As soon as the second half of 2017 begins, Mexico is already in 2018. Politics continues to be the activity that occupies much of the lives of Mexicans. Now, in full electoral mode, the country has the democratic opportunity to decide who will take the country’s reins. Gone are the times when everything revolved around a one-man decision, with the ability to decide who would be his successor. This so called “dedazo” was almost left behind in the wake of recent democratic reforms. Nevertheless, the President still has the capacity to influence the election by choosing who will run for President of the Republic on the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ballot. This heats up the political atmosphere because in the weeks before the PRI General Assembly, many will speculate as to who will be the candidate for the party in power. On other fronts, the names of the candidates are not yet decided, except in the case of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), the candidate of MORENA, who will try for the third time to win the presidency. As of now, the rightist party, the National Action Party (PAN), has not defined its presidential candidate. However, the contenders on the political right are: Ricardo Anaya, a young charismatic politician and current president of the party, Margarita Zavala, wife of former president Felipe Calderón, who has been very active politically, and Rafael Moreno Valle, former governor of the State of Puebla. The leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) is trying to rebuild its ranks, decimated by the exodus of its members to the competing leftist party MORENA. It is possible that a coalition between the PAN and PRD could be formed. In June, the PAN-PRD alliance won the elections of various municipalities in Veracruz and took control in Nayarit; this could lead the two parties to submit a common candidate in 2018. As is evident, nothing has been decided, but the current advantage that López Obrador enjoys is clear. In addition to the presidency, 2018 will be the year of the renewal of Congress. This means that Mexican citizens will have to elect 128 senators and 500 deputies, in addition to the nine state governments and numerous city councils. 2018 will be a year of very heated debate, which is causing the political thermometer to quickly rise.
