Jorge Castañeda, the former foreign secretary, said he has raised about US1 million for a month-old campaign to become the country's first independent president in at least a century. Castañeda, whose frustration about stalled immigration talks with the United States led him to resign from President Vicente Fox's cabinet last year, said Mexico's institutions, including the party system, are obsolete and the government should rule in part by national referendum.
"With these political parties, Mexico can go nowhere," Castañeda, 50, told a group of bankers, executives and diplomats at the Council of the Americas in New York late Wednesday. "They came from, and belong to, the past." Once a member of Mexico's Communist Party, Castañeda is seeking to tap Mexicans' frustration with corruption and inaction among political parties, which have been deadlocked over Fox's efforts to boost foreign investment in the energy industry and other legislative changes. Castañeda, who teaches at New York University as a visiting professor of political science, is unlikely to win the 2006 election, said analysts such as Christian Stracke at CreditSights Inc.
Castañeda is one of the first candidates to announce a bid for president. Politicians who could run include Interior Secretary Santiago Creel, a member of Fox's National Action Party (PAN), Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Mexico City Mayor Manuel Andrés López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
"He believes there's something special with him that's going to catch on with the voters," said Stracke, head of emerging-markets fixed income research at New Yorkbased CreditSights. "It seems like a kind of Ralph Nader run at the presidency." Nader, the Green Party's presidential nominee in the United States in 2000, is running as an independent this year.
A Mexican survey of more than 1,000 respondents conducted by pollster Grupo Economistas Asociados showed Castaneda had 8 percent to 10 percent support after announcing his candidacy last month. Castañeda said he expects to win.
"In a four-way election, you can get elected with 30 percent," he said. "That's within my reach." The campaign has collected between 10 million pesos and 12 million pesos (US900,000 to US1.1 million) and already aired some television ads, Castañeda said in an interview after his speech yesterday. Though Castañeda has demanded greater campaign finance disclosure in Mexico, he declined to name the donors to his campaign, saying it's not required by law.
National law also prohibits a candidate from running without a party affiliation. Castañeda has sued the government for the right to run as an independent, and said he has held conversations with parties such as the Democratic Convergence.
The Mexico City-native, whose father was also foreign secretary, speaks English and studied at Princeton University and later received a doctorate in the history of economics from the University of Paris.
His platform includes a pledge to double oil exports in the next five years while keeping foreign capital out of the nation's oil monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos.
Castañeda also proposes sweeping changes to government and law enforcement through popular referendums.
One proposal is to create the position of a prime minister appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The structure would help to avoid the congressional deadlock happening today, he said.
