Mexico opposition targets governor's race that would 'prove president's failure'

The crowd cheers as a mariachi band belts out a song dedicated to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, leader of Mexico’s National Regeneration party (Morena), while he poses for selfies with jostling supporters in front of the stage.

The gathering feels more like a party – complete with cake, flowers and the faint smell of alcohol and marijuana – rather than a midsize political rally on the home turf of President Enrique Peña Nieto and one of the most powerful factions of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

The event is nominally in honour of Delfina Gómez, Morena’s candidate in the 4 June election for governor of the state of Mexico. But the race is one of the the country’s most important in political, economic and symbolic terms.

Which is why López Obrador – commonly known as AMLO – is the headline act on the campaign trail as his centre-left party bets on his firebrand charisma and popularity to rouse enough voters to pull off a historic victory and seal the fate of Peña Nieto’s disastrous presidency.

The state of Mexico, known as Edomex, has been governed continuously by PRI for almost 90 years, and has produced some of the party’s most influential movers and shakers.

The PRI’s other historic strongholds Veracruz and Tamaulipas fell last year amid a myriad of corruption scandals, Peña Nieto’s sinking popularity and widespread discontent.

A year later, the national picture is worse: 2017 is on track to be the most violent since the peak of the disastrous “war on drugs”, Peña Nieto’s ratings have plummeted to a historic low and the economy is shrinking.

Edomex is considered the last bastion of PRI – the final block holding together a collapsing pyramid of economic and political power. If it too falls, the ramifications for the party, next year’s presidential elections and Peña Nieto’s inner circle would be profound.

“This election is a plebiscite on Peña Nieto. Losing here would be irrefutable proof of his failure. It could finally bring real democracy to Mexico because Edomex is what sustains PRI nationally,” said Pablo Diaz, adjunct professor of political sciences at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEM).

But the gubernatorial election itself – beset by allegations of murky campaign tactics, misuse of public resources, and candidates with sensational pledges – provides a gloomy insight into the state of Mexican politics almost two decades since its imperfect transition to democracy.

Edomex, a sprawling mass wrapped around Mexico City, is the republic’s most populated state, with more than 16 million people in 125 diverse municipalities.

It accounts for 13% of the national vote, and is one of Mexico’s most unequal and dangerous states.

Extreme poverty here rose by 80% between 2008 and 2014, affecting 20% of the population, according to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Conaval).

In 2015, 50% of the state’s population was a victim of a crime, most commonly muggings and robberies. Public transport is scandalously unsafe for the millions who commute to the capital each day.

For women the situation is critical: 550 women and girls were killed, and 2,895 registered disappeared between January 2015 and June 2016, according to the Citizen’s Observatory against Gender Violence.

The northern states of Nayarit and Coahuila will also elect governors on 4 June but the size, location, and economic importance of Edomex make those races pale into insignificance.

Seven candidates are running but polls suggest a two-horse race between Gomez, a former teacher and daughter of a builder, and Peña Nieto’s distant cousin Alfredo del Mazo Maza. Del Mazo Maza’s father and grandfather were from Atlacomulco and both became state governors.

Without explaining how, Del Mazo Maza promises to make Edomex the safest state in Mexico.

López Obrador and his party argue that the state’s violence and poverty are a result of decades of political corruption.

“Edomex is the state where they rob the most,” he told the rally to raucous applause.

But none of the candidates have presented credible policies on how they will govern, according to Rogelio Hernandez, a political scientist at the College of Mexico.

“The pitiful quality of these candidates demonstrates a serious crisis across all parties. Our [transition to democracy] has not led to high quality politicians or competent institutions capable of forming competent governments,” said Hernandez.

This region plays a central role in the mythology of the PRI, dominated as it is by the Atlacomulco group, a shadowy tribe of political and business powerbrokers.

One of the group’s founding fathers was Alfredo Del Mazo Velez, grandfather of the current candidate – and padrino, or best man, at the wedding of Peña Nieto’s parents.

Peña Nieto still keeps an expansive family hacienda in nearby Acambay, but the group’s clout has diminished in recent years due to a paucity of strong leadership and the ascent of other regional power bases within the state.

But if PRI loses Edomex, the group’s interests will suffer locally and nationally, and Peña Nieto’s ability to influence the party’s next presidential candidate will be seriously dented, said the political scientist Alvaro Arreola. “It would be the end of Peña Nieto’s government; any internal or external support he still has will collapse.”

With so much at stake, the campaign is being run out of two “war rooms” – one at the official presidential residence Los Pinos and the other in the state capital Toluca.

Insiders at Los Pinos say the campaign has been dogged by disputes between the three main factions: Luis Videgaray, foreign minister and close confidant of the president; interior minister Osorio Chong; and current Edomex governor Eruviel Avilar. All three men have presidential ambitions.

In Toluca, emphasis is on safeguarding PRI’s turnout. “The PRI is a political party designed to win elections. It has a strong stable base and spends a huge amount of money, giving it an unrivalled capacity to mobilize its army of voters on election day,” said Diaz.

But allegations of threats, corruption and misuse of public funds are encircling PRI’s campaign, and various complaints have already been lodged with the national electoral institute (INE).

Morena, meanwhile believes it has everything to gain.

López Obrado is using this election to launch his third presidential campaign ahead of next year’s election.

His party is pinning its hopes on people like Lazaro Anastacio, 48, a local campesino at the rally, who said that for the first time in his life, he was planning to vote against the PRI.

Anastacio said he was disillusioned by years of broken election promises to his hometown of Chosto de los Jarros, an impoverished indigenous community.

Many homes still don’t have drinking water or a sewage system. Promises to build a community football pitch and basketball court have not been kept. “The only time the government sends help is during the campaign so that we go out and get people to vote,” he said.

The final straw for Anastacio, like many at today’s rally, was a 20% in hike in prices which sparked violent protests across the country in January.

But it remains to be seen whether widespread malaise will convert into votes for Morena.

Although the party campaigns on an anti-establishment, anti-corruption ticket, neither claim is strictly true: it has also been hit by corruption allegations.

Meanwhile, Gómez’s inner circle is filled with former Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) politicians with long records of negotiating with PRI while in congress, said the local journalist Enrique Gómez (no relation).

“There’s no citizen uprising here, this is a fight between two political classes. Voters will choose who they think is the least worst.”