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The Americas

Mexico election diary

What’s on Mexican minds?

Jun 3rd 2012, 18:46 by T.W. | MEXICO CITY

WITH a month to go until Mexico’s presidential election, everyone is thinking about politics. Or are they? A new poll asking which news stories have caught people’s attention suggests that campaign hasn’t grabbed everyone. A survey by Inteligencia Publica and Defoe asked people if they had heard about various big stories that had been in the news over the past couple of months. Of the top five, none was related to the election. Here, in order of the proportion of people who said they were aware of the event, are the biggest news stories in Mexico since March 24th:

90%: a visit by Pope Benedict XVI

86%: the ominous rumblings of Popocatépetl, Mexico City’s local volcano

72%: the death of Julio Alemán, a Mexican actor

69%: forest fires near the city of Guadalajara

68%: the death of Carlos Fuentes, a Mexican novelist

The biggest stories that were related to the election were a series of protest marches by students, a video made by an NGO showing children calling for an end to the country’s various problems (54%) and the case of Tomás Yarrington, a former state governor accused of links to organised crime, which he denies (51%).

A healthy reminder, as we head into the weekend, that there is life beyond the campaign trail. We’ll be back next week with more election news.

Readers' comments

The Economist welcomes your views. Please stay on topic and be respectful of other readers. Review our comments policy.

zerge

Those who think PRD is on top of the polls, should take into consideration that 64% of Mexicans live in states ruled by PRI, 24% ruled by PAN, and 9% ruled by PRD.
Source:
http://www.fenamm.org.mx/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&...

This map puts things into perspective:
http://laprimeraplana.com.mx/elecciones-2012/mapa-politico-de-mexico-el-...

These are hard facts, folks. So it doesn´t matter how much you argue that the polls are fake and whatnot, these numbers I´m presenting show why PRI has so many supporters for this presidential election.

The perredistas are the loudest, but they are most certainly NOT the majority.

guest-isemion

I urge the Economist to take a more professional and researched look into the Mexican election.

I find it very disappointing that the Economist, as my choice publication, is not carrying out thorough due diligence of their sources of research. Particularly, on the bias of election polls and news from the Mexican media.

If you read the majority of comments published on yours and other websites, there is a very different picture painted of the election, by grassroots commentators.

International media, like the Economist, play an important part in shaping the international perspective and opinions and I would urge you to ensure the information truly reflects events on the ground.

The #yosoy132 is doing a great service of identifying manipulations in the media, as shown in the analysis of polls data presented below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zf6nnWxqio&feature=player_embedded

jvictor1789

Dear TW:
There are serious numerical anomalies in the debate you are moderating.You may want to check it out.

I will state no opinion on who should or should not, will or will not become President of Mexico in four weeks´ time.

I will nevertheless tell you that there is ample evidence to point out that the vote in this debate has been tampered with.

I am sorry and certainly I believe the political operative who quite possibly has been behind this vote-rigging has to be at least privately reprimanded by his party;The Economist´s staff may want to do a quick investigation with the ample means at their disposal and should they conclude that enough evidence supports the proposition that this shameful event has taken place, a disclaimer on the debate should be added.Pulling this under the rug would be quite counter-productive.

To many people the world over, myself included, this newspaper is an institution worth preserving.Numbers, facts and balanced, insightful analysis are the reasons we have trusted The Economist for decades. It is totally unacceptable for anyone to tarnish its reputation by using old Mexican small-town vote-rigging tactics either to get back at Mrs Josefina Vazquez´s use of The Economist at the first televised presidential debate against Mr Peña Nieto, or as a propaganda tool in the next debate.

Let´s see the numbers.For those unfamiliar with Mexico´s presidential election to be held July 1, 2012,there are four candidates.One of them, from the teacher´s union, has never polled above 5%.The ones with real chances are Mr. Peña Nieto from PRI, who polled formerly as high as 42% and now in the low 30s; Mrs.Josefina Vazquez, from the ruling center-right PAN,now in third and formerly in second place, polling in the high 20s, and Mr. AMLO from the center-left PRD, now in second place, polling in the low 30s but behind Mr Peña Nieto.Some polls speak of a four point spread between the two, others point to a ten point spread.

But the essence of the matter is that all parties as well as the voters they represent are united in this: they are all against PRI and Mr. Peña Nieto ever claiming back the presidency they lost in the year 2000.Thus if Mr Peña Nieto has 34% or 42 % of the votes, by definition that means that either 66% or 58% of all voters are opposed to the proposition that "Mexico is better off under the PRI" The fact that your poll shows 30% of the people opposing your motion instead of the 60-70% indicated by all polls conducted in Mexico is a first sign of trouble.Only the staff at The Economist knows how many votes have originated outside Mexico.If the numbers do not change much once these non-Mexico originated votes have been removed, the idea of vote manipulation gathers strength.

Now, the people most likely to read this newspaper in Mexico, and thus vote in your debate, are naturally highly educated professionals.But you see, the latest poll gruporeforma.blogs.com/encuestas
confirms the well-known fact that this demographic is overwhelmingly against the PRI, and has been so for at least 20 years, if not more.The affluent and well-educated are mostly PRD and to a certain extend PAN.In Mexico City, for example, PRD has a twenty-point lead.The actual numbers nationwide are:For voters with only primary education PRI 41%,PRD 30%, PAN 25%.For voters with college education:PRI 28%, PRD 43%, PAN 21%.Therefore, among the people most likely to read TE less than 30% would agree with your proposition, yet your numbers show just the opposite result.

Or do they? Well, actually the opinions stated in your 116 Opening Comments,50 Rebuttal Comments, 541 Opening Recommendations and 286 Rebuttal Recommendations if carefully tabulated and analyzed are totally supportive of those rough numbers of 70% of voter´s negating PRI´s returning to the Presidency and below 30% believing "Mexico is better off under the PRI" The fact that your comments are in statistical agreement with the numbers we would expect from a multitude of polls, while your poll debate numbers are so divergent as to be mirror images of the former is a clear indication of voter fraud.

If we read carefully the 116 Opening Comments we see only 105 are real comments, since people sometimes mistakenly click on to post before they have actually written any comment.About 10% of these 105 indicate no decision on the debate´s proposition, but rather speak of various tangential matters such as the convenience for non-Mexicans to abstain from voting(the opinion of that gentleman who wisely retired to sunny Portugal,SaintMartinian),or to buy beach-front property(YukonDave),teachers saying they will use the debate in their classroom...and a funny Mexican who thinks his country would be better served if it were a colony of Sweden or The Netherlands(recommended by 3)...or another one who says Mexico would have been better off if it had not declared independence from Spain.

jvictor1789 in reply to jvictor1789

Then we have a 5% of comments who have serious doubts about the vote counting in this debate. One says: " Nbnjv3cK7V wrote:
Dear Sir,
Am I missing something? or this "debate" is a rather subtle manner of manipulation. Just weight up the percentage of people agreeing Mr. Peña Nieto is what Mexico has been waiting all this time, and the top 5, top 10 or top 15 most recommended comments.
This certainly upsets me."

And another: "Plara wrote:
Dear Sir,
I don´t understand how can 72% of the voters at date can agree with the poll and how we can´t read the same percentage of comments supporting their ideas. That makes me doubt."

Finally the comment that made me read and categorize every comment and look at the issue more carefully:" m12 wrote:
Dear Sir,
I think The Economist has a moral obligation at this point to explain the staggering difference between comments in support of Peña Nieto and the poll numbers.
It should be clear to any educated mexican that PRI bots have been voting on this poll. And anyone that knows anything about web administration knows that the webmaster only needs to look where the hits are coming from to confirm this."

Thus we are left with 88 comments giving a definite opinion on the debated proposition, backed by 474 recommendations.These are respectively 83% and 87% of the total original number of comments and recommendations.

Among these opinion-stating comments 2% are against both PRI and PAN, 43% are against PRI, 3% are for PAN, and 21% are for AMLO.Therefore 70% of comments are effectively against the PRI returning to the Presidency of Mexico or ruling Mexico, while only 25% of the comments declare their support for the PRI, and 4% say they are against PAN.Needless to say this result is a mirror-image reversal of the debate´s official tally.

As for the first 50 rebuttal comments, 49 are real, and of these 6% are neutral or state no definite opinion on the debated proposition, while 4% again doubt the validity of the debate itself.Of the 89% of comments with definite opinions, 47% are against the PRI, 4% are for the PAN and 31% are for AMLO.That´s 84% of comments disputing the debated proposition.Only 11% are for the PRI, 2% against PRD and PAN, and 2% against PRD.

One may think that people writing comments are the highly committed intellectuals that are generally against PRI.Perhaps a "silent majority" has just voted yet said nothing.But it seem unlikely that they would have mustered the determination to click their mouses to vote and not to recommend comments.Recommendations and votes should be more or less aligned.Yet the opposite is true.Recommendations, and there are 474 on opening comments expressing definite opinions on the debated proposition, and 253 on rebuttal, are even more anti-PRI.Among opening comments 12% of recommendations are against PRI and PAN, 50% are against PRI, 2% are for PAN and 24% are for AMLO. Thus, 89% belong to the anti-PRI block, while only 9 % support PRI.In the Rebuttal Comments section the numbers are incredibly similar:48 % against PRI,5 % for PAN,37 % for AMLO in total 91% against PRI and only 8% for the proposition that"Mexico is better off if ruled by PRI".

A suspicious individual would conclude that since there are more internet users in Mexico than in Britain, it would be quite easy for a PRI political operative to spread the word that people should open The Economist page and vote so and so.What is far more difficult is to find people in Mexico educated to the point of mastering the English language to the level required to participate in a debate in The Economist.And the few who do are mostly above the small bribes and pressures level.

It would be interesting to compare this debate with previous ones on a number of subjects on this newspaper and see if there are other cases of such a pointed divergence between comments and votes.If not, that would prove a political manipulation operation has taken place here.

It is doubtful that should a vote-rigging operation had been launched by a PRI operative, he or she would have been so unsubtle as to use people from the same geographic area, but it is worth checking.If the geographical distribution of votes is very different from the geographical distribution of comment originators or readers of past articles about Mexico, then evidence will keep on building up.

And naturally once this comment appears there is the possibility whoever has manipulated the votes will ask just about every contact to write comments to counter balance the existing ones.

I am not stating my support for any party whatsoever.But I do support transparency and decency and I hope The Economist will look into this matter swiftly and act upon whatever conclusion they reach.

roberto333

I would really question the veracity of this article, for much of what's been happening the presidential election is number 1 on top of everything else. Please I know the Economist can do better than this kind of articles.

Ashes77

sorry, this is another planted puff piece for the PRIistas. Thanks Economist. Come to Mexico and see how engaged, impassioned and determined the Mexico Public is to protect Mexico from YOU and the PRI.

m12 in reply to Ashes77

Its completely absurd to compare specific news about isolated incidents during the campaigns (which are full of such unremarkable incidents) with once in a lifetime news like the death of a nobel winner or the visit of the Pope. But to use this comparison to suggest that it indicates disinterest with politics in general and the upcoming election isn't just absurd, its media manipulation and terrible journalism. You should be ashamed of this "article".

Vative in reply to Ashes77

Let's be honest: Mexicans are incredibly apolitical. Perhaps in Mexico City you might find a larger chunk of people interested in the topic, but out in the provinces almost no one gives a hoot (unless they buy their votes). And please, to those who want to see conspiracies everywhere, we know who you really support, since the left has made it a trademark to be paranoid (hey, the USSR was not a police state for nothing).

a8775ez9Mw in reply to Vative

Sir that's one stupid theory, u sure missed that the yosoy132 protest happened in other cities as well lol, however i know about that chilangocentrismo, so whatever lol, plus for your information Mexico is a federation so there's no provinces, there are federal states with their own stupid laws, just like the usa and other countries :)

guest-isemion in reply to Vative

I would not say that is accurate.

Let's take the two largest readership groups for the Economist as an example, the US and the UK.

Registered voter turnout rate -

US: 67.4%
UK (parliamentary): 59.4%
World average for presidential elections: 69.9%
Mexico: 64.0%

When you look at Mexico's statistics, they come just a fraction below the US, higher than the UK and close to average.

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In this blog, our correspondents provide reporting, analysis and opinion on politics, economics, society and culture in Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada.

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