MTV’s note to Mexico: Go vote

Young Mexican voters still don’t have a clue whether their next president is likely to prefer boxers or briefs. But by this weekend, they should have a sense of what that person may do about education and abortion, plus whether he or she favors pop rocker Julieta Venegas over hip-hop rockers Molotov.

Borrowing a page from its U.S. parent company, MTV Latinoamerica this week will air a youth’s-eye perspective on Mexico’s five presidential aspirants. Airing over consecutive nights in Mexico, the United States and other Latin American countries, the program, “Somos 30 Millones: Platicas con los Candidatos” (“We Are 30 Million: Chats With the Candidates”), aims to present the presidential contenders in a more intimate, informal setting than is usually possible on Mexico’s ponderous political talk shows.

The series’ producers hope to encourage more Mexicans ages 18 to 34 to cast ballots in the July 2 contest. According to figures compiled by the Federal Election Institute, there are about 30 million voters in this age bracket, representing 45% of Mexico’s total electorate.

Carlos Magana, vice president and MTV Networks manager for Mexico, says the political Q&A; format’s success in the United States and other countries inspired the Mexican version. Each candidate fielded 10 questions, suggested by youths from all over Mexico as well as by a hand-picked group of artists that included singer Natalia Lafourcade and actor Bruno Bichir.

And though the lively exchanges didn’t yield any insights about the Mexican candidates’ underwear choices -- as they did in 1994 when MTV staged a town hall meeting with President Clinton -- viewers this week will see some revealing disclosures, the producers say.

“They [the candidates] are going to answer intelligent questions that the young audience makes, but also very casual questions that will be able to present very well the candidate as a person,” Magana says. “That was a thing that we wanted to do in front of the young audience, because the young audience demands it.”

The first segment, with Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party, ran Monday night. The remaining candidates, in alphabetical order, will be: Roberto Campa (tonight); Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (Wednesday); Roberto Madrazo (Thursday); and Patricia Mercado (Friday).

The commercial-free programs, taped this month, will air simultaneously in the United States on MTV Espanol (which will be renamed MTV Tr3s later this year) at 6:30 p.m. Pacific time.

Besides MTV, the series’ creators include two other groups dedicated to educating and boosting political participation by Mexico’s youth electorate: Tu Rock Es Votar, the Mexican equivalent of the U.S. Rock the Vote campaign; and Fundacion Todos Participando, an umbrella organization that supports a variety of civic activities and programs.

In addition to the television broadcasts, the specials also will be made available in podcast format at www.MTVla.com, www.MTVrevolution.com (MTV Latin America’s broadband website), www.turockesvotar.org and www.loscandidatos.com.

Ilana Sod, editor in chief of Noticias MTV (MTV News) here, says this is the first time that all the Mexican presidential candidates have appeared on a youth-oriented talk show. Sod, who conducted all the interviews at MTV’s studios in a high-rise building near the Angel of Independence statue in the heart of Mexico City, thinks the informal setting (comfortable chairs, blue jeans allowed) helped create a relaxed environment that allowed the candidates to reveal themselves.

“For the young people it’s easier to understand it in this way, not with two men with suits and ties, sitting apart,” she says.

Interview questions were geared toward issues deemed to be of particular interest to youth: What would you do to make it easier for young people to get their first job? How would you promote education, culture and art? Have you ever stolen anything? Have you ever smoked marijuana? What is your opinion about gay marriage? What was the last CD you bought? What book is on your nightstand? The candidates were not told of the questions in advance, so that their responses might be more spontaneous and frank.

Did they get any candidate to play an instrument, as Clinton did on “The Arsenio Hall Show” in 1992?

“We tried,” Sod says with a laugh. Some candidates did express enthusiasm for Mexican rockers such as Venegas and Molotov, and one mentioned reggaeton, the Spanish-language form of hip-hop that’s enormously popular among Latin youth.

In general, the producers say, the candidates were good sports and willing to engage with whatever subject was thrown at them.

“It surprised me a lot that there was not a candidate who said, ‘I’m not going to answer this question,’ ” Magana says.

Magana acknowledges that getting all the candidates to participate together was a logistical challenge.

“It’s not an easy task. The agenda of the candidates is very complicated,” he says.

But Enrique Davis Mazlum, founder and president of Fundacion Todos Participando, believes that the sheer number of potential voters in MTV’s Mexican audience of 4.5 million commanded respect from the candidates. What’s more, Mazlum says, 80% of young Mexican voters still haven’t decided which candidate to support. “So they [MTV] have a market of undecided youth that are going to have access to this program.”

In a way, MTV’s interviews are an attempt to address a historic shortage of political forums geared to Mexican youth. Because Mexican politics after the revolution of 1910-20 were monopolized for 71 years by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, many young people opted out of a system in which they believed that their votes and voices didn’t count.

Mazlum says the rise of the Internet and other alternative media is increasing youth participation in politics, but slowly.

“It’s not exponential, it’s something gradual,” he says.

There’s also a growing overlap in areas of political interest among Mexican and other Latin American youth and their U.S. counterparts, evident during the current debate and mass demonstrations over U.S. immigration policy.

“We are able to do many things in collaboration with MTV U.S. with respect to things dealing with young people,” Sod says. “There are respective differences, but I believe that we share many of the same apprehensions.”