Mexican right votes for collaboration over confrontation in primaries

Mexico’s main right-wing group, the National Action Party (PAN), on Sunday closed the door on a period of power and decadence with the re-election of Gustavo Madero as party president.

Party primaries showed widespread support for Madero’s pragmatic style and dealmaking efforts over the confrontational attitude displayed by his rival, Ernesto Cordero, a follower of Mexico’s last PAN president, Felipe Calderón (2006-2012).

A full 72 percent of affiliated members voted in a poll that awarded Madero 57 percent of votes, compared with 43 percent for Cordero.

The newly re-elected leader immediately sent out a conciliatory message, setting the 2018 presidential elections as the PAN’s next goal.

“We are all necessary for this task. I want no triumphalism and no revenge,” he told his enthusiastic followers.

The result represents a victory for the PAN’s more moderate wing, as Madero has been an instrumental figure in the negotiations with the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that led to the Pact for Mexico, a series of sweeping reforms to key sectors such as education, telecommunications and the oil industry.

The re-election guarantees the continuity of this cross-party dealmaking over the lockstep opposition defended by Calderón and his followers, who include the defeated contender in Sunday’s primaries. Cordero and other calderonistas claim that the talks are just a way of yielding to the PRI, and that the ruling party is the only one to benefit from them.

Ever since Vicente Fox’s victory in 2000, support for the PAN has been falling

These polarized attitudes within the PAN had triggered angry internal confrontations in recent months, and raised fears that the primaries might be contested by the defeated candidate. But Cordero immediately accepted the results, stating that “our battle is ethical, not legal.”

Despite the tension during the weeks of campaigning, Madero’s victory comes as no surprise. Party president since 2010, the 58-year-old businessman had always been the favorite to win re-election.

“It is a conservative party; the unnatural thing would be for it to sign agreements with the PRD [the left], but not with the government,” notes Soledad Loaeza, a political researcher and lecturer at Colegio de México. “Historically PAN has always been prone to joint governance, that is its way.”

For Gustavo Madero, who is the grand-nephew of the legendary Francisco I. Madero, father of the Mexican Revolution, the task ahead goes beyond keeping the flame of reform and stability alive.

Despite the tension during the weeks of campaigning, Madero’s victory comes as no surprise

The president of the PAN heads an organization with strong Catholic roots that holds conservative views on abortion and homosexuality, and represents broad swathes of the country’s middle classes. Historically, the party was forged in opposition to the long-ruling PRI, and once stood for honesty and transparency.

But surveys show that this perception has been significantly eroded after 12 years in power (2000-2012), first under Vicente Fox and then Felipe Calderón, whose brutal methods to fight the country’s drug cartels have lately come under fire. To this must be added the corruption scandals involving some of Madero’s aides.

The nearest target is the 2015 election to renew the lower house and the governments of nine Mexican states. Madero will seek to gain back some ground ahead of the final battle for the presidency in 2018.

Ever since Vicente Fox’s victory in 2000 with 42.5 percent of the vote, support for PAN has been falling, receiving only 25 percent backing at the most recent presidential elections, which relegated the PAN to third position as the most-voted force in Mexico, behind the PRI and the PRD.