I know it may be a little boring to write about trend topics about next year's elections, but it seems like an obligatory subject for me to discuss.
Source: http://goo.gl/L3VR9
In 2000, the conservative National Action Party (PAN) won the presidential and Lower House election over the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the party that ruled Mexico for 71 years. The future of Mexico seemed very bright those years: the economy had posted growth rates above 5 percent since the crisis in 1994, and modernity was reaching politics making a transition to a new democracy. However, due to several mismanagements and the evident inability of Fox to successfully negotiate the structural reforms, Mexico’s international stance and enthusiasm for its achievements started to fade.
In a parallel process, the former ruling party embarked on a series of electoral victories in the several Mexican states which some years ago were ruled by the opposition parties: Aguascalientes, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Querétaro, Michoacán, San Luis Potosí, Yucatán and Zacatecas. Also, due to its majority in the Lower House and the popularity of its presidential candidate, the telegenic ex-governor of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, some PRI politicians began to see the path to winning the Mexican presidency as a mere formal process.
In sum, the conservative administrations fell short of Mexicans' expectations and left space for an eventual comeback of the revolutionary party. But recent developments, like the evident ignorance of Peña Nieto when he was unable to name three influential books in his life and his misogyny shown in declarations about not knowing the prices of basic products because “he was not the lady of the house”, has placed him in a difficult position.
Also, as the economy has bounced back from one of the worst recessions in the last decades and, despite being well above pre-crisis level, unemployment has fallen in the last months, prospects for the PAN to win the presidency for a third period are increasing. In conjunction with the drop of murder rates in several Mexican cities, among them, Juarez, next year's elections might not be a piece of cake as some PRI politicians had thought.
