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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2005 
Media Ads Gobble Up Campaign Funds
 Wire services
| | "Vote!" by Raul Anguiano. Federal District Electoral Institute Get-out-the-vote campaign poster. |
Advertising in the electronic media receives the biggest share of the federal funds allocated for politcal campaigning, according to statistics from the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE.
From the elections of 1994 to the mid-term vote in 2003, the nation’s political parties invested more than 50 percent of their campaign budgets in TV, radio and internet advertising.
In the 2000 presidential elections, political parties spent a total of US$208 million on advertising. IFE predicts that figure will in
crease by an extra US$100 in next year’s elections.
However, the biggest spenders don’t necessarily turn out to be the winners.
IFE said the incumbent Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the 2000 elections was the party that spent the most — over US$84 million on advertising — but still lost out to President Vicente Fox’s National Action Party, or PAN, that year.
The PRI was also embroiled in a campaign finance scandal after the elections when it was revealed the party had used money from state-run oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, to boost it’s advertising. Dubbed “Pemexgate,” the party was slapped with a hefty US$100 million fine.
In spite of the millions spent on advertising, IFE noted that in the 2003 congressional elections voter abstentionism was at its highest rate ever on 58.22 percent. |
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