Independent candidates: revitalising Mexican democratisation, gaining citizen’s trust?

Democratisation in Mexico has been a process in which a cumulative dynamic of structural changes, including both formal and informal institutions, have transformed the political landscape. Electoral reforms have been used for a number of years as a constructive mechanism, to design the aforementioned institutional scaffolding. The transition to democratic processes in the country has involved these types of amendment processes. The country ‘has experimented with mixed–member systems for many years. It is probably the second oldest mixed–member system after Germany, and undoubtedly it has modified its mixed system more than any other country’ (Weldon, 2003: 447). Initially, reforms worked as enablers to democracy. In recent years and because of a sustained lack of rule of law across the country, legal amendments have been employed as an attempt to regain the citizens’ trust. Thus, changes to the system, unconvincingly, have attempted to enable all citizens regardless of their condition, to be in a position where their prospect of being elected is a real possibility. Along these lines, the latest constitutional reform published in February 2014 has been one of the most extensive. With the prospect of "revitalising" the Mexican democracy, this reform included the eligibility of independent candidates and the mechanisms that had to be followed. While the 2012 reform introduced this possibility in the Constitution, the 2014 has established specific regulations regarding access to privileges, the process to control these nominations by electoral authorities, as well as their access to public funding and media, among others aspects. For the first time in recent democratic history, in 2015 it was possible to participate as an independent candidate in the elections for federal deputies and as a result of local legislative approval, also in state elections for local congresses. Although the changes brought a lot of expectation regarding impact on political representation and public trust, these candidates had disappointing results. Of the 2,644 first past the posts candidates registered to compete for the Chamber of Deputies, only 22 were independent candidates. Meaning only 0.83% of the total nominees. Local elections were no exception. The purpose of this article is to present a detail account of immediate qualitative effects on the composition of the federal and local governments. Specifically, analyse variations among the national and local governments steaming from the renewed federalism, which ultimately has resulted in the creation of multiple spaces and the modification of structures and opportunities at different levels. A second objective is to compare the arguments cited by lawmakers about the reform on independent candidates with the above results, seeking to understand the logic of reasoning that sought to argue that this type of applications would regain public trust. Finally, the Paper looks into the combination of the existing institutional rules as imposing boundaries that resulted in modest if not failing positive results. The analysis is based on new aggregated data collated during fieldwork. It includes data on the nomination and election of federal and local congressional deputies as well as other local elected positions, including governors.