Guest Column
Polls offer snapshot of campaign
- By Fred Rosen
- The Herald Mexico
- March 5, 2006
Pre-electoral polls, no matter how sophisticated, give us no more than a momentary snapshot of public sentiment. They must be read with a good deal of prudence, even as they illuminate the current public mood.
With that cautionary note, here’s where we stand in the presidential race between Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the center-left Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and Roberto Madrazo of the ideologically flexible Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
The polls pretty much agree on the order in which presidential preferences currently fall, but they disagree on the spread among them.
In the independent Mitofsky Poll, for example, completed on Feb. 19, respondents placed their secret votes in a simulated ballot box. The outcome: 39.4 percent voted for López Obrador, 29.8 percent for Calderón and 27.5 percent opted for Madrazo, indicating a clear front runner, with two candidates fighting for second place.
If this becomes the general perception of the race, Calderón and Madrazo will soon turn their guns on one another in order to become the only “realistic” alternative to López Obrador.
However, the most recent poll conducted by EL UNIVERSAL, had the spread 36 percent López Obrador, 27 percent Calderón, 14 percent Madrazo, indicating a race in which Madrazo had pretty much faded from the scene.
If this is believed to be the case, Madrazo will increasingly be ignored by both López Obrador and Calderón, as both try to pick up “useful votes” from disenchanted PRIistas.
Still other polls show a much closer PRD-PAN race, with Calderón continuing to gain ground, or even a three-way race with Madrazo holding his own.
COUNTING ON ‘VOTO DURO’
Madrazo continues to count on PRI party loyalty and the party’s legendary ability to get out the “hard vote” (and then some) on election day. Much of the “hard vote,” however, may be deserting the ship, leaving him with the unappetizing task of seeking votes from independent voters. Last Tuesday, for example, Eduardo Andrade Sánchez, the spokesperson of the PRI’s National Executive Committee, abruptly quit not only his post, but the party itself.
Madrazo, he said, was converting the party leadership into a “decorative figurehead,” consolidating more and more power into his own hands.
And a few days earlier, Eduardo Bours, PRI governor of Sonora, told reporters the discord in Mexico’s former ruling party was so deep Madrazo would have to seek votes from independents and supporters of other parties in order to win. Bours did not have to add that this is a long-shot proposition.
The recent Mitofsky poll, for example, found that while, as in the past, more respondents say they identify with the PRI (22 percent) than with any other party, the party has now attained the highest level of “rejection.”
Thirty-six percent of those interviewed said they would under no circumstances vote for a presidential candidate of the PRI. This compares with rejection rates for both the PAN and the PRD of under 20 percent. A sizable plurality of potential voters say they identify with none of the parties.
RICH MAN, POOR MAN
Not surprisingly, those who earn less than three minimum wages (about 4,000 pesos per month, below many definitions of the poverty line) lean toward the leftist López Obrador, while those who earn over seven minimum wages (9,500 pesos and up) lean significantly toward the conservative Calderón.
On the other hand, there has been a blurring of class differences in this campaign such that 40 percent of those who voted for Vicente Fox in 2000 say they intend to vote for López Obrador in 2006.
This indicates that much of the sizable “useful” vote that elected Fox and sunk Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in 2000 may now be leaning to the PRDista. In fact, less than half of those who prefer López Obrador say they are members of the PRD.
Yet another poll has more ominous findings. A Parametría household poll taken in early February indicates that by a margin of 48 percent to 39 percent, Mexicans feel the July 2 election will not be “clean,” and that, in one form or another, majorities feel there will be “buying of votes,” “exploitation of social programs for electoral purposes” and “intervention of authorities in favor of certain candidates.”
LACK OF FAITH IN SYSTEM
All this is to say that after decades of rule that ranged from “authoritarian-lite” to brutal, the electoral system is still not fully trusted to function honestly and reflect some agreed-upon version of the “popular will.”
Nor, according to a Latinobarómetro poll taken last year throughout Latin America, do most Mexicans feel satisfied with “democracy” itself.
That may reflect the lack of transparency in the functioning of democratic institutions, and/or the lack of real benefits that Mexico’s “democracy” has delivered. Both of these “lacks” are worrisome, and not only in Mexico.
- Contact Fred Rosen at: frosen@cablevision.net.mx
- The Herald Mexico/El Universal article at: http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/web_columnas_sup.detalle?var=29241
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