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 News from Around the Americas | January 2006 
Major Mexican Parties Court Emigrants
 Vik Jolly - Orange County Register
| | (left to right) Mayor César Mancillas Amador from the PAN party, Congressman Juan José García Ochoa from the PRD party, and Roberta Lajous from the PRI party debate Wednesday at Rancho Santiago College. (Ygnacio Nanetti, The Orange County Register) |
Orange, CA – Representatives of the three main political parties in Mexico took jabs at each other in a debate Wednesday on issues ranging from foreign investment to what the government should do to create more jobs to stem the flow of immigrants into the United States.
The politicians appeared to agree that even though only a few Mexicans abroad have registered to vote by mail for the first time in the July presidential elections, it was a good first step.
As of last Friday, 31,739 worldwide and nearly 15,000 in the United States had signed up. About 4.2million are eligible, a majority of them in this country.
The officials agreed a temporary guest-worker program would be a good idea. Different versions of such a program have been proposed in the U.S. Senate.
However, "There are immigrants that are living here, and they want to stay here. We have to find a way to obtain a permanent visa," said Congressman Juan Jose Garcia Ochoa of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, whose candidate Manuel Lopez Obrador is leading in most polls.
Some among the 125 in attendance at the forum hosted by the Rancho Santiago Community College District said the 90-minute discussion helped them evaluate party positions, but they remained undecided.
"I have doubts about which one I want to elect," said Francisco Castillo, 54, who left Jalisco 35 years ago. "I have to learn more about each one of them."
Castillo, who owns a tax-preparation business in Anaheim, said he has been waiting for improvements in the Mexican standard of living.
"I haven't seen any yet, no matter who's the president," he said. "I have seen corruption. I have seen poverty in my country. There's no help at all," he said. "We need a change, but I don't know who."
Roberta Lajous of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, Mexico's permanent representative to the United Nations, said more foreign investment would help the border region.
"What Mexico needs is leadership at the top to put forward reform," she said. "The PRI today again is the largest political force in the country."
In 2000, a win by Vicente Fox of the National Action Party, or PAN, ended the PRI's 70-year rule in Mexico.
PAN's new candidate is Felipe Calderon. Cesar Mancillas Amador, the mayor of Ensenada, said PAN deserves six more years as ruling party.
"When you have 70 years of a ruling party, it takes a long time to make changes," Amador said. "To ask for change in six years is not fair; it takes about 30 years It also takes the power of congress to help the president make those changes."
First the PRI and now the PAN are making the same promises but not delivering, charged Ochoa of the PRD.
"A generation of Mexicans doesn't have the opportunity to have a better life, and many of them are crossing the border in order to look for a better way to live for them and their families," he said. It is not enough to say that it takes 30 years to improve the economy, he added, asking, "What are we going to do in the next six years to have a better country?" |
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