I watched the whole debate on Milenio.com which streamed it live, but gained most of the data from twitter feeds, mainly from AnimalPolitco.com and ElImparcial.com
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
The first debate among the four candidate for president of the republic of Mexico ended Sunday evening as frontrunner Partido Revolucionario Institucional(PRI) candidate Enrique Pena Nieto fended off barbs from his two closest, if remote rivals.
The debate followed the pattern of a series of subject areas including Economics and Employment, Justice, and Social Development and Sustainable Development. The debate was sponsored by the Mexican Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE) and hosted and moderated by Guadalupe Juarez.
Pena Nieto spent several instances fending off barbs from leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador over PRI's past by showing photographs of Pena Nieto with PRI politicians, notably Carlos Salinas de Gortari who served as president from 1988 to 1994.
Lopez Obrador seemed to play the role of spoiler in the debate, hammering on Pena Nieto and his PRI party for what he said was an economic crisis that began during the Salinas administration. He charged that PRI had spent decades trafficking in the people's poverty, a double entendre meant to subtly link PRI with statements made in the recent past that PRI governors had been in collusion with drug traffickers. He also charged that because of the Salinas government, Mexico has "opulence in the midst of poverty."
Partido Accion Nacional candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota seemingly bided her time in the debate, putting forth several proposals such as the formation of a National Police with "military discipline", and life imprisonment for officials found to be in collusion with organized crime.
Pena Nieto, however, made economic proposals that made him sound like he was the PAN candidate, wanting structural change to make Mexican more competitive and approving the flat tax, already in existence through the offices of PAN presidents. Vazquez Mota added her proposal for a development bank for loans to medium and small enterprises.
Lopez Obrador explained in speeches just before the debates his intent to scrap the Mexican flat tax, to raise taxes, and to redistribute the proceeds to the poor. That proposal was never mentioned by Lopez Obrador in the debate mainly because he spent so much energy hammering away at Pena Nieto on his record as governor of Mexico state and his party, the PRI.
Among those gems was his contention that the return of the PRI to Los Pinos, the Mexican president's official residence, would be like the return of Santa Ana, and would "destroy everything." Another charge was that Pena Nieto spent MX $600 million (USD $45,193,680) on self promotion his first year as governor of Mexico state.
Pena Nieto was far from helpless, however. He countered against Lopez Obrador reminding viewers of Julio Cesar Godoy, the disgraced Partido Revolucion Democatica (PRD) federal deputy, and by telling Lopez Obrador, subtly reminding him of how far back he is in the polls: "If television made presidents, you would be president."
Vazquez Mota managed to get in a few charges herself by reminding viewers that the disgraced former president of PRI, Humberto Moreira's treasurer is a federal fugitive in both Mexico and the United States. She was referring to disgraced Coahuila state tax collector Javier Villarreal Hernandez. Under electoral rules, Pena Nieto does not have to respond and he didn't.
One amusing incident was when Vazquez Mota thanked the moderator using the personal "Lupita" when naming the telegenic moderator. A few Mexican journalists wagged on Twitter during the debate asking "Can we vote for Lupita?"
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news fro Rantburg.com