The “Other Campaign” and “Other Possibilities” for the Mexican Left

The “Other Campaign” of the Zapatistas is one of the cases that evince the importance of the relationship between the social movements and leftist parties in the last decade in Latin America. Following “The Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle,” the Zapatistas announce the “Other Campaign” (La Otra Campaña), to protest the election campaigns in Mexico’s 2006 elections, and more particularly, to attempt to make “another sense of politics” beyond the limits of electoral politics. It was a call “from below and from the left” to build a national coalition for an alternative leftist program, and for a new constitution. However, Subcomandante Marcos as “Delegate Zero” on his tour of Mexico criticized the PRD and its candidate López Obrador so severely that the “Other Campaign” unexpectedly was held responsible for the election defeat of the PRD, the main left-wing party. The paper firstly analyzes the role of the EZLN in this electoral process. It is suggested that the Zapatistas’ position was crucial not only for mobilizing votes but also for missing an opportunity that would pave the way for left to come to power in a Latin American country that has not yet elected a left-wing government. The Zapatistas might have their own reasons to distance themselves from López Obrador’s campaign and prefer not to engage with electoral politics. They have already lost their hopes to compromise with a government that will support their political autonomy. But as we have seen again in 2012 elections, it is the PRD candidate who has to take the consequences of losing the Zapatista support. The paper suggests that the future of the Latin American left depends on the compelling relationship between the leftist parties and social movements, and therefore, there is no future for the Mexican left without considering the Zapatista factor.