Sunday’s Mexican elections are referendum on Calderon

Sunday’s Mexican elections are referendum on Calderon

CNN, By Arthur Brice

 Mexican President Felipe Calderon will wake up a lame duck Monday. How lame will depend largely on nationwide midterm elections Sunday.

 On the ballot will be 500 federal legislators, six governors and mayors and local legislators in 11 states. Although Calderon has three years left in his six-year term and is not on Sunday’s ballot, many analysts see the election as a referendum on his performance and his party’s nine-year reign on the presidency.

Mexico elections a referendum on Calderón

Mexico elections a referendum on Calderón

By ALFREDO CORCHADO and LAURENCE ILIFF / The Dallas Morning News

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s midterm elections on Sunday will serve as a referendum on President Felipe Calderón’s campaign against powerful drug cartels, analysts and observers say, as spasms of violence continue along the U.S. border and elsewhere.

El PRI se prepara para el retorno al poder en México

El PRI se prepara para el retorno al poder en México

El partido prevé una gran victoria en las legislativas del domingo

El País, Salvador Camarena

 El PRI de hoy tiene muy poco en común con el de hace exactamente nueve años. Aquella mañana del 3 de julio de 2000, el Partido Revolucionario Institucional, que gobernó México durante siete décadas, era un gigante con cara de niño extraviado. En la elección del día anterior, pacíficamente, los mexicanos habían derrumbado su propio muro de Berlín.

Mexico’s elections a test for Calderon’s drug war

Mexico’s elections a test for Calderon’s drug war

Associated Press, Mark Stevenson

 President Felipe Calderon and his drug war will get their biggest test of support yet when Mexico holds midterm elections Sunday amid growing frustration over rampant cartel violence and a shrinking economy.

Calderon’s National Action Party, or PAN, has been campaigning as the one party tough on crime and drug trafficking ahead of the elections for 500 congressional seats, 565 mayors and six governorships.

‘¿Para qué voto en blanco? ¡Véndalo!’

‘¿Para qué voto en blanco? ¡Véndalo!’

El Mundo, Mario Valle

 

Ciudad de México.-  Tras una campaña sucia como pocas, México contempla entre el desencanto y la curiosidad las legislativas de este domingo, donde el conservador Felipe Calderón se juega el control del Parlamento en los tres años que le quedan. Amenaza su sueño el rival que estuvo 71 años en el poder (la «dictadura perfecta» lo llamó Vargas Llosa) el pujante Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). La izquierda se muerde a sí misma, y los ecologistas suman votos con estrellas de telenovela.

Drug-Cartel Links Haunt an Election South of Border

Drug-Cartel Links Haunt an Election South of Border

The Wall Street Journal

By JOEL MILLMAN and JOSE DE CORDOBA

COLIMA, Mexico — The candidacy of Mario Anguiano, running for governor in a state election here Sunday, says a lot about Mexican politics amid the rise of the drug cartels.

A brother of the candidate is serving a 10-year prison sentence in Mexico for peddling methamphetamine. Another Anguiano is serving 27 years in a Texas prison for running a huge meth ring. A few weeks ago, a hand-painted banner hung on a highway overpass cited the Zetas, the bloodthirsty executioners for the Gulf Cartel drug gang, praising the candidate: «The Zetas support you, and we are with you to the death.»