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Caribbean-Latin America
Mexican Presidential Poll, April 3rd
2012-04-03
For a map, click here.

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

Polling data published by Milenio news daily reports that Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto leads his next closest rival by 20 percentage points.

Josefina Vazquez Mota (PAN)
According to the graphical polling data provided, Milenio reported that Pena Nieto leads with 50 percent, with Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota trailing at 30 percent, mainstream leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at 18 percent and Partido Nueva Alliance (PANAL) candidate, Gabriel Quatri de las Torres, at less than one percent.

Mexican federal elections will take place July 1st. The active campaign phase of the presidential race started this past Saturday as all four candidates travelled throughout Mexico.

Pena Nieto and Quatri de las Torres both were campaigning in Chihuahua state over the weekend, while Vazquez Mota started in Mexico City and then went to Hidalgo state.

Enrique Pena Nieto (PRI)
Lopez Obrador leads a coalition of Partido Revolucion Democratica (PRD), Partido Trabajo (PT) and others comprising the largest leftist political parties in Mexico. PRI had forged a coalition with Partido Verde Ecologista de Mexicano (PVEM) and PANAL last fall, but objections from several politicians and a near internal revolt caused the alliance to fall apart, as PRI dropped PANAL.

According to the graphic, Vazquez Mota is trending downward, but not by much, after being up by two points the week before.

Another question posed by Milenio included undecided voters. Pena Nieto led all candidates with 36 percent, while Vazquez Mota comes in a distant second at 21 percent and Lopez Obrador is third at 12.8 percent. Undecided participants were the second largest group at 29.2 percent. All candidates appear to be rising in relation with undecided.

However, the most troublesome for PAN is party preferences.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (PRD)
Of the four alliances, PRI appears to have gained the most in the last week, trending upward to 36 percent with PAN dropping to 21 percent, and the leftist alliance rising at 12.5 percent.

The reason why the trends are so troublesome is that the last five weeks has seen a clamp on all political news of any kind by Mexico's independent Institutio Federal Elecciones, the administrative body which oversees all federal elections. The IFE is arguably a fourth branch of government during Mexican federal elections, which controls virtually every aspect of the federal election, presidential, deputies and senators.

That means that party preference is very strong in Mexico for the PRI, once the most powerful political entity in Mexico, and has increased in preference despite the clamp on news.

The race for president will continue, of course, and three months is an eternity in Mexican politics, so those numbers are likely to change.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
Posted by:badanov

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