Mexico & Nafta - April 2011 (ISSN 1741-444X)

On 26 March, the country's biggest political party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), sprang a surprise when it nominated Eruviel Avila Villegas, the mayor of Ecatepec, as its candidate for the governorship of the Estado de México. Avila is not one of the closest supporters of the incumbent governor Enrique Peña Nieto, who tops the opinion polls for the 2012 presidential election.

The choice and the timing of Avila's nomination were both important. Avila was by no means the favourite and his proclamation came on the eve of an unprecedented state-wide vote (on 27 March), organised by the national ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and the left-wing Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), on whether to run an alliance candidate on a joint platform in the Estado de México election on 3 July. Unusually, Avila emerged as the PRI candidate when the other contenders, one after the other, announced on 26 March that they were no longer pre-candidates for the PRI's gubernatorial nomination.

The media's favourite had been Alfredo del Mazo Maza, who was the representative of the influential Grupo Atlacomulco, which traditionally dominates the PRI in the Estado, Mexico's most populous electoral district. Both his father and his paternal grandfather had been governors of the state.

What helped to swing the decision Avila's way was the decision by two smaller parties to back him. Both the Partido Verde Ecologista de México and the Partido Nueva Alianza, which is controlled by Elba Esther Gordillo, the leader of the teachers' union (SNTE), backed him. The PRI hierarchy's hope is that the PRI will coalesce around Avila and sweep him to victory on 3 July and thus keep Peña Nieto's campaign for the presidency on track.

On the other side, the unprecedented state-wide consulta on 27 March was a modest success. As just over 211,000 people voted (about 2% of the state's electorate), the divided PRD can plead justification in ignoring the overwhelming (76% plus) vote in favour of an alliance with the PAN. The Left, which may or may not include the PRD, will run Alejandro Encinas. Encinas, who may yet be excluded from the ballot because he may not meet the residency requirement, is a close and loyal supporter of the radical leftwing leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. More importantly, Encinas is also backed by the current mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, who, unlike López Obrador, supported alliances with the PAN in 2010 and in Guerrero earlier this year.

Confusingly, Encinas may not be nominated by the PRD, but he will certainly be nominated by the PRD's traditional leftist allies, the Partido del Trabajo and Convergencia. It is just possible that Encinas could win in the Estado, but such a result is most unlikely. López Obrador is a formidable campaigner but Encinas himself is not a charismatic figure. He will not attract PAN voters, which he will need, to his campaign.

For the PAN, Felipe Bravo Mena, José Luis Durán and Ulises Ramí­rez all nurse hopes of gaining the party's nomination. None of them look like a winner and, equally, none of them looks able to attract the votes of “Los Chuchos" the anti-López Obrador group which dominates the PRD party hierarchy and supports an alliance with the PAN. By 30 March it looked as though Bravo Mena would be the candidate as the other two announced that they were withdrawing. Bravo Mena said that he hoped that the PRD would endorse him.

If the PRD does that, it risks splitting completely, which may be what López Obrador wants. The López Obradoristas want to have nothing to do with the PAN.

The result of all this is that the PRI's chances of winning the Estado have improved sharply. This means, in turn, that Peña Nieto's presidential chances in 2012 have also strengthened. His problem may be that the stronger he gets, the more his opponents will be prepared to think the unthinkable. Paradoxically, the biggest danger for him could be if Avila wins easily in the Estado on 3 July 2011. Then, even the dimmest opposition politician will have to accept that a compromise candidate will be needed to defeat Peña Nieto in the presidential elections in July 2012. Arguably, President Felipe Calderón has already jumped to this conclusion by suggesting to the PAN that it should nominate the best candidate for 2012, even if he or she is not a panista.

Avila is the first gubernatorial candidate the PRI has chosen from a municipality in the central Mexico valley rather than from the Toluca valley, and particularly the municipality of Atlacomulco. Avila's municipality, Ecatepec, is the east of the state.  

There are two politically powerful families in Ecatepec, now a dormitory for Mexico City. One is the Coss family. Vicente Coss Ramí­rez, a transport union leader, was twice mayor of Ecatepec in 20 years. His son, Vicente Coss Tirado, is currently a PRI federal deputy for part of Ecatepec. Avila, however, is probably closer to the other political dynasty in Ecatepec, the Torres family.   Alfredo Torres, the son of a former mayor of Ecatepec, gave Avila his start in politics, when he was number two in a district council between 1994 and 1997.

From that position, Avila became a state deputy in 1997 and saw the PAN win Ecatepec. After his first stint in the state congress, Avila served in the state government as a deputy regional administrator for Nezahualcóyotl. Then Avila had his first term as mayor of Ecatepec, defeating a Panista. After this, Peña Nieto made him a state party organiser. From this position he returned to the state congress and then in 2009 won Ecatepec again which had, by that time, passed into the control of the PRD.

The big question for both Avila and the PRI is whether the disappointed PRI candidates will rally behind Avila or jump ship and seek to become the alliance candidate the opposition needs. This seems unlikely. The elections are in July, so there is not much time to smoothe egos and there is no obvious prií­sta who could unite the PAN and the PRD behind him

The gossip in Mexico City is that the influential leader of the teachers' union, Elba Esther Gordillo, swung behind Avila, determining the result. Avila is close to the former governor of the Estado, Arturo Montiel (1999-2005). Montiel was humiliated in the PRI presidential primary in 2005 by Roberto Madrazo, an enemy of Gordillo's.

Technically, Avila was nominated by the PRI in the Estado, but the current governor, Enrique Peña Nieto, had a big say. A long dinner on 25 March with Peña Nieto was the event which clinched the nomination for Avila, other gossips say.

Eruviel Ávila Villegas
Age : 41
Qualifications: doctor of law from UNAM.
Secretario del Ayuntamiento de Ecatepec (1994-1996).
State congress deputy (1997-2000 and then again 2006-2009).
Deputy minister in the state government responsible
for Nezahualcóyotl (2001-2002).
Mayor of Ecatepec (2003-2006 and 2009-2012).
President of the Federación Nacional de Municipios de México (Fenamm) which is a national organisation for 1,510 municipalities.

• All the voters will have to prove is that they live in the Estado. The organisers, Alianza Cí­vica and Propuesta Cí­vica guess that 350,000 people may vote, yet over 14m people live in the Estado. The question is: Do you agree that the PAN and the PRD should form an alliance to back a single candidate and a joint programme of government. It has three possible answers: “Yes", “No" and “Don't know".