U.S. Is Off-Limits for Candidates in Mexico Elections

The Federal Electoral Institute ruled Wednesday that the law granting Mexicans living abroad the right to vote in the 2006 presidential election also forbids contenders to travel to the United States to campaign.

The electoral institute was given the responsibility to set guidelines for applying the law, which was passed by Mexico’s Congress in June. The decision means that candidates cannot make campaign visits to woo the estimated 10 million Mexican citizens in the United States.

“We believe the law is clear: You cannot ask for the vote on foreign soil,” said Patricio Ballados, the electoral institute’s general coordinator for the vote abroad.

Congress barred candidates from campaigning outside Mexico during election season, but several contenders had planned appearances in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities with large immigrant populations, arguing that they were free to visit as private citizens before parties selected their official candidates later this year.

The former mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, canceled a meeting with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last week, as well as an appearance at a popular Mexican Independence Day celebration in Huntington Park. Aides urged the presidential front-runner to stay out of the United States after election officials warned that his visit could violate the law.

The Federal Electoral Institute is an autonomous government agency with the authority to levy fines or disqualify candidates. In June, Congress gave the agency the dual task of encouraging Mexicans abroad to vote by mail, while insulating Mexico’s presidential election from foreign influence.

Its guidelines forbid candidates, party leaders or party members to organize campaign activities outside Mexico, including voter registration. The guidelines also forbid any campaign spending abroad.

At the same time, institute members agreed Wednesday that Mexico had a responsibility to deliver campaign and party information to its expatriates.

“It’s a dilemma,” Ballados said. “We are supposed to have an informed electorate abroad, but we have legislation that restricts what Mexicans can learn about the election.”

The contractions were built into the law and reflect the ambivalence of Mexican lawmakers in granting the vote to citizens living in the United States, said Raul Ross, one of the longtime organizers of the immigrant vote movement.

“We wanted the freedom to register voters, to allow Mexicans to contribute financially and we wanted candidates to be able to campaign here,” said Ross, a Mexican living in Chicago. “But those three actions were explicitly prohibited. The reason was that the political parties couldn’t find a way to keep control outside of Mexico.”

Between 300,000 and 400,000 Mexicans living in the United States are believed to hold valid voter registration cards, a small fraction of the 37 million or so voters who cast ballots in the 2000 presidential election that carried National Action Party candidate Vicente Fox into office.

Fox’s victory ended the 71-year reign of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, and among his promises was the right to vote abroad.

In the five years since, the influence and reach of Mexicans living in the United States has grown, with banks estimating they will send nearly $20 billion this year to friends and family in Mexico. In addition, a loose confederation of hometown clubs in the United States is reshaping hundreds of tiny villages, building roads, schools and other projects as immigrants demand more say in how their towns are run.

No one is certain how many Mexicans abroad will cast ballots in the July 2006 election. But many here and in the U.S. believe they will exert their influence in telephone conversations with family members back home.

Primitivo Rodriguez, a Mexico City activist, said the campaign restrictions signaled a missed opportunity to bring migrants into Mexico’s political system before losing them to the United States.

“If Mexican citizens in the United States want to support a candidate, what is wrong with that?” he said. “A given right of any democracy is that people will have basic information about the issues and about the personal qualities of a candidate.”

Ballados said the electoral institute may provide party or candidate pamphlets to voters by mail. Mexicans in the United States with voter registration cards can register to vote by mail through embassy and consulate offices, or over the Internet beginning Oct. 1.

“It’s a shame,” said Sergio Martinez Chavarria, a spokesman for Roberto Madrazo, the leading contender for the PRI. “We believe candidates should travel and present their proposals directly to the people, face to face, that the people over there can express their questions and demands, that there be rapprochement. But it won’t be.”

Cecilia Sanchez and Carlos Martinez in The Times’ Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.