A motley political alliance scrambles the presidential race

Yes, yes, yes...It is still breathing and blood is not only flowing but also being shed.
Not Iraq, Afghnanistan nor Colombia, just the Southern neighbour of the USA!!!
Other than a few floods,and scores of people being drowned; the trains and the lorries keep exporting and importing.
Disregard almost 30,000 fatalities thanks to Calderón's so-called war on crime...Mexico can take much more.

Calderon saw his ability to push reforms in congress limiting and his own political capital shrinking with a growing PRI in the states' governorships; however he knew that his National Action Party (PAN) had very little chances to win elections on its own with the disastrous outcome of the war on drugs and the 7% plummeting of the economy in 2009.

The PRI that for the first two years endorsed most of the president's initiatives started to sell their support too expensive. Calderon's alliance tactic proved audacious; the defeats in Puebla, Oaxaca and Sinaloa, previously PRI's strongholds, give him leverage to negotiate the outstanding reforms with PRI using the State of Mexico alliance next year as a bargaining chip. In doing so he also has the opportunity to change the up until now very negative legacy of his administration.

So for the ones who signed off the political leverage of the president and his ability to push reforms forward, the results of the elections are enough to prove them wrong. In general the post-election forecast seems positive as the parties in congress will need to sit down and reach a consensus on the several pending reforms that the country so badly needs.

Much people talk of how PRI could make a come back in 2012 after a 10 year absence. On the other hand just now Andres Manuel has made comments that he is interested in running for office, while Mexico City's governor has not ruled out his bid and interest in AMLO.

That leaves us with PAN, will they try the unthinkable and get closer to the PRD? The panistas know that they are loosing power after letting go of the Lower House, they know that 2012 prospects do not look good.

But then again, the most affected as always are the people who can not
trust in anyone but themselves and prefer not to depend on the gov't, and the voting absentee suggest a high percentage. This shows the mess which mexican politics is going through. We keep asking where are the long do reforms, the such called security and jobs? The main parties are loosing credibility at an accelarated rate.

The is no sign of alternative since the ruling elites are all from the same harvest.

the pri was never a party of ideology but a mechanism to enable governance in the aftermath of the mexican revolution. the pan , and later the prd were challenges from the right and left respectivly to the hegemony of the pri.if the pan and prd form in 2012 ,as they did this year, a cynical alliance solely for the purpose of gaining power, i believe that a majority will favor the pri which is seen as at least competant rather than the coalition which would marry the dissatisfaction with the pan for the current economic stagnation to the doubts about the prd as chaotic and irresponsible. i think amlo will split from prd if their is a joint candidacy with pan and take enough of the left with him to throw the election to the pri

The alliances were merely pragmatic and, unless futures ones are used as an unlikely bargaining chip, I don't really see any impact of them in how the deputees vote. A lot of the present problems in Mexico have been agravated as a result of lack of confidence in the institutions, in turn due to the unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud, made by AMLO. This populist has no problem in damaging the credibility of the IFE, one of the most renowned electoral institutions of its kind, just because there was the chance that in doing so, he could have the election anulled. International delegates saw no significant irregularities.

HerSal wrote:
"To understand why PRI and PRD opossition to allow foreign investment in PEMEX you must read "The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution. The University of Chicago Press, 1981" written by Friedrich Katz."

Mr. Katz writes good books about Mexico I will check out this book, thanks HerSal

Obregon, Calles and Lazaro Cardenas promoted (1928 -1939) a secular and socialist education in Mexico against the long domination of the Catholic Church. The church responded by promoting “la Guerra Cristera” and sinarquism that are the ideological roots of the PAN. The PRD was formed in 1988 by Cardenas’s son (a former member of the PRI) from various left-wing parties. In the years of the PRN (Partido de la Revolucion Nacional) and the PRM (Partido de la Revolucion Mexicana), antecessors of the PRI, had an anticlerical and socialist ideology. That´s why members of the PRI call this an opportunistic association.

To understand why PRI and PRD opossition to allow foreign investment in PEMEX you must read "The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution. The University of Chicago Press, 1981" written by Friedrich Katz.