While public opinion hunts for Vicente Fox's successor, political parties continue to be hit by misunderstandings, infighting and corruption.

Mario Canseco

In late 1999, as the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI—Institutional Revolutionary Party) held a nationwide primary to find its presidential nominee in Mexico, Vicente Fox of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN—National Action Party) had been appearing in television and radio ads for months.

Fox's victory in 2000 ended a 71-year run of PRI heads of state. His tenure has been marred by a lengthy dispute with Congress over a controversial tax reform package, and unfulfilled promises of economic recovery. In a December 2003 survey by Reforma, the president's approval rating stood at 58 per cent.

At the halfway point of Fox's six-year term, three prospective successors have already been pinpointed: current Mexico City mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD—Democratic Revolution Party), first lady Marta Sahagún de Fox of the PAN, and current PRI leader Roberto Madrazo.

López Obrador has fared well in the capital, backed by 82 per cent of respondents in this month's poll by Reforma. The mayor survived a potentially damning scandal, after published press reports revealed his personal driver Nicolas Mollinedo earns about $5,700 U.S. a month. López Obrador claimed Mollinedo is also a "logistics coordinator" for his government.

Sahagún married Fox in 2001, after acting as the government's spokeswoman. While some PAN members have backed a possible presidential bid by the first lady, her political experience is limited to a failed 1994 mayoral run in Celaya, Guanajuato.

This month, Sahagún was involved in a public dispute with a foreign journalist after the British newspaper Financial Times reported a series of irregularities in the fundraising efforts made by a charity group headed by the first lady. 58 per cent of respondents to a Reforma survey disagreed with Sahagún 's political aspirations.

Madrazo lost the 2000 primary to Francisco Labastida, and became the PRI's head in 2002. The former governor got entangled in a well-documented dispute with legislative leader Elba Esther Gordillo last December, which threatened to imperil the already fragile state of Mexico's former political powerhouse.

Never have discussions over the future dweller of Los Pinos began so prematurely. The most ominous sign of this preoccupation came late last year after Víctor González Torres—who goes by the adopted name of Dr. Simi and administers a national chain of discount drugstores—launched a presidential bid after conducting an unscientific internet poll.

Despite branding himself as a political outsider, Dr. Simi's connections can be traced to the Partido Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM—Green Environmentalist Party). His brother, Jorge González Torres, ran for president in 1994 under the slogan, "Don't vote for a politician, vote for an environmentalist."

The PVEM allied with the PAN in 2000, an accord that was broken less than a year into Fox's term, allegedly due to the fact that no PVEM member was considered for a cabinet post. Gonzalez Torres was replaced as party president by his son, Jorge Emilio González Martínez.

This week, a report in Spanish newspaper El País detailed a videotaped conversation that shows the younger González—who is also a senator—allegedly requesting a $2 million U.S. kickback from real estate developers in exchange for expediting permits in Cancun. González at first claimed to be the victim of a "fabrication," but later acknowledged that he was indeed the man on the tape. He argues that a PVEM splinter group, the interior ministry and the president's office are all attempting to bring him into disrepute.

At a time when the organizational weakness of Mexico's political parties has become blatant, public opinion has shunned a debate over issues or platforms. The focus, at least temporarily, has been placed on the perceived "electability" of well-known faces.

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