Outgoing Gov. Mariano González Zarur achieved what seemed impossible: ending on bad terms with everyone. That is why the rich, the poor, the middle-class, the adults, the youth, the entrepreneurs, the workers, the indigenous population and even his close associates, want his administration to end. Unionists, students, cameral leaders and heads of civil society organizations all agree that González Zarur didn’t comply with his agreements, that he is a gray character, that he gets angry about everything and that his administration will be remembered as a lost one.
That explains the creation of a well-organized movement called “Participación Tlaxcala,” which has the purpose of promoting reasoned vote among citizens for the elections of June 5. It also has the aims of having at least 70 percent of voters present at the ballots, fighting the farmer’s hard vote, and, above all, punishing González Zarur. “A reasoned vote is an opportunity to rate the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) governor,” state the thousands of e-mails, WhatsApp messages and photocopied flyers made by the movement.
The eight candidates for the governorship have begun their campaigns. Marco Antonio Mena Rodríguez for the coalition made up by the PRI, the Green Party (PVEM), the New Alliance Party (Panal) and the Labor Party (PT); Lorena Cuéllar Cisneros for the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD); Adriana Dávila Fernández for the National Action Party (PAN); Martha Palafox Gutiérrez for the National Regeneration Movement (Morena); Felipe Hernández for the Citizens’ Alliance Party; Edilberto Alfredo Jaramillón for the Citizens’ Movement Party; Federico Barbosa Gutiérrez for the Social Encounter Party (PES); and Jacobo Hernández Corona as an independent candidate.
The next governor will take office Jan. 1, 2017 and carry out a term of four years and eight months, as a result of the electoral reform approved by local Congress.
It’s also worth saying that three licensed senators participated in the dispute and it is known that they are working together to overthrow González Zarur, through the overthrow of Marco Antonio Mena.
The former State Secretary of Tourism and former local deputy just isn’t cutting it in the campaign. He has a degree in public administration from the Colegio de México and a masters in public policies from the University of Chicago. The same PRI party members say that the polls in which he appears in first place don’t represent the real vote of Tlaxcala citizens.
For a few months it has been said that Tlaxcala remains in the hands of PRI, but the vote of punishment against González Zarur and Mena’s bad start foretell that there will be changes.
We will find out the night of Sunday June 5.
