The News
Saturday 12 of October 2024

Potential Candidates


Palacio_Nacional,_México_D.F.,_México,_2013-10-16,_DD_119
Palacio_Nacional,_México_D.F.,_México,_2013-10-16,_DD_119
How reliable are Mexican pollsters?

How reliable are Mexican pollsters?

Presidente_Enrique_Peña_Nieto._Fotografía_oficialTruth is that many of them work for political parties and do polling that favors for the most part their paying customer.

Yet, reputedly, pollster Alejandro Moreno is straight and tries to be hired mostly by newspapers, which want a reliable result to favor their readers.

On Monday, a financial daily published a new poll by Moreno’s company in which the result the newspaper wanted was to hear who the most viable candidates for president of Mexico are when elections are held in 2018.

With the splintering of the Mexican vote among 10 political parties, figuring out who the favorite candidates are is no easy task, nor easy decision for voters given the diversity of ideologies.

In Moreno’s poll, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the one with the most votes with 28 percent today, the most viable candidate is now Interior Secretary Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong who is way ahead of its two closest contenders, PRI leader Manlio Fabio Beltrones and State of Mexico Gov. Eruviel Ávila.

For the National Action Party (PAN) former first lady Margarita Zavala (Felipe Calderón’s wife) is featured as the frontrunner but since the party’s opinion is divided, it’s not likely they will launch her, which will only favor PRI.

As for the third leading Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), voters are not clear on whether to back Mexico City mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera, or if the PRD will back National Renewal Movement (Morena) already posted candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

What’s relevant, however, is that the list of potential candidates has dwindled down.