Mexico City – When election season opens Thursday, Mexico’s three leading presidential candidates are expected to take turns bashing Washington’s tough new immigration-reform proposals like revelers at a piñata party.
But those most affected, including millions of Mexicans living abroad illegally, will have little influence on the debate.
Fewer than 1 percent of the 10 million or more Mexican adults living in the United States will cast absentee ballots in their country’s presidential election this year, all but sitting out the contest despite high stakes on both sides of the border.
After a political battle that took years, Mexico’s July 2 election is the first open to expatriates. Prospects of a sizable emigrant vote had triggered hope and fear in a country struggling toward modern democracy.
Five million absentee-voter forms were printed.
Officials of the Federal Electoral Institute said Friday, however, that they had received only 17,000 vote-by-mail applications, about 10,000 of those from the U.S.
Today is the last day to mail requests for absentee ballots for the election to pick a successor to President Vicente Fox, who can’t run again because of term limits.
(The Mexican consulate in Denver, 5350 Leetsdale Drive, Suite 100, will stay open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today to accommodate last-minute registrations.)
“The vote abroad is a failed effort,” said Leo Zuckerman, a Mexican political analyst. “However, it’s a first experience, and the only thing that’s left to hope is that we’ll learn from this experience.”
Apathy, poor planning, scant publicity, cumbersome procedures and a ban on campaign appearances outside the country will all but sideline the 15 percent of Mexico’s electorate who live abroad, primarily in the United States, say experts in both countries.
“This demonstrates that the vote in Mexico is not a priority for most Mexicans living in the United States,” said Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.
“In general, the majority of Mexicans over there are more worried about their connection to the United States, more worried about their lifestyle over there than by Mexican politics.”
Many Mexicans in large immigrant neighborhoods didn’t register because for most people it required losing a day of work.
