This summer's election

After more than 6 months of preparation, Project TECHNO is about a week away! I'm very excited about going back to Oaxaca, and for sure this is going to be a very different experience than the one in December.

The Mexican presidential election will also take place this summer. At this moment it appears too close to call, but I the PAN candidate Calderon has a small lead (7% as of Tuesday). What will end up happening, I have no idea.

I want to cover the election from perspective of my community during the summer. I'm not sure how politically active the community will be, but I have heard that the parties do some tough campaigning to get the vote out (or perhaps I should say to prevent the vote from getting out) in the rural areas.

Tuesday was also an important day for the campaign - the presidential debate. The front page of the Mexican newspaper La Jornada titled it's front page article, "El debate, rehén de la televisión y de encuestas." This sounds a lot like American presidental debates! It appears as if nothing new came from the debates and that the results will have a lot to do with which candidate can best fend off attacks from the other candidates.

Here's the article

I wonder how much the US-Mexican border and immigration issues will play a factor in the election?


Apoorva