Mexico's Election Results and Their Implications

'Who Could Have Predicted That?' Mexico's Election Results and their Implications

Report of Mexico Election Meeting 20 July 2006

This report is intended as a summary of the meeting. It does not purport to be a full or verbatim record. Please obtain the permission of the individual speaker, by contacting [email protected], before citing or quoting any extract from individual speakers’ remarks.

Speakers: Dr Kevin J Middlebrook, Reader in Latin American Politics, Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London

Professor Laurence Whitehead, Director of the Centre for Mexican Studies and Acting Warden of Nuffield College, University of Oxford

Dr Peter West, Chief Economist, Poalim Asset Management

Theme: 'Who Could Have Predicted That?' Mexico's Election Results and their Implications

Chair: Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas, Director, Chatham House

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SPEAKER PRESENTATIONS

Speaker 1 – Kevin J Middlebrook

The title selected for this session highlights the uncertainty of the electoral process in Mexico. Results to date have certainly underscored the very unpredictable character of the elections. One thing many did accurately foresee was that it would be a very close race.

Three topics deserve particular attention: 1. The results announced after the district-level count on July 5 2. Some of the principal factors that might help explain these outcomes 3. The “politics of electoral results”- including allegations of fraud - that may guide developments between now and the first week of September.

As a preface it is important to note, firstly, that Mexican society is deeply divided along class, regional, and other lines and, secondly, that the manifestations of those divisions are also, to an important degree, politically constructed.

Mexico’s presidential campaign pitted a mobilizing centre-leftist party and its candidate, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador,

1 against an increasingly powerful, incumbent centre-right party and its candidate, the National Action Party (PAN) and Felipe Calderón.

Over the course of the campaign, these competing options came to be viewed by many voters as distinct, alternative paths to Mexico’s future: one emphasizing social justice for those marginalized in the course of economic globalization, with an increased role for the state in national affairs - an option denounced as highly risky by its opponents, who compared López Obrador to Hugo Chávez and reminded voters that “populist” initiatives were at the root of the country’s many past financial crises - and another option stressing continuity in economic policy, with a renewed promise that additional investment and sound macroeconomic management will produce substantially greater employment and thus eventually address the country’s pressing social needs.

We must await more detailed analyses of polling data before we can begin to assess seriously how voters from different partisan backgrounds, regions, and social groups responded to these competing messages. However, it does seem to be the case that the so-called “fear campaign” waged against López Obrador, and the value that individual voters attach to low inflation and overall economic stability, weighed heavily on the preferences they expressed on election day.

1) Results Thus Far

Source: results reported by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) following district-level tabulations on 5th July:

Calderón 35.9% (of the valid vote) López Obrador 35.3 Roberto Madrazo (PRI) 22.3

On the basis of these results, Madrazo conceded his defeat.

The 0.6% difference between Calderón and López Obrador translates into just 244,000 votes, out of a total of some 41.5 million ballots cast.

Among minor party candidates, Patricia Mercado of Socialdemocratic and Peasant Alternative (Alternativa Socialdemócrata y Campesina) did best, with 2.7% of the valid vote. The overall turnout was 58.1%; 2.1% of ballots were annulled (827,000).

In elections for the federal Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, the PAN won a slightly smaller share of the total vote than it did for president (33.4% and 33.5%, respectively. However, López Obrador’s “Alliance for the Good of All” coalition (consisting of the PRD, the Labour Party [PT], and Convergence for Democracy [CD]) received almost 6 points more in the presidential contest that in did in the Chamber and the Senate (29.0% and 29.7%, respectively). Conversely, Madrazo’s share of the presidential vote was 6 percentage points lower than the congressional vote for the “Alliance for Mexico” coalition (comprising the PRI and the Mexican Ecological Green Party [PVEM]; at 28.2% and 28.1%, respectively, in the Chamber and Senate).

These results mean that, although no single party will hold a majority of seats in either legislative chamber, the PAN is, for the first time in its history, the “first minority” in both bodies. The PRD is elevated to “second minority” in both the Chamber and the Senate, a

2 considerable advance on its previous position. The PRI is relegated to third-place. There are more seats held by small parties than ever before.

These results broadly confirm Mexico’s established electoral profile, with the PAN prevailing in the Centre-west and North and the PRD in the South and South-east. However, the PAN ran very well in the supposed PRD strongholds of Michoacán and Zacatecas (it holds the governorship in both states), and it carried all three gubernatorial races decided on July 2 (Jalisco, Guanajuato, and Morelos). The PRD won Mexico’s three most populous states: Mexico, Veracruz, and the Federal District—where it has dominated local government in Mexico City since 1997. One considerable surprise was that the PRI failed to carry any of the 17 states where it now holds the governorship.

2) Explanations of electoral results

Calderón With regard to Felipe Calderón’s apparent victory, two broad points can be stressed: firstly, the advantages of panista incumbency, and, secondly, a devastatingly effective mass media campaign against López Obrador.

Incumbency in this context has various dimensions. It certainly includes the overall economic stability (in particular, low inflation and a favourable exchange rate) achieved by the Fox administration, underpinned in part by high international oil prices. It also includes President Fox’s own continued personal popularity, despite a very poor record of policy accomplishment while in office. (Some 60% of those with a positive opinion of Fox voted for Calderón.) Among other things, the PAN proved to be quite effective at using social welfare programs to bolster its electoral base, especially in the countryside. Support for more readily accessible, affordable home mortgages also appears to have won the PAN a sizeable constituency among the middle class.

Incumbency factors would also include the PAN’s own increasing organizational strength. Over the past six years, the party has grown in membership, in national organizational presence, and in terms of the political strength of its societal allies, especially the Catholic Church and what might be called the “civil society of the Right.” By all accounts, the PAN mobilized itself much more effectively on election day than did its closest rival, the PRD.

The media campaign against López Obrador came in two forms. The first was a sustained media blitz conducted by the Fox administration between January and May— some sources refer to as many as 85,000 radio and television spots—praising its own accomplishments, denouncing “populism” - in thinly veiled references to López Obrador - and advocating continuity. The second was a bare-knuckled negative advertising campaign by Calderón, in which he compared López Obrador to Venezuela’s Chávez and denounced him as “a danger to Mexico,” even while adopting the quasi-populist claim that he, Calderón, would be “the employment president”.

The IFE eventually intervened to end or limit both of these media campaigns, but not before the attacks established a negative public image of López Obrador that, at least among some segments of the electorate, persisted throughout the campaign.

López Obrador

3 Until late March of this year, López Obrador was definitely the candidate to beat. Indeed, even in the last few days before the election, the public mood in Mexico anticipated his victory, albeit by a narrow margin.

The Fox administration’s failed attempt in 2004-2005 to impeach López Obrador for a minor offence, and thereby disbar him as a presidential candidate, had left him looking like a martyr for democracy. At times during the past year he led his various rivals by as much as 30 percentage points in the polls. Indeed, he faced no open opposition from within the PRD in his quest for the party’s presidential nomination.

Nonetheless, after early April and his fateful decision not to participate in the first of two televised presidential debates, very little went right for him. During a six-week onslaught of negative radio and television advertising by Calderón in the late spring, López Obrador struggled to come up with an effective response—other than to deny that he was Hugo Chávez in Mexican huaraches. Although the PRD did increase its media spending toward the end of the campaign, for the most part López Obrador devoted his considerable energies to a town-by-town, plaza-by-plaza tour that had much popular appeal but which was not necessarily effective in reaching television-viewing middle- class audiences.

On election day, the PRD’s own organizational weaknesses were on display. At its core, even though it carried the most populous states, the PRD remains essentially a regional party. One telling indicator is that it managed to post representatives at fewer polling places across the country than either the PRI or the PAN. Its efforts to bolster party cadres by organizing citizens’ networks (redes ciudadanas), parallel to the very effective brigadas del sol that López Obrador used to expand PRD influence in the 1990s, did not come to much, even though substantial resources were invested in this effort.

Even with all this, López Obrador came within a whisker of winning. His margin of loss was so small that a change in almost any single element might have produced a different result. These factors might be grouped as:

(i) A questionable campaign strategy and self-inflicted political wounds.

In addition to the points already made, some analysts have questioned López Obrador’s overall appeal as the candidate of the poor. This approach rightly highlighted Mexico’s severe social and economic inequalities, but it was not framed as an inclusive agenda that would necessarily appeal to lower middle-class and middle-class voters; perhaps especially those Mexican families who, despite sluggish economic growth in recent years, have taken advantage of financial stability to gain some degree of upward mobility. López Obrador did win the majority of the independent vote, but ironically, in the country’s 20 poorest municipios it was the PRI who won the most votes.

Apart from these considerations, López Obrador made some bad mistakes. It was immediately after the first presidential debate in early April—at which the absent López Obrador was represented by an empty chair—that Calderón made his big jump in public opinion polls, after which the race remained neck-in-neck. López Obrador also encountered widespread rejection of his personal attacks on President Fox, especially when he said “Shut up, cachalaca” (a reference to a loud, squawking bird native to López Obrador’s home state of Tabasco). When he was challenged about this, López

4 Obrador’s characteristically stubborn response was to repeat the comment in media interviews.

5 (ii) Weak party organization and factionalism.

Unlike the PAN, the PRD was not united behind its candidate. Factionalism on the Left is certainly not a new phenomenon, in Mexico or elsewhere. However, there are many PRD sympathizers who are quite unhappy with López Obrador’s hard-line, machine- politics style and the way he bulldozed his way to dominance both in the party and in the Federal District. The most alienated peredistas are the followers of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who founded the PRD and who may well have aspired to a fourth consecutive presidential candidacy. Although Cárdenas himself eventually did endorse López Obrador’s candidacy, he spent much of the campaign in residence at the University of California-Berkeley, and some have argued that his son, the current governor of Michoacán, could have done much more to mobilize the state on López Obrador’s behalf.

(iii) Third-party competition.

Internal PRD dissidence is related to a third problem López Obrador faced: the availability of electoral options on the Left outside his own coalition, particularly the Socialdemocratic and Peasant Alternative represented by Patricia Mercado. Her 2.7% of the vote would have given López Obrador a narrow, but convincing, victory.

These are, then, some of the items that fall on López Obrador’s and the Left’s side of the ledger. To them one must add the extraordinary campaign waged against López Obrador by the Fox government and leading representatives of the Mexican private sector. Thus, the loss was not entirely of López Obrador’s making, but his own mistakes could well have spelled the difference in the outcome.

Madrazo The third main presidential candidate, Roberto Madrazo, faced two major obstacles: what pollsters call “high personal negatives”, and the consequences of bitter in-fighting within the PRI.

Madrazo’s unfavourable public image dates from the large-scale campaign spending fraud involved in his 1994 Tabasco gubernatorial victory. During the presidential campaign, he had great difficulty developing a compelling programmatic message because he struggled against public perceptions that the PRI in general is the party of corruption and abuse. For instance, in January 2006 Madrazo was finally forced to disclose personal assets valued at some US$3 million (including four houses, five apartments, and multiple vehicles)—in all, quite a tidy sum for a long-term public servant. Later in the spring, the PRI was tarred by accusations that the incumbent PRI governor of Puebla had been involved in a large-scale paedophilia ring, and that he abused his authority by ordering the illegal arrest of the journalist who revealed the existence of the ring. In the midst of widespread national revulsion, Madrazo was reduced to saying that ‘not all members of the PRI are like that’.

Madrazo effectively held the PRI together in the wake of its historic presidential defeat in 2000, and had he—like the party’s founder, President Plutarco Elías Calles—set aside his own presidential ambitions in the interest of promoting the party’s fortunes, it is quite possible that the PRI might have regained national power. After all, having won the 2003 mid-term elections and a series of state-wide elections in 2004-2005, it approached the

6 presidential race with considerable political momentum. However, protracted, bitter struggles over the nomination and control of the party apparatus proved devastating.

This was the first time since the party’s founding in 1929 that neither the incumbent president nor a former president had firm control over the selection the PRI’s candidate—and it showed. In the manoeuvring surrounding Madrazo’s candidacy, the long-simmering rivalry between Madrazo and Elba Esther Gordillo, leader of the national teachers’ union (SNTE), boiled over in a dispute over whether she would succeed him as PRI president. Madrazo blocked that possibility in order to retain control over the party machinery during his presidential campaign, but the result was a more or less open fracture of the party and Gordillo’s formation of the New Alliance party. (She has just recently been expelled from the PRI.)

Later, a number of PRI state governors, organized as a group known informally as TUCOM (‘Everyone United Against Madrazo’) challenged Madrazo’s claim to the party’s presidential nomination. Their candidate was Arturo Montiel, a former governor of the state of México. In the end, Montiel was forced to drop out of the race following press revelations (thought to have been leaked by the Madrazo camp) regarding his family’s unexplained accumulation of wealth—an outcome that further damaged the PRI’s public image and did nothing to unite the party behind Madrazo.

The result of all this was that Madrazo’s share of the presidential balloting was six percentage points lower than the PRI’s congressional vote.

Many observers were surprised by the magnitude of the PRI’s defeat. One positive consequence may be to make it more open to negotiation on some policy issues, rather than automatically adopting the blocking tactics it used when its strategy was to discredit President Fox and thereby regain the presidency.

3) The Politics of Electoral Results: Mexico’s Post-Electoral Limbo

López Obrador has adopted a dual strategy: (1) challenging the announced results through legal channels, and (2) mobilizing his supporters against electoral fraud and manipulation, specifically calling for a ballot-by-ballot recount of the votes cast on July 2.

On election day, the PRD did not denounce major instances of electoral fraud, and media coverage indicated that election day generally went very smoothly. Despite some initial wavering on this point, the PRD is not claiming that the presidential election should be annulled because of widespread fraud. Nevertheless, the PRD’s appeal to the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judicial Branch (colloquially referred to as the “TRIFE”) does impugn the results in some 53,000 of the 130,000 polling places—just coincidentally, those polling sites in which Calderón registered the most votes. At a mass rally in Mexico City’s Zócalo on July 16, López Obrador claimed that there was “falsification” in as many as 60% of all polling sites.

Among more specific allegations of fraud, pro-PRD analysts have called attention to the substantial discrepancies between presidential and the congressional vote totals in a number of areas, as well as some polling places in which more than 100% of the registered voters were recorded as having cast a ballot. Some people have argued that the IFE engaged in “cybernetic fraud”, using a logarithm to shave votes from López Obrador’s total. And the July 9 issue (p. 16) of Proceso—a valuable, though not

7 unimpeachable, source of political revelation—reported that in 4,334 casillas the distribution of votes was exactly the same in the main polling place and in adjunct polling places installed nearby to ensure that none served more than 750 voters each.

It is virtually impossible to know what to make of these various claims, especially given the highly partisan and polarized environment in which they are made. Given the nastiness of the campaign waged against López Obrador over the past two years, one cannot entirely dismiss them out of hand, and it is easy to see why many PRD loyalists believe them. A careful and dispassionate review by the Electoral Tribunal may begin to lay to rest some allegations of fraud or other irregularities—but, precisely because of this environment, it is unlikely that it will be able to do so definitively.

In part this is because López Obrador is quite clearly using allegations of fraud and irregularities to delegitimate Calderón and lay the ground for future opposition to a Calderón administration. During the appeals process, Calderón’s efforts to move forward with transition planning will be badly handicapped, not least because the special budgetary appropriation to pay for these activities is frozen until his victory is official. López Obrador is making a quite skilful appeal to domestic and international public opinion, arguing that Mexico’s future stability depends upon absolute certainty in the tabulation of electoral results and that therefore nothing less than a vote-by-vote recount will do.

Will the Electoral Tribunal call for a full recount? In the past, the TRIFE has occasionally annulled district and even statewide elections, and theoretically it has the authority to adopt any remedy it considers appropriate. However, Mexican election law is quite restrictive in establishing the conditions for opening ballot packages once the district-by- district tally has occurred. Nor is there a precedent for a full recount in a national election—although the country has certainly not faced a situation like this before. Moreover, the TRIFE will doubtless come under immense pressure not to cede to López Obrador’s blanket request. A recount of any size would certainly uncover irregularities— as we have witnessed in Florida in 2000 and in other such cases, virtually any close scrutiny of ballots reveals just how prone to garden-variety error the electoral process is. But it is not clear that López Obrador’s gains from a full recount would be sufficient to overcome Calderón’s margin.

In the meantime, the López Obrador coalition is proceeding with a sustained campaign of civic mobilization. He filled the Zócalo on July 9 and again on July 16, when government sources confirmed an attendance of some 1.1 million people. This week saw the beginning of “peaceful civil resistance” activities, and there will be another rally in the Zócalo on July 30.

It is impossible to know what impact, if any, these protests will have on the TRIFE’s calculations about the dimensions of a recount, but López Obrador is certainly sustaining his coalition and doing his best to shape the overall political environment. Perhaps not least, by claiming the mantle of political victim and leader of a democratic crusade, he is holding on to control of the PRD and insulating himself from the internal party challenges that losing political candidates often face.

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8 Speaker 2: Laurence Whitehead

The remarks which follow will focus on the post-elections process and the overall possible implications of this contested election.

There are three main possibilities regarding the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TRIFE)’s ruling on the outcome of this election:

1) A partial recount ie an order for the recount of ballots in the key, most contested areas. This is not what AMLO wants, as it is not expected to particularly benefit him. The recount would have to tilt the votes significantly to one side to truly challenge the existing results, the probability of which is very low.

2) A full recount This could take anything up to 10 days. Calderón would not favour this option, mainly because the margin of risk becomes greater for him. Should any such recount threaten the overall result, tilting the votes slightly in AMLO’ s favor and thus taking the victory away from Calderón over a tiny margin of votes, we can predict that Calderón would object that this was not a fully legal procedure.

3) A complete annulment of the election Although highly unlikely according to most commentators, this is nevertheless a possibility. The TRIFE has the power to declare a complete annulment without reference to any specific grievance, simply stating that ‘grave and widespread irregularities’ were found in the process.

There are precedents. Over 9 years of election processes in Mexico, the TRIFE has annulled 17 elections; two of which were governorship elections and in one of which the initial resul was subsequently reversed.

It is important to remember that all these technical considerations exist against a backdrop of tension, and possibly even violence. We have to consider the non- institutional pressures to which the institutions are being subjected and to which, in the worst case scenario, they may give in. Institutions are being profoundly tested in this process.

Possible outcomes: 1) Institutions will hold up, and will even perhaps emerge strengthened from this crisis. The wave of protests will subside and things will stabilise, though undoubtedly there will be a legacy which the next government will have to deal with.

2) There is also a chance that this will represent such a shock to the system that AMLO and the left will actually benefit through having been drawn into the process; gravitating towards the centre ground of politics in order to bridge some of the divisions this election has created.

3) The last possibility on the table is that AMLO’s challenge could prevail. There are two ways that could happen: (i) With a full recount and with all the irregularities taken into account, he could come out as a winner. There may be enough here to be worth fighting for.

9 (ii) Were there to be an annulment the newly elected Congress, which must commence on September 1st, would chose an interim President. This person would serve for maximum of 18 months, during which time a new presidential election would be held. If this were to happen, the same parties who participated in the last election would be eligible to run again. They would, however, certainly not be obliged to run the same candidates. The PRD could be expected to run AMLO, and PAN to run Calderón; but the PRI would obviously be likely to run someone more popular than Madrazo.

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Speaker 3: Peter West A few comments about how this election and its results have been seen from the point of view of the financial markets:

In general the market reaction to the elections has been actually fairly calm; surprisingly so given the fairly oppressive climate in Mexico at the moment. The following presentation demonstrates the market’s reaction in simple terms (see powerpoint presentation)

The first two slides show more long-term perspectives, while the rest show a short-term perspective over the current year.

Slide one shows the movement in the exchange rate of the Mexican peso around the time of the election, put in a long-term historical context. We see no big movement in the peso during this election, and this is unlikely to change over the next few weeks.

Slide two measures Mexico country risk, i.e. the average spread of Mexican bonds vis-à- vis the US treasury. Again, there has been no real movement around the elections.

Subsequent slides show more short-term perspectives, focusing on this year and the time around the elections. All graphs start in December 2005

From the graphs we can see that:

• The exchange rate has appreciated somewhat since the election, having depreciated slightly beforehand. It is of course important to remember that there are international influences on the market beyond the election. The slight fluctuation around and right after the election time can be attributed to the exchange market’s welcoming of a Calderón victory.

• Country risk shows more or less the same movement and same indications as in the previous graph.

• Slides showing movement in the whole market, abstracting the elections, show that the market has largely reacted to financial market turbulence linked to the US economy and to changes in US rate expectations, rather than to the Mexican elections.

• The stock exchange, another barometer of market behavior, shows a similar picture of slight movement immediately after the elections.

• [final slide] A summary of basic macroeconomic data from the past few years shows that Mexico enjoys, and is expected to continue to enjoy, a great degree of macroeconomic stability. The only negative in the data is economic growth which, while reasonable, is far from spectacular. This will be the biggest challenge for the next government going forward.

Key concluding points: 1. The reaction of the market has been fairly calm and very measured, both before and after the elections. The market feeling is that there will be basic continuity in policy no matter who wins.

2. Any changes around the elections are overshadowed by developments and turbulence on the world financial markets. 80% of the increase of volatility in the market is closely linked to changes in expectation towards the US market.

3. The market has been fairly pleased with Calderon’s (provisional) ‘victory’, generating a general sense of mild relief. AMLO was perceived as less fiscally disciplined.

4. The market is assuming that the current tense situation will calm down and that the provisional results will be confirmed, i.e., Calderon’s victory will be ratified. Of course, should the TRIFE decide differently the market will be likely to react.

5. The major risk going forward in the market is perceived to be international, rather than domestic. The market recognizes that there will be challenges in domestic politics and economics for whatever administration, given the current divisiveness. There is no euphoria. 6. Implementation of a reform agenda, in energy markets, labour markets and the economy in general, should be the key concern for the next government.

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QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION involving all three speakers

Q: If the TRIFE were to rule in favour of an annulment, would the congressional and senate results be affected? A: No. The annulment would only apply to the presidential elections. Congress and the senate results would remain the same, and it would be this newly-elected congress which would appoint the interim President.

Q: Will a second round run-off ever be introduced in Mexico’s presidential elections? A: There is so far no real evidence that that will happen any time soon. But it is one of the key reforms that may eventually come to the table.

Q: What can we predict about the future of the main parties in the light of the election results? A: It is true that the PRI suffered a severe setback, but they are not completely out of the game. In a way, they are actually in a strategic position for political bargaining. They may be able to put together a coalition in congress with some key players. Using the governors they have in place, the PRI could form a coalition and come back arguing that they are the country’s most sophisticated political force. They could also try to stage

11 a comeback in Congress in alliance with Calderón: as the country is divided, he may need their help. This in turn would aid their chances of recovery. This would be the positive scenario for the PRI. The negative scenario for the PRI is closely connected to the future of the PRD: the election shows the country is regionally, ideologically and class divided, giving the PRD has the potential to scoop up more former PRI voters.

The PRD’s internal cohesion is under strain. However, the party does not need to stick to López Obrador as its leader. There are other strong names in the PRD, in other positions, who could emerge as future leaders or even potential presidential candidates in 2012.

Q: How likely is it that political reforms will be implemented? A: The key political reform in question is the no re-election rule, which greatly influences the political landscape. The introduction of re-election would create an incentive for all newly-elected officials to press ahead with proposals and reforms they would otherwise not have followed through, in the hope of winning re-election. So this particular reform has wide and critical implications for the whole system.

Q: What are your predictions into the near future for the PRI and PRD? A: Calderón is well-placed to make the most of his position. PRI legislatures are likely to go along with coalitions on some policy issues, so we may see movement on things like fiscal reform. Energy reform, however, is more likely to be blocked by the mobilised left. The PRD comes out of this election strengthened in one sense, having gained a position in national politics that it has not had before. The number of people voting for the PRD was the biggest historically it has ever been. The size of the PRD’s delegation in congress has also grown, and they gained in the area of public financing. These may all be strong incentives for some within the PRD to say that it should assume a much stronger and more confident position, rather than permitting itself to be prtrayed as having ‘lost’.

Q: What are the chances for energy reform passing through Congress? A: The chances of getting the constitution amended are very low. Any changes to energy policy would therefore have to be minor, avoiding changes requiring constitutional reform. Any serious energy reform is therefore unlikely, with the PRD having sufficient strength in the legislature to block it.

Q: Is the public behind AMLO and his call for the recount? A: At a rhetorical level, one could say that the vote should be recounted in such contested elections. The negative legacy of the 1988 elections plays a role here. On the other hand, the institutions in place now are a lot more sophisticated than before. This may allow for some intermediate solution that does not actually favour AMLO’s protests. The bottom line is that the public mood would not support a tipping point scenario at this point, although popular mobilisation can always take on a life and direction of its own.

Q: What do you think AMLO and Calderón are now doing, or should be doing? What is their strategy? A: AMLO is not suicidal. He has been through this before in the race for the governorship of Tabasco, where he emerged strengthened even though he was ultimately defeated. He said he would not call for civil disobedience. Nevertheless, one issue in Mexico is the difficulty of keeping any disobedience ‘civil’. There are many sensitive spots and many divisions in Mexican society, and AMLO will need to try hard to

12 strike a balance between keeping up the momentum and ensuring that the situation does not tip over the edge. Calderón, for his part, will probably stay quiet and statesmanike, as he ought to do.

Overall, we can hope that things will stabilise and institutions will emerge strengthened.

The fact remains that the TRIFE does not have to answer to anyone else. What it decides is final. It can rule in favour a full recount without having to worry about whether or not this is legal. If it does decide on a full recount, two things may happen. The result may strengthen Calderón, thus making him even more comfortable in his leadership position hopefully stabilising the country. Alternatively, the vote may end up tilted the other way, towards AMLO. That would certainly be a gamble.

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas, Director, Chatham House thanked the speakers and the audience for a most informative discussion, and the meeting closed at 19:00.

The Chatham House Latin America Research Fellowship for 2006/7 is supported by EULARO, the EU-Latin America Relations Observatory