Oh politics, you take my breath away. Election times are the best. Candidates pitted against each other, trying to persuade uninterested citizens to give them a job, good times. A cynic would argue that all elections are shit, and maybe they would be right, but elections are still very interesting to watch. Take the Mexican presidential election: four candidates, one representing 70 years of corrupt rule, one representing 12 years of failed policies, a grandpa, and a random hipster. Who will win?

On closer inspection, we see that whoever wins, it seems like Mexico is set to loose.

Take the front runner Enrique Peña Nieto, the PRI candidate(pictures above,first from left). PRI had been in power in Mexico for 70 years, until the election of Vicente Fox in 2000. Some fun facts about EPN:

• According to the Guardian newspaper in England, EPN has been paying the biggest news organization in Mexico, Televisa, to report favorably and repeatedly about his term as governor of State of Mexico. 
• EPN is endorsed by Rebecca Black. Yes, that Rebecca Black from the Friday video, who doesn’t even speak Spanish. 

Then in a race for second place, Josefina Vasquez Mota (second from left) and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (fourth from left).

Josefina represents the PAN party, that has been in power for the last 12 years. PAN has been in power during the infamous war on drugs, and wants to keep it that way. Josefina’s major campaign argument is that she is a woman. She also got into quite a bit of trouble because of her stance on gay rights.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is the populist leader from the PRD party, that seems like it will never get elected into power. He has run for president many times now, and last time he came close, but became very miffed and demanded a recount.  This is the guy who repeatedly petitioned to get more time in debates, because he speaks so slowly. Almost everyone agrees that he is too old for the post.

These two are more than 16 points behind in the polls, with less than a week to go until the July 1st elections.

And last but not least there is the hipster, Gabriel Quadri. Quadri is from the PANAL party, and he is greatly critizised for being a mama’s boy, mama being Elba Esther Gordillo,  the corrupt leader of PANAL and the teaching syndicate . Quadri knows he is not going to win, with poll numbers in the single digits, so he mostly goes to the debates to suggest random things. 

Of course there are all kinds of allegations that the vote is going to be bought, that the media is giving away the election to Peña Nieto, that there has been misuse of campaign funds, that the urns will be filled in independently, that the drug cartels will chose the president.

Organizations have arisen for all sides, some more controversial than others. The I am student 132 movement argues that the media unfairly favors EPN, and uses the same kinds of protest tactics as the American Occupy movement. The Indignant Children are a group that pushed random children into the battle to guilt the candidates.

Elections are less than a week away, and things are heating up. I really can’t wait to see how this ends.