Independent Zavala quits Mexico’s presidential race
MEXICO CITY: On paper, Margarita Zavala appeared to have all the connections one might need to wage a successful presidential campaign – she was a former first lady and a former senator, with deep connections across Mexico’s political establishment.
That wasn’t enough. On Wednesday, less than two months before the election, Zavala dropped out of the race, declaring in a short video clip that she was withdrawing “on the principle of political honesty and a sense of congruency”.
Her failure to secure support from more than 10% of likely voters, according to polling groups, reflects the enormous challenges facing independent candidates in Mexico, who lack the funding of their partybacked competitors.
This was the first year that independent candidates were allowed to join the race for president here – a change celebrated by many in Mexico, which was a one-party state through much of the 20th century and then was dominated by a few large parties. Ultimately, though, the reform didn’t have much impact in the current campaign, leading up to the July 1 election.
“Margarita Zavala’s candidacy was doomed from the start,” said Esteban Illades, editor of Mexico’s Nexos magazine. “The electoral system in Mexico made it impossible for independent candidates to mount a serious challenge to traditional political parties.”
Meanwhile, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City and a long-time renegade opposition candidate, is now leading the race by roughly 20 percentage points, according to polls. Those polls are often incomplete and imprecise, experts say, but they suggest a lead that increasingly looks insurmountable.
Zavala’s husband, Felipe Calderon, of the National Action Party (PAN), was president from 2006 to 2012.
She once hoped to run as the PAN’s candidate, but she lost an internal power struggle, and instead announced that she would run outside the party.
It was only a few years ago that lawmakers even passed a reform allowing independent presidential candidates.
“The rise of independent candidates has not only provided new incentives for political parties in Mexico to clean up their act and become more accountable to voters, but has also put into question longheld assumptions about electoral tactics in the country,” wrote a report from Canning House, a British think tank, ahead of this year’s election.
Zavala’s failure to gain traction has shown how difficult it is for independent candidates, even with her political connections.