All politicians that lag behind in the polls — ask Bernie Sanders — will tell you that they’ll quit “when the last vote is counted.”
That’s fine and dandy, but the polls are still indicators of the direction the electoral gales are heading to and in Mexico, it is no different than in the U.S. Usually, those trailing in the polls end up as losers.
The latest BGC-Excelsior poll, published Monday, giving a forecast for the upcoming Sunday June 5 election in 14 Mexican states (Mexico City included), predicts that a surprise balance of power among political parties may be at hand.
The surprising, no, shocking data issued by the poll is that in the state of Veracruz there is a three way tie among the candidates of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Héctor Yunes, the National Action-Democratic Revolution (PAN-PRD) party coalition Miguel Ángel Yunes, (yes, no error, both candidates’ last name is Yunes) and the National Regeneration Movement’s (Morena) Cuitláhuac García Jiménez.
The poll showed the astonishing result of a three-way draw with 31 percent of the vote each. The real surprise is that Morena, a party that for the first time participates in a Veracruz election for governor, is on an equal footing with the old parties.
As a point of reference, the state of Veracruz is extremely important, as it boasts the third largest voting force in Mexico after the State of Mexico and Mexico City, hence the outstanding importance of this election over other states.
On the political battlefront level, there is no surprise that the PRI and PAN-PRD candidates have been at each other’s throats since the election mudslinging campaign began. But what is a surprise to all is that the tear and wear between the Yunes boys opened up a third front for Morena, which at the beginning of the campaign stood no chance of competing with the biggies.
As a separate note, it must be pointed out that the state of Veracruz has been ruled by the PRI since 1929 and it is not about to relent its government to the PAN-PRD coalition.
And here comes the shocking part. Current Gov. Javier Duarte de Ochoa, upon seeing that the PAN-PRD was way up in the polls, decided to split the anti-PRI vote and opt for supporting Morena candidate Cuitláhuac García Jiménez.
This is in tandem with PRI’s strategy in all elections. By dividing popular opinion, even if it is against itself, it will fragment the vote and eventually give the PRI the desired victory. It’s worked before elsewhere.
Yet Gov. Duarte’s decision seems to have backfired, as the Morena candidate had a spectacular rise in the polls and is now among the two other frontrunners. Duarte’s decision managed to lower the vote for the PAN-PRD candidate in hopes that vote would move to the PRI, but instead it moved to Morena, or so says the BGC-Excelsior poll.
This particular electoral gauge forecasts only three for sure governor victories for the PRI and they are for Tony Gali in Puebla, Omar Fayad in Hidalgo, Quirino Ordaz Coppel in Sinaloa and Mauricio Góngora Escalante in Quintana Roo.
As for the remaining eight governorships, the coin is in the air, but if predictions are correct, the big winner of this particular 2016 election will be Morena, if it manages to rise with victories in Zacatecas and now Veracruz.
Polls hint in a direction but, the whim of the voters seems unpredictable, but not for long. Come Sunday we’ll have the results of the one and only real poll, the election itself, “when the last vote is counted.”
