Restoring Credibility to Mexico's Electoral Process, 2006–2012

RESTORING CREDIBILITY TO MEXICO’S ELECTORAL PROCESS, 2006–2012 SYNOPSIS Following a close and highly contested 2006 presidential race, Mexico faced a crisis of credibility in the management of its elections. An opposition party threatened not to recognize the government as legitimate, citing fraud and unfair treatment by broadcast media during the campaign. Legislators in Mexico’s three largest political parties parlayed the crisis into an opportunity to address long-standing problems in the country’s electoral process. They passed a reform package that prohibited the purchase of radio and television campaign advertisements and gave political parties access to free airtime, thereby cutting into the profits of Mexico’s powerful broadcast industry. In the wake of the 2006 crisis, Leonardo Valdés Zurita, president of the Instituto Federal Electoral (Federal Electoral Institute), and the institute’s General Council had to implement the legislative reforms and restore public trust in the electoral management body itself. To do so, they had to meet both the technical challenge of monitoring broadcast signals across the country and the political challenge of winning compliance from some of Mexico’s most powerful corporations. Rachel Jackson drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Mexico City, in July 2013. This ISS case study was made possible by support and collaboration from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education. Case published June 2014. INTRODUCTION The protests vividly illustrated the In late July 2006, hundreds of thousands of intensification of the July 2006 presidential people took to the streets of Mexico City to election’s credibility crisis. The race had initially protest the outcome of the presidential election.1 been too close to call. Felipe Calderón Hinojosa Supporters of presidential runner-up Andrés of the right wing National Action Party (PAN) Manuel López Obrador of the left-wing and López Obrador had each immediately Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), they declared himself the winner. Four days after the blockaded traffic and set up a sprawling tent city election, the Instituto Federal Electoral (Federal in the heart of the capital, demanding a full Electoral Institute, IFE) declared Calderón the recount of the presidential vote. Many of the winner by 0.58% of the vote, or 240,000 ballots. demonstrators were farmers, laborers, or students, López Obrador immediately filed a complaint the PRD’s traditional base. with the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal ISS is program of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs: successfulsocieties.princeton.edu. ISS invites readers to share feedback and information on how these cases are being used: [email protected]. © 2014, Trustees of Princeton University. This case study is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Rachel Jackson Innovations for Successful Societies Judiciary, Mexico’s court of last resort for electoral media, to increase the IFE’s capacity to oversee matters, disputing the result and requesting a full and audit campaign expenditures, to permit the recount. IFE to conduct a total-vote recount under certain When the Electoral Tribunal ruled that the conditions, and to change the membership of the allegations of fraud did not meet the legal IFE’s governing General Council and top threshold to trigger a full recount and allowed administrators. recounts only in specific polling stations where there was evidence of irregularities, López THE CHALLENGE Obrador’s supporters poured into the capital to Even though the recount controversy was protest. López Obrador alleged that the PRD had itself the immediate cause of the 2006 suffered systematic discrimination during the postelection protests, the IFE’s damaged campaign period and the mass media had given credibility had deeper roots in the perception of better coverage to his opponents and preferential inequality during the campaign period. Coupled pricing and placement to his opponents’ with the IFE’s handling of electoral complaints advertisements. during the 2006 campaign, the political crisis In September, when the Electoral Tribunal deeply damaged public trust in the institution. concluded its partial recount and upheld The political-party representatives who sat down Calderón’s victory, López Obrador and his in 2007 to negotiate the legislative reform package supporters packed up their tents and went home.2 had three broad challenges: to restore confidence But the political crisis was far from over. Some in the IFE as an institution, to address inequality PRD legislators took their seats in the Senate and in media access, and to reduce the high cost of the Chamber of Deputies, Mexico’s lower house election campaigns to the Mexican taxpayer. of Congress, but others refused to accept the Rising broadcast advertising costs blocked legitimacy of Calderón’s incoming administration. smaller parties from placing television López Obrador and his supporters announced advertisements in prime-time spots, and some plans to set up their own, shadow government and broadcasters also allegedly gave unofficial scheduled a parallel presidential inauguration. discounts to political parties they favored while As the crisis worsened, the parties brokered a charging those parties’ opponents exorbitant behind-the-scenes deal. The formal leadership of prices—in contravention of Mexican laws.3 the PRD agreed to acknowledge Calderón’s “Political parties became transferors of public administration on the condition that Mexico’s money to TV stations,” said Lorenzo Córdova three main parties—the PRD, the PAN, and the Vianello, an electoral-law scholar and a technical Institutional Revolutionary Party (the PRI, which adviser to the reform negotiators. (Córdova had governed Mexico until 2000)—legislate a became one of the IFE’s electoral councillors in series of major electoral reforms to avoid a 2011 and then President of the renamed National repetition of the 2006 crisis and address broader Electoral Institute in 2014.) He recalled, “This concerns of inequality in Mexican electoral [arrangement] gave TV stations great ability to campaigning. manipulate politics itself, giving different prices In early 2007, representatives of the three and treatments to different contenders and main parties, along with a team of technical enriching themselves.” A 2007 analysis by the advisers, drafted a reform package through a series University of Texas at Austin School of of discreet, backroom negotiations. The group Journalism found that during the official aimed to create more-equal access to broadcast campaign period, Mexico’s two largest 2 © 2014, Trustees of Princeton University Terms of use and citation format appear at the end of this document and at successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/about/terms-conditions. Rachel Jackson Innovations for Successful Societies broadcasters gave more coverage to Calderón than news broadcasts accusing them of crimes without they gave to either López Obrador or the PRI existing formal investigations, while supporters of candidate, Roberto Madrazo. The analysis also the Ley Televisa legislation generally received found that Calderón and Madrazo received a more-favorable coverage.8 greater amount of favorable coverage than López The high cost of campaigns also represented Obrador received.4 a significant financial burden to the Mexican Television broadcasters were a powerful force state. Since the late 1990s, Mexico had grappled in Mexican politics. Under Mexican law, with increasingly expensive publicly financed broadcasters received 20-year, renewable licenses election campaigns. The constitution guaranteed from the state for the rights to use satellite and public funding of political parties, and Mexican radio frequencies, which are public property. In electoral laws limited the level of influence of exchange for those concessions, broadcasters gave private donors, who faced strong restrictions the state a set amount of free airtime daily. Two regarding their contributions. Mexico’s transition conglomerates—Grupo Televisa S.A.B. and TV from a one-party state under the PRI to a Azteca5—controlled over 90% of television multiparty democracy involved reforms to the airwaves in 2006, and 13 radio groups held 86% of country’s electoral system and the allocation of radio signals.6 The majority of the Mexican public campaign funds. In 1990, Mexico population relied on either radio or television for established a new, independent electoral their news, making broadcast advertisements vital management body: the IFE. The IFE was tasked to electoral campaigning. During his presidential with calculating the pool for public financing of campaign, López Obrador had taken a strong ordinary activities.9 The IFE would then allocate public stand against monopolies in general and 70% of the pool to political parties—based on Televisa and TV Azteca in particular. votes won in the most recent election for the Broadcasters pressured presidential Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the candidates to lend their support to new laws that Mexican Congress—and disperse the remaining would increase broadcasters’ control of the 30% evenly between the parties that had each airwaves. In 2006, three months before election received at least 2% of votes in the previous day and with the approval of the three main election. A party’s share based on that formula parties, Congress passed a new federal would double in

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