http://www.mexidata.info/id558.html

Monday, August 1, 2005l

Will immigrants vote in Mexico’s 2006 election?

By Maite Salazar

For many years one of the most discussed topics among Mexican immigrants in El Norte was whether they would ever again be allowed to participate in Mexico’s electoral process, which at best was perceived as rigid and unyielding to change. Earlier this month however, the Mexican government granted expatriates a limited right to vote by certified mail in the upcoming 2006 presidential election. Without estimating the likely levels of participation, many experts have suggested that this historic change actually represents de facto recognition of the billions of U.S. dollars that the expatriates annually send back to their families in Mexico.



The 2006 presidential campaign promises to be especially bruising, even by the brutal standards of Mexican politics. Clearly one of the most crucial questions now facing Mexico’s three major political parties is whether the expatriates, (99 percent of whom reside in the U.S., will seize this opportunity and vote in the presidential plebiscite.



The 2000 presidential election brought a transfer of executive (but not legislative) power from the previously dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to the essentially regional opposition, the National Action Party (PAN). This milestone was achieved because a majority of the Mexican body politic finally coalesced to end a system that allowed the presidential incumbent to anoint his successor through the “dedazo,� or by pointing a finger at the chosen one. Expatriate Mexicans largely supported the candidacy of Vicente Fox Quesada, whom they saw as a fundamental agent of change for the country they loved but had left for better opportunities.



Now, less than a year before the next national elections, vast numbers of Mexicans â€â€