The general consensus after the first of two debates between the five candidates vying to be the next governor of Jalisco was that it failed to live up to expectations.
The 90-minute debate produced few memorable moments, other than a handful of hostile barbs aimed at the frontrunner, Aristoteles Sandoval of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
Polls suggest that former Guadalajara Mayor Sandoval is a clear favorite to return the Jalisco statehouse to the PRI after 18 years of rule by the conservative, pro-business National Action Party (PAN).
Trailing by over 15 percent in the polls, the PAN’s Fernando Guzman tried to goad his rival on several occasions, questioning Sandoval’s record on security, jobs and cultural investment. He also accused him of hiring staff with criminal records. While clearly agitated, the PRI candidate refused to take the bait.
The structure of the debate, which was carefully segmented and did not allow for back-and-forth discussion, meant that the interventions of the participants might, for all intents and purposes, have been taped. In fact, at no time in the debate were the five candidates ever seen together on screen.
For this reason, the debate “only partially achieved its objective,” noted political analyst Dr. Andres Valdez Cepeda, a researcher at the Universidad de Guadalajara. “It ended up as a kind of oratory or lecture club,” he told the Reporter.
Throughout the debate, Guzman attempted to portray himself and his party as a “safe pair of hands” conscientiously guiding the state through troubled economic and social times for two decades.
In effect the state’s “vice governor” (secretario de gobierno) for the past six years, Guzman praised the incumbent administration for setting up the first transparency institute in Mexico, posting record exports and staging a successful Pan American Games.
Guzman said his three most important priorities were “jobs, jobs, jobs” but apart from vowing to create a fund to encourage new businesses, he offered no details on how he try to would put more than 200,000 unemployed Jaliscienses to work.
Polls taken after the debate suggested Guzman’s message had less impact than either Sandoval’s or that of Enrique Alfaro, the maverick candidate representing the Movimiento Ciudadano. After splitting with the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), Alfaro, the popular former mayor of metro-area suburb Tlajomulco, has become the “joker in the pack,” currently polling an impressive 20-25 percent of the vote.
Alfaro, who is involved in a bitter personal war with Universidad de Guadalajara (UdG) “godfather” Raul Padilla, promised to broaden the scope of public education in the state and guarantee a university education to everyone who wants one (the UdG currently rejects 40 percent of applicants), as well as provide monthly stipends to students of up to 600 pesos.
Clearly the most articulate of the five candidates, Alfaro was at pains to stress his independence from the main political parties – a point that could win him favor with undecided voters.
Sandoval, who emerged as the most well-rehearsed candidate, pressed home a tried-and-tested campaign gambit: “Ask yourselves, are you better off than when the PAN took power in 1994?”
The former Guadalajara mayor also banged the drum for a stereotypical list of populist measures: life imprisonment for kidnappers and rapists, lower salaries for overpaid government secretaries and an unemployment benefit.
Most polls taken after the debate showed Alfaro to be the clear winner.
None of the candidates explained how they would pay for any of the promises they were making.
The PRD’s Fernando Garza said he would increase the allocation for cultural activities to two percent of state’s budget – double the benchmark of the United Nations.
Panal’s Maria de los Angeles Martinez said she would pump another 5.5 billion pesos into eduction but did not say how this money would be raised. Remarkably, not once did the Panal candidate look into the camera lens – she read every one of her discourses from a prepared script. She is currently polling around one percent.
The readiness of the candidates to throw out proposals they know they would find almost impossible to carry through did not surprise Valdez. “In Mexico we don’t have a law saying you must keep the promises you make during a campaign.
“Many of these promises are easy solutions to difficult problems,” said Valdez. “What’s important is for citizens to know how these proposals are going to be financed and achieved.”
Many analysts seemed quite shocked by the poor quality of the debate. “Not having candidates with the capacity to debate the themes that voters are concerned about its a serious problem,” wrote Gabriel Torres Espinoza in Milenio Jalisco. “The responsibility lies with the political parties that select them.”
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