Call for Action!

Alternativa is a political organization in Mexico that is trying to do politics outside of the party system

1. A closed political system

Although Mexico has regular elections where there is some degree of competition since the mid-nineties, access to the political system for non-professional politicians is very limited. For example to compete in any election you have to be supported by a political party, and the prerequisites to form a political party are very high. (you need around 200,000 signatures plus territorial organization in 2/3 of the country).
A the national level only political parties can legally buy access to electronic media, organizations or individuals that are not parties cannot buy time for political ads. In print media, it costs around 25, 000 dollars to buy ad space. At the local level participation in politics is inhibited by decentralized political violence and clientelism.
Three big parties control most elections throughout the country, and the few small parties that have some regional presence become appendixes of the three big parties.
Internet is not used in particularly creative ways for politics. Around 20 million people in Mexico have access to the internet, out of a 105 million. Although there are 75 million cellphone lines.

2. Alternativa

Alternativa was a political party that participated in the 2006 presidential elections with the only woman running for president, Patricia Mercado. Unexpectedly her campaign had some degree of success because it managed to link local mobilization with national politics. The campaign had very limited resources in comparison to the three big parties, but still it was able to get almost 3% of the national vote and some representation in congress.
a) In this link you can see the type of campaigning that was done. Mostly in plazas and universities with little equipment and without resources for mobilizing supporters.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=952559187931430179&hl=es
b) In this other link you can se the tv ad that was made after the presidential debate. It was a famous ad because it was really cheap to make, and it used the participation of the other candidates to make a point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8HGzV9H2_4
(If you don't speak Spanish: Patricia Mercado says, "Mexico is ready for having a woman as president" and then all the other candidates say "I agree with Patricia" all phrases which were taken from the debate where they said it regarding different topics).

3. Kicked-out!

Exactly a year ago (march 16) during a party convention to elect the new chair-person of the party, a minority in the party allied with the big parties, hired a group a thugs and beat up the group that opposed these alliances. The expelled group was not only the majority of activists, but also most of the founders including Patricia Mercado.
(If you understand Spanish you can look at the following videos made by a newspaper using images from cellphones. These videos were very important because they link the party officials with mercenaries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IgybGM78g0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGI0Mvu6F1Q ). After they took control of the party they kicked out everyone linked to the founders of the party, and changed its name. Now these guys get the public funding.

4. What’s next?

After leaving the party, some of the founders decided to reorganize to participate in politics, but outside of the party system. In Mexico there are few examples of this, but the ones that have been done have been fairly effective (i.e. the Zapatistas). This image alternativa is of an event made by Alternativa where the “monument for the revolution” was covered on “revolution day” to represent the urge to leave traditional politics in the past. The main message was: “less partyocracy, more citizenship” (To appreciate the size of the thing, compare the size of a person, to the monument).

5. Three projects to link local mobilization with national politics.

At the moment Alternativa is trying to develop three projects centered in accountability before july 5, when mid-term elections will take place:

a) Open-space debates between candidates in some districits.
b) A public evaluation and “negative campaigning” of the worst candidates (regarding either, their past careers linked to corruption chareges, or on some particular proposals like death penalty).
c) 500 citizens, following 500 congressmen for a year. Each citizen would commit to generate and share information about a single congressman during a year.