Fending off the PRI and the PRD
Does winning with a candidate recently recruited from an opposing party count as a win for your party?Strange bedfellows in Mexico's election season
In another case of topsy-turvy political allegiances in Mexico, the conservative party of President Felipe Calderon... appeared to have won the governorship of the state of Baja California Sur with a candidate who once was a former foe from the main leftist party.
Marcos Covarrubias, who defected from the leftist party and ran as a candidate of the right-wing National Action Party, or PAN, won by six percentage points over his nearest competitor, according to preliminary results...
It is the first time the PAN has won in Baja California Sur, home of the Los Cabos tourist zone. The state has been in the hands of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, since 1999, but the party has been weakened by infighting and poor performances by some incumbents…
Despite the philosophical differences, the PAN was happy to accommodate Covarrubias to defeat the PRD and, more importantly, Mexico's former ruling party, the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI…
Covarrubias' defection was the latest case of party-jumping and incongruous alliances as Mexico kicks off a year of statewide votes that will segue into a bigger contest: the 2012 presidential election.
The PAN and PRD, though political opposites, are eager to trip up the PRI, which hopes to retake the presidency after a string of wins in gubernatorial and congressional races since 2006.
The PRI, which ruled for 71 years until it was toppled by the PAN in 2000, leads early polls for president behind Enrique Pena Nieto, the photogenic governor of the central state of Mexico…
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Labels: elections, Mexico, parties, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:49 AM
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