An Odd Mix: Televisa, Martí, Null Votes, the Green Party, and a Sinking Electoral Reform

There's a lot packed into this post:

First of all, background: as an alternative to the null-vote movement, Alejandro Martí called for Mexicans to vote only for politicians who signed a pledge called, My Vote for Your Commitment, which his group (SOS) wrote and sent to 196 candidates. Thus far, 97 candidates have signed, among them César Nava and Demetrio Sodi.

José Antonio Crespo sees Martí's maneuver, and the support it's received from Televisa, as a "Trojan Horse" with the ultimate goal of destroying the 2007 electoral reform.

Next, Televisa focused its battering rams on the null vote, promoting with great fanfare Martí's project as more productive and sensible. [Yes, much in the way that I promote bathing as a sensible alternative to not bathing.] It's sufficient to see the reaction from the broadcasters' institutional opinion programs. The political parties, their legislative coordinates and other hierarchies immediately welcomed Martí's proposal, whose notarized signature will imply willingness to sink the electoral reform. In exchange for a few effective votes, parties and candidates are willing to sign anything that is put in front of them. Of course, a notarized promise is maybe less effective than the "blank check" that is the null vote, according to Martí. But it's a fact that the broadcasters will make sure that the new legislators will fulfill at the very least their commitment in regard to the electoral reform (the rest of the points, probably, will be less important to them). So then, Televisa, by broadcasting and being covered by Martí's option, will try to pull the parties' chestnuts from the fire...and later theywill come to collect for the favor, without a doubt.

6) So we can infer that Martí's project --and not the null-vote movement-- is the real the "Trojan horse" of the broadcasters. Is it a coincidence that the Green Party candidates --a hard-core defender of the broadcasters-- have been the first to sign the Martí proposal? Ironically, those who vote for the candidates who sign the Martí agenda --properly notarized-- will be voting also for the extinction of the electoral reform. Perhaps to those who hope (as I do) to see the mode of communication revived, instead of disappearing, it would be better for them to annul their vote, instead of voting for one of the candidates or parties that has committed with Martí to put a bullet into the head of the electoral reform.

Ricardo Raphael also is struck by the willingness of Televisa to thumb its nose at the state, and the unwillingness of Calderón's government to squash said thumb-nosing:

The most recent episode in the saga of tensions between the IFE and the broadcasters works as an example. The magazine TV y Novelas, a Televisa publication, scored interviews for the last issue with actors Raúl Araiza and Maite Perroni, in which the young and celebrated actors expounded on their fascination with the death penalty and with the party that promotes it: the Green Party.

Then, under the pretext of publicizing the material included in this magazine, the company decided to advertise both interviews during primetime. It explicitly mocked the prohibition imposed by the law and, aside from that, affected the equity of the contest because it awarded the Green Party with media exposure that of its competitors have.

In consequence, last Thursday the Complaint Commission of the IFE ordered to the immediate interruption of this electoral propaganda. The response from the company merits mention: it responded that it couldn't make any change to the propaganda contracted by TV y Novelas until June 22; which is to say, three days later. In effect, the lawyers from the company had the cynicism to announce to the IFE that would transmit, during the past weekend, some 70 spots more, with worrying about what the authorities had ordered or would have to say.

We are observing just the beginning of a war between the state and the television industry, whose proportions we still don't grasp entirely.

A couple of points: first, Martí's pledge seems a bit gimmicky to me, a bit like the Contract with America without Newt. It also seems about six degrees of magnitude better than the null-vote movement, however. As far as the tacit agreement between the broadcasters to support Martí’s movement in order to sink the electoral reform, that just doesn’t get my blood up. Televisa is pushing the envelope with its blatant support for the Green Party (and, I might add, Perroni and Araiza, whose advocacy is paid, seem to be compromising their integrity as public figures), but, if I may let my Confederations Cup fever seep to the surface, their transgressions warrant not a red card, but a yellow. The broadcasters are interested participants in Mexico political system with agency all their own; they are not lifeless tools of the party. As such, a disagreement between the state and a company, even the latter’s defiance of the former, is not in and of itself cause for outrage. It would much more worrying if the government’s power over private businesses and citizens was such that differences of opinion didn’t emerge from time to time. It’s unreasonable to expect independent broadcasters not to act in their interests. From the politicians’ perspective, the idea that they are willing to do anything “[I]n exchange for a few effective votes” is even less worrying. That’s the essence of democracy, even if it leads to some ugly conflicts of interests.

Then again, I’m biased; I thought the 2007 reform was very problematic, and I think the null-vote movement is Mexican politics' version of New Coke.