A Magic Number and Other Electoral Possibilities

Jorge Chabat is just one of several recent commentators wondering about the possibility of the PRI winning a majority in the Chamber of Deputies in the July elections. Leo Zuckermann indicated last month that he thought it was quite possible, noting that if the PRI wins as 167 of the 300 district races for deputy, as well as 42.2 percent of the national vote (which is used to apportion the 200 plurinominal seats), it will hit the magic number. In contrast, Jorge Buendía was more skeptical in this week's column. This isn't just an academic piece of arithmetic: a PRI with 251 deputies could paralyze Calderón's agenda for the next three years.

While Zuckermann offers a logical path for how it could happen, I'm also skeptical of the PRI's chances of reaching 251, basically for the reasons Buendía mentions. Self-identified PRI supporters are less certain of their votes than PAN supporters, although there are a greater number of the former. The PRI support is essentially a mild protest against the ruling-party PAN and the disintegrating-party PRD. It's possible because the worst side of the PRI is buried deeper in Mexicans' memories than those of its competitors. I expect that once the candidates are named and the campaigns start in earnest, at least some of the PRI will do a bang-up job reminding Mexico why 2000 was such a cause for celebration. When voters have a side-by-side view of the electoral options, the idea of punishing the PAN and the PRD will become less important than the relative strengths and weaknesses of the candidates themselves.

There are also a number of possible scenarios that aren't getting a whole lot of attention. What happens if the PAN and the PRD collectively hold a narrow majority? Would the PRD under Jesús Ortega be willing to find common ground with Calderón and the PAN in order to pass legislation? Would the perredistas in the senate go along with that? What would said legislation look like?

Also, let's say that the PRI and smaller parties like Nueva Alianza and the Green Party together hold a majority. In which direction will the smaller parties lean?