Of polls and politics...

President Calderon continues to receive good marks for his performance: the results of a poll carried out in the last week of May indicate that 52% of Mexicans approved of how the president is handling his job while 40% did not. The same cannot be said of his Cabinet: only 35% approved of the Cabinet’s performance; over half – 52% -- did not. Still, the President’s approval ratings are down significantly in the last year: in May 2008, a hefty two-thirds of Mexicans approved the President’s performance; only 29% did not.

A result with disturbing implications for Mexico’s democracy is that the credibility of the Federal Electoral Institute (Instituto Federal Electoral or IFE) is at its lowest point ever. The IFE’s credibility was ten percentage points less than in August of 2006, when Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma was filled with the tents of protestors camping out on the street to demonstrate against the “fraud” committed by the IFE when announced that Felipe Calderon had more votes than Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

How people intend to cast their ballot on July 5 changed between November 2008 and the end of May and June 2009. The percentage of respondents who said they would vote for the PAN rose from 24% last November to 31%a month ago. The PRI’s share dipped two percentage points (from 31% to 29%). Only 12% of people polled intended to vote for the PRD, a dramatic drop from 2000 when that party’s candidate was nearly elected president.

The parties are attracting their voto duro, their “hard vote” of committed followers. The PAN seems to be best at expanding its reach. In November, three out of ten voters were “undecided”. At the end of May, the percentage of “undecided” voters fell to 23%. The seven percentage point drop in “undecideds” matched the seven percentage point increase in the intended vote for the PAN, suggesting that as voters made up their minds, they opted for the PAN.

Things changed a bit in June, according to a poll carried out between the 25th and 28 th. At the end of May, turnout was expected to be very low -- only 36%. A month later, projected turnout rose to 41%.

Low turnout suggests voters are apathetic and/or disillusioned. In addition there’s a raging debate amongst the intelligentsia about casting a blank ballot (voto nulo) to express dissatisfaction with the political system, the candidates nominated by the parties, the curtailing of the IFE’s autonomy, and the parties’ increasing intervention oversight of the electoral process.

The way ballots are classified and counted makes it hard to distinguish between improperly cast ballots and protest votes, which will undermine the efficacy of the voto nulo campaign. Nonetheless, the campaign seems to have been effective: of those voters who have decided to vote, the percentage saying they would cast a blank ballot, which stood at 3% between November and May, rose to 5% last week.

Low turnout and the voto nulo campaign are warning signals for those concerned about the future of democracy in Mexico. They suggest that the “electoral reform” designed by the parties and passed during this Administration (the political price for other reforms) have not convinced the public.

The PAN holds the largest number of seats in the outgoing Chamber of Deputies – 207. Based on the end-May poll results, GEA predicted that the PAN would pick up seven more seats, making it the largest single party in the new Congress. Last week’s poll results suggest the PAN will end up with 175 seats, 32 less than in the outgoing Congress.

The PRI is poised to be the big winner in the upcoming election. The PRI is expected to more than double the number of seats it holds, from 106 to 212. The latest poll results suggest that the number of seats the PRI is projected to win dipped by only one. With the seats its Green Party allies win, the PRI coalition will be by far the largest force in the Chamber of Deputies.

The big losers will be the PRD and the small parties. The PRD is projected to lose its spot as the second largest party in the Chamber, dropping from 127 seats to 95. However, the PRD has come on strong in the last month. Projections based on the end-May polling results put the number of PRD seats at just 47, which means that in the last month, the party doubled the number of seats it is projected to win.

The small parties, which had 60 seats in the Chamber of Deputies elected in 2006, are likely to have only eighteen in the new Chamber of Deputies. The Green Party (PVEM) and the Workers’ Party (PT) are each projected to capture 4% of the votes of those voters who say they’ve decided how to vote. Last week’s poll gives Convergencia, Nueva Alianza, and the Social Democrats each 1% of the vote of “decided” voters. They are in danger of losing their registrations and the prebends that go with them.

Because all of Mexico’s 128 senators are elected to a six-year term in the same year the president is elected, the extent to which mid-term elections can change the balance of power is limited. Even more than in the US, mid-term elections serve as a gauge of the president and his party’s popularity. However, if the pollsters’ findings accurately captured voters’ intentions and if voters behave as they said they intend to, the PRI will be more important than ever to the success of President Calderon’s legislative proposals.