The following article was originally published by Myrna Martinez Nateras el 1 de abril en el Fresno Community Alliance.
2024 will be a historic year for democracy globally. According to the organization CHEQUEANDO, this year will be, by curious coincidence, an election year for nearly one hundred countries, including Asia, Africa and Europe.
The fact that will mark electoral history in Mexico is that for the first time a woman will occupy the highest command of the executive branch. Having a female president for the first time will be one more step in the political history of Mexico, one more step to move towards a broader democracy that began in 2000 when the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) left the presidency for the first time. after governing for 70 consecutive years.
Regardless of how significant it is that Mexico has a female president for the first time, this is not a guarantee of complete democratic progress as we saw in 2000, when it was simply a change of party with policies similar to those of the PRI. Then, Vicente Fox Quesada, of the National Action Party (PAN), assumed the presidency.
The two women candidates for the presidency are Doctor Claudia Sheinbaum Prado, from the National Regeneration Movement party (MORENA) and Xóchitl Gálvez, from the “Fuerza y Corazón por México” alliance, a coalition formed by the PRI, PAN and PRD. There is a third candidate, to whom the polls give zero chances of winning, Jorge Alvarez Máynez, from the Citizen Movement (MC).
Although the victory of either of these two candidates will be historic, this will be a true democratic advance depending on which of these two women is elected, since the political agenda of the candidates, as well as the trajectory of both, is significantly different.
Doctor Claudia Sheinbaum Prado, scientist and former head of government of Mexico City (2018-2023), proposes attention to the causes of violence that affects Mexico, Consolidation of the National Guard, Strengthening intelligence and research, Reform of the judiciary, increase in social support plans and study scholarships, energy independence of the country, and more.
For her part, Xóchitl Gálvez, a businesswoman who during Vicente Fox’s government was a public official who obtained juicy contracts with the government thanks to her position, represents an ossified, conservative political system and more of the same. For example, she proposes the construction of a mega prison and does not propose the breaking of economic and social inequalities and inequities. Likewise, she proposes the closure of two refineries with a confusing purpose and vouchers for private schools instead of strengthening public education by improving infrastructure, elevating the educational system or offering more decent salaries to teachers. She also proposes selectively removing financial support from the elderly, an initiative implemented by the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
For the Mexican citizens who live in Fresno, the historic fact of these elections is that for the first time we will be able to vote in the offices of the Mexican Consulate. I found out about this in February of this year when I went to renew my voting card. Like never before and to my great surprise, the titular consul came out to address those of us who were in the waiting room, inviting us to get our voter credentials and announcing that for the first time there will be voting booths in the consulate offices.
This is not a casual event but rather the progress in a long struggle to defend the political rights of Mexicans living abroad. There is a history of this movement since at least 1917, when Mexican immigrants promoted ballots to vote for Venustiano Carranza.
It took almost a hundred years of grassroots organizing efforts, academic and political debates for this to be achieved. In 2006, the Mexican government finally recognized the political rights of immigrants and established legal mechanisms to establish voting for Mexican citizens abroad. But these mechanisms have not been entirely effective although we can notice improvements.
This process has had several moments. In 1988 we saw the first efforts at political change with the candidacy of Engineer Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas for the presidency by the National Democratic Front, a current opposed to the stale policies of the PRI, from which the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) would later emerge. At that historical moment, a group of Mexicans organized to promote the right of citizens to vote, seeking political change in Mexico.
Given the lack of mechanisms to vote from Fresno, a group of Mexican immigrants organized to call for a symbolic vote in the 1988 elections. Independent citizens and community leaders such as Antonio Cortés, Rufino Domínguez, Filemón López, Ángel Noriega, Samuel Orozco, and others.
With no resources other than our own will, we made a broad call to participate in this symbolic election that took place outside the Mexican consulate in Fresno in ballot boxes that we built. To our surprise, approximately more than 300 Mexican citizens traveled from Bakersfield, Merced, Madera and other cities in the San Joaquín Valley to cast their symbolic vote and express their hope for a change in the political history of Mexico.
The organizers took on the task of counting the votes and delivering the results to the then Principal Consul, Diana Muñóz. The results were notably in favor of the engineer Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas—there was only one vote in favor of the PRI—whom we invited and received in the city of Fresno the following year.
The right to vote for Mexicans abroad was not achieved without controversy. According to the electronic magazine LA VERDAD, in a debate on the subject in the 80s, researcher Jorge Bustamante, then a prominent academic on migration issues, published an article in which he declared that Mexicans abroad were not ready for the proper vote. at a low level of politicization.
The persistence of grassroots movements to exercise political rights from abroad has shown the opposite. Opposition to the participation of immigrants in the political life of their countries of origin argues for interference in internal affairs, lack of loyalty to the country of residence, etc.
Mexican immigrants leave our country for different reasons, but it has been mainly political, economic and geopolitical reasons that have displaced a large number of Mexicans. We are political-binational agents, we contribute to two economies, two cultures and two societies.
I invite you not to lose your right to vote, the vote is unique and secret. They can choose the candidate of their choice. But to ensure our political strength, let us exercise an informed vote and not manipulated as has happened for decades.
See you on June 2 outside the Mexican consulate in Fresno.
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