Last minute PRI spending won't stop Morena in Zacatecas

La politica es la politica has posted 32 articles - one for each state in Mexico, including Mexico City - in advance of the July 1, 2018, presidential election. For links to all 32 articles, scroll to the bottom of this post.

The Mexican state of Zacatecas is located in north-central Mexico, with a population of about 1.6 million. The capital is Zacatecas City. As has been true since the colonial period, Zacatecas’ dominant sector is mining, accounting for about 13% of the state’s GDP. This is followed by manufacturing, at 12%, which is also the main source of foreign direct investment.

Politically, Zacatecas is quite diverse. Its governor, Alejandro Tello Cristerna, is a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the same party as the sitting president, Enrique Peña Nieto. Of the three federal senators from Zacatecas, two are members of the left-of-center Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), with the third being with the right-of-center National Action Party (PAN).

Zacatecas will be deploying 3,000 officers – municipal, state, and federal – to ensure that things go peacefully on July 1, with special attention given to the municipalities of the City of Zacatecas, Guadalupe, Fresnillo, Nochistlán, and some towns in the southeast. 

Much of the security will be committed to protecting the counting and transport of the ballots themselves, and will include elements of the uniformed military. However, Two candidates in Zacatecas have requested police protection: one from a candidate in Trancoso, and another from Fresnillo.

Journalists should feel relatively free to provide coverage of the election in Zacatecas, though back in 2013 Reporters Without Borders claimed that some local media had made a pact with the state government not to report on controversial topics, particularly crime. The only recorded death of a journalist in Zacatecas is Nolberto Herrera Rodríguez, a television reporter, who was found in his apartment stabbed to death on July 30, 2014.

In this election cycle the PRI candidates were given a boost in late June when the general director of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), Tuffic Miguel, announced that Zacatecas was getting an additional 136.3 million for infrastructure spending, mostly for healthcare. This almost completes the 300 million peso promised to Zacatecas by PRI President Enrique Peña Nieto at the beginning of his six-year term.

But it doesn’t look like that will be enough. According to a poll conducted by Exe Consultores Asociados S.A. de C.V. on June 18, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), the presidential candidate for the left leaning, Morena-led "Juntos Haremos Historia" (Together We’ll Make History) coalition has the support of 45% of respondents in Zacatecas.

Voting in Zacatecas

By comparison, Ricardo Anaya, who is the presidential candidate for the PAN-led “Por México al Frente” coalition polled in Zacatecas at only 29%, and José Antonio Meade of the PRI-led “Todos por México” is lagging at 13%.

As is true in other states, in Zacatecas the independent candidate, Jaime Rodríguez Calderón, known as “El Bronco”, barely registers with 2% support.

It looks then likely Morena that will do well in Zacatecas, both in the election for senators and for federal deputies.

Below are the links to the posts for each state: 

Aguascalientes
Baja California Sur
Baja California
Campeche
Chiapas
Chihuahua
Coahuila
Colima
Durango
Guanajuato
Guerrero
Hidalgo
Jalisco
Mexico City
Michoacán
Morelos
Nayarit
Nuevo León
Oaxaca
Puebla
Querétaro
Quintana Roo
San Luis Potosi
Sinaloa
Sonora
State of Mexico (Edomex)
Tabasco
Tamaulipas
Tlaxcala
Veracruz
Yucatán
Zacatecas