MEXICO CITY — Newly armed with the right to vote from abroad, millions of Mexicans had a chance to shake up their homeland’s coming presidential elections with a force commensurate to the billions of dollars they send home each year.
But that isn’t going to happen in 2006, officials conceded Monday.
Immigrants stayed away from the new registration system because of either confusion, apathy, distrust or lack of awareness about the opportunity, observers said.
Only 21,546 Mexicans living abroad, including about 2,500 in Texas, registered for absentee ballots by Sunday’s deadline, according to preliminary figures.
The role they could play looks even less significant when compared to the approximately 70 million people registered to vote in Mexico.
It was a far cry from the summer, when the program became law and was hailed as a way the nation could finally show respect for millions of immigrants who had left their hearts and politics in Mexico.
Pilar Alvarez, a spokeswoman for Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute, which oversaw the registration, said low turnout isn’t proof that Mexicans living abroad don’t care about elections back home.
The procedure was cumbersome, she said. Immigrants had to apply for voter identification cards and then inform the Mexican government of their intention to vote absentee.
The opportunity and the system was new, and like other new opportunities, it might take time to catch on, she said.
When Mexican women were first given the right to vote, they were slow to participate, Alvarez said. And when the U.S.-born children of Mexican citizens were given the opportunity to apply for Mexican citizenship, they too were at first slow to do so.
“This is the nature of reform. It comes at its own speed,” she said.
How officials might boost participation in future elections is an open question. Any changes would have to be approved by congress, Alvarez said.
Mexican citizens in San Antonio made no effort to hide their disappointment in the low turnout, yet defended the program.
As a member of President Vicente Fox’s Commission of Mexican Citizens Living Abroad, Emilio España was part of the fight to get the vote-from-abroad-law passed by Mexico’s congress. After winning that struggle, he said there is no turning back.
Given the little turnaround time electoral officials had to put together a working system, he’s content with the results and likened them to baby steps. He expects the expatriate voter tally to increase dramatically with each election, predicting at least 100,000 next time.
“We have merely planted the seed. Now watch it grow,” he said.
Ana Martínez, president of Club Ciudad de Mexico, a social club for Mexico City natives in San Antonio, agreed.
But she said the degree to which participation grows will depend on what steps elections officials take to make the process easier for those with little time, money and education.
She said among the possibilities might be to let Mexicans vote at their local consulates, offices operated by the Mexican government in more than 40 U.S. cities.
Benito Ramírez, a native of Piedras Negras, across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, plans to stick to family tradition and return to Mexico to vote.
Ramirez, 21, said the problem is not just about making the process easier, but about convincing Mexican emigrants — many who never voted back home — that their country is no longer the broke, corrupt nation they left.
“People simply do not trust the government,” he said. “They think corruption still reigns, that their votes do not count — that (their votes) will end up stuffed in some politician’s pocket,” he said.
Federico Estevez, a Mexico City political scientist, said absentee-ballot registration went slowly in part because many politicians, uncomfortable with the political power that might be wielded by those living outside Mexico, wanted the law to be difficult.
“It is a very restrictive law,” he said of the process. “It really puts a strait jacket on the process; it is not politically viable.”
Traditionally, the best way to boost voter registration is to have it mobilized by political parties, Estevez added. As campaigning was prohibited in the United States, that didn’t happen abroad.
“What you have to say is that this was the first time,” he said. “Things will only get better.”
No related posts.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.