumspection of the federal government by not strongly supporting Baja California PRI candidates rather than a deliberate strategy of \u201chanding over\u201d the state to PAN or will the blue party\u2019s competitive tactics prove to be powerful enough?
\nThe apparent local competitiveness of PAN in Baja California, supported by the political wear suffered by PRI in its administrations on the state\u2019s five municipal presidencies won three years ago, contrasts with PAN\u2019s precarious situation at national level. In the intense early stages of the real battle for the party\u2019s control, whose national leadership will be at stake in December could find a haven of peace with a potential PAN victory in Baja California\u2019s governorship, as well as some other key municipalities throughout the 14 states that will hold elections. On the other hand, it is worth to mention that, even if the party manages to win Baja California, Gustavo Madero\u2019s leadership isn\u2019t assured by any means on the internal election to be held next December. Likewise, the potentials risks for the downfall of the current PAN leader will be exponentially increased if evidence of a political negotiation between PRI and PAN in order to keep the Pact for Mexico afloat came to light. These are issues that PAN members, specially its grassroots base, punish severely.
\nParadoxically, by casting doubts over a possible \u201ccession\u201d for the governorship of the aforementioned state between the federal government and the PAN leadership may prove to be an \u201caccomplishment\u201d for PRI. Regardless of the result in Baja California, the rupture within PAN will continue to progress. Will this challenge the coming reforms? Perhaps not. Even if the left could be contentious regarding energy and tax discussions, the government\u2019s projects still hold affinity with enough members of PAN in order to succeed\u2026 all while the aforementioned party crumbles.
\nIt is important to acknowledge that the electoral logic in non-Presidential elections tends to be strictly local, a fact that remits to a different scenario in each state. The July 7th elections acquires a national dimension due to the Pact, which has been a mechanism that\u2019s contributed to polarize members of the two opposition parties, particularly, PAN. What is true is that beyond the election results, there are still a lot of moves to be made in the Mexican political process, affected by the information available each time and by the actions that the government may undertake and that could impact the internal procedures of PAN and PRD. This is not over until it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n
CIDAC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Saturday, June 15, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)
\ninstalled its Permanent Political Commission in Tijuana, Baja
\nCalifornia, as a way to support its candidates to city government, local
\n Congress and, specially, its nominee for the Governor post, Fernando
\nCastro Trenti, on the coming July 7th elections. PRI aims to reclaim the
\n landmark state after 24 uninterrupted years of PAN administrations, at a
\n time in which the aforementioned party appears to be weakened. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-3354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-political-analysis","tag-political-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3354"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4365,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3354\/revisions\/4365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cidacmx.org\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}