Tessie Borden
Republic Mexico City Bureau
May. 11, 2003 12:00 AM
MEXICO CITY - The Mexican Congress has before it at least 15 bills that would
let Mexican migrants do something their countrymen at home do without any trouble:
vote in Mexican elections.
The migrants are close to achieving what for many is a years- and decades-long dream, and they feel it. The Mexican Constitution lets them vote, but there is no process in place to allow them to cast ballots on foreign soil. Members of Mexico's Congress have been introducing legislation to put together this process for years. The first was introduced in 1998 by Lazaro Cardenas Batel, now the governor of Michoacan, but it has never gone anywhere.
The Congress has to pass a law by April at the latest or migrants will lose their chance to vote in presidential elections in 2006. A later bill would not give the government enough time to plan for or pay for the many details of holding an election abroad.
New constituency
The avalanche of legislation coming before lawmakers also reflects a race among
political parties to take credit for helping an important new constituency,
once called traitors by Mexican politicians, which in 2002 contributed more
than $10 billion in remittances to the Mexican economy.
Six of the bills are sponsored by lawmakers from President Vicente Fox's right-leaning National Action Party (PAN), four by the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and three by the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), whose 71-year regime came to an end with Fox's election. Also, one bill is sponsored by a party coalition, and one was worked out by hometown clubs and migrant groups in the United States.
"Let's not make the mistake of letting one particular person or party try . . . to become the father of this legislation," Sen. Jesus Ortega Martinez of the PRD said at a meeting April 24 between migrant leaders and members of the Mexican Senate commissions. "Let it be the entire Senate, the entire Congress. That will be the best guarantee for this legislation to prosper and push forward."
A year ago, a similar migrant delegation came to Mexico City to lobby for the vote. But they got only vague platitudes for their effort. Hence their law initiative.
The migrant groups' initiative, perfected in a series of forums in the United States and Mexico, provides for migrants in the United States to gain the vote gradually: for president in 2006, for Congress in 2009 and for state and local elections by 2012. Elections would be supervised by the Federal Electoral Institute, the independent agency that oversees elections within the country.
But there are dozens of other details that complicate the issue. Among them: What credentials are valid to vote? Can migrants make political contributions? How are they recorded? Is it OK to have consulates organize elections?
Another PAN initiative being reviewed provides for consulate participation. But Primitivo Rodriguez, a political analyst who has been closely involved in the migrant vote effort, says that would give the government too much power over election information. In a country where the ruling party held on to its advantage for more than 70 years through corrupt elections, among other things, that fear has a real basis.
The Federal Elections Institute, created in 1990, began as an agency of the Interior Ministry and became autonomous in 1996. Its independence is considered by many to be the key to fairer, freer and cleaner elections in Mexico.
As for the other questions, the migrant initiative requires that those who want to vote have a valid elector's ID card and also be registered on the formal electors' list, both of which the Elections Institute manages. Migrants will not be barred from contributing to political campaigns, even though money from abroad to finance campaigns is now illegal in Mexico. Allegations about such contributions have dogged Fox since his election, and the Elections Institute is reviewing the case. A finding of wrongdoing could cost the PAN its certification as a political entity.
Foreign contributions
Rodriguez said the migrant initiative proposes changing the law to allow foreign
contributions, but only from individuals registered with the Elections Institute
and who would have to conform to legal limits. The money, too, would have to
first go to the Elections Institute and then to the party or campaign of one's
choice. Rodriguez admitted the solution doesn't prevent finance fraud but says
the price is worth it.
"There is no way to avoid that black hole," he said. "But the possibility of a more inclusive democracy is worth it."
Francisco Javier Cabeza de Vaca, a member of Mexico's lower Chamber of Deputies whose committee considers the bills, said the migrant vote poses complex problems, but he said the political will is there to allow migrants into the political process and he is confident a draft bill will be ready for a congressional vote before April.
"What I think can definitely advance is the presidential vote," he said. "That is what all the political groups must concentrate their efforts on."
Reach the reporter at tessie.borden@arizonarepublic.com.
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