Critics chafe under negativity ban
Ads used to be more direct in Mexico. In 2000, presidential candidate Vicente Fox highlighted the dirty deeds of PRI rule with ads showing ballot boxes being stolen.
His successor, President Felipe Calderón, also representing the PAN, benefited from ads in 2006 comparing López Obrador to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and branding him “A danger for Mexico.” Calderón is not running in 2012; the constitution forbids re-election.
Experts say negative ads were banned after the 2006 election not to make political discourse more civil but because the Mexican left wanted to avoid a rerun of attacks on López Obrador. The PRI preferred to keep images of its inglorious past off the airwaves, say Jeffrey Weldon, director of the political science program at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. The Mexican constitution guarantees freedom of expression, but “it doesn’t apply to political speech,” Weldon says.
There are other outlets. Social media sites such as Twitter have filled some of the void and light up after candidate gaffes such as Peña Nieto fumbling to name three books he read while appearing at a book fair.
Analysts say the ban may prompt a rise in unsavory electioneering, such as more vote buying. Political parties in Mexico are often accused of trading free food and building materials for votes.
The non-partisan group Alínza Civica says 27% of electors were approached to sell their vote in 2009, an increase from 11% in 2006, according to the newspaper Reforma.
“What (parties) used to spend on the air game they now spend on the ground game,” Weldon says.