Independent Candidates Gather Signatures To Appear On Mexico Presidential Ballot (11/22/2017)

La Cartita --- Mexico's upcoming presidential election will be defined by independent candidates. For an independent candidate to show up on Mexico's 2018 presidential ballot, they need to have more than 800,000 signatures from the Mexican electorate. Presidential candidates must otherwise have an affiliation to an established political party.

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The INE (Electoral Board of Mexico) deployed an application for presidential candidates to gather signatures if they were not part of a major party. The application, however, posts individuals signatures to a database online, but requires cellular connectivity. In Mexico, however, the intensely greedy nature of the government has left the countries cellular network poorly maintained because of the fact that they privatized the cellphone network in the 1990's.

Mexico's telecom industry is vertically and horizontally integrated under the control of Carlos Slim, who favors the far right parties: PAN & PRI. While Mexico's cell infrastructure is antiquated, the cellular networks based primarily in major urbanized areas, like in Mexico City or Monterrey, work reliably and have favored specific candidates.

Despite frequent service outages, María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, the spokesperson for the CNI and an EZLN backed presidential candidate, is at 60,000+ signatures gathered from mainly rural indigenous communities. Her bid to place herself, an indigenous Mexican woman who is an independent candidate, on the ballot is unprecedented.

However, her candidacy does not have the same infrastructure that other candidates enjoy. For instance, María de Jesús Patricio Martínez is not connected to urban centers of power, her political connections are non-capitalistic and grassroots. Therefore, she has little backing from the mainstream press. In fact, a recent Bloomberg article reviewed how media outlets act as PR agencies for a price. They sell favorable poll ratings to increase their perceived potential for victory.

Jaime Rodriguez 'El Bronco' is indeed a business friendly candidate. He was in a row earlier this year over tax concessions demanded by the KIA corporation in Nuevo Leon. 'El Bronco' was attempting to secure a capital investment promise without lowering the amount of taxes to be paid by KIA.

Those candidates with a metropolitan area base of support have a stronger chance of acquiring the nearly 800,000 signatures necessary. Jaime Rodríguez, the current Nuevo Leon governor, leads the group of independent candidates with 200 thousands signatures.