Ruling PRI Party Moves Toward Allowing Outsider 2018 Presidential Candidate Julia Love and Gabriel Stargardter - Thomson Reuters
go to original August 10, 2017

Mexican Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade speaks during a conference marking the International Day of Family Remittances 2017 in Mexico City (Carlos Jasso/Reuters)

Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) took a key step on Wednesday toward allowing non-party members, such as Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade, to run for president in next year's election.

A commission reviewing PRI statutes voted to make the change on Wednesday, Mexican newspapers reported, but the move must still be approved by a wider group on Saturday, according to a source close to PRI secretary general Claudia Ruiz Massieu.

The change would open the door to the candidacy of Meade, a softly-spoken technocrat who has served various cabinet posts in both PRI and conservative National Action Party (PAN) governments.

Although he has long served in government, Meade has not been tainted by the corruption that has gradually eroded support for the centrist PRI since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office in 2012. Despite economic reforms, anger has grown at gang violence and tepid growth.

If Meade became a presidential candidate he would likely face outspoken leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in a 2018 vote. The PRI is in third place ahead of the vote, a July poll showed.

Read the rest at US News

Related: The PRI Divided Against Itself Ahead of 2018 Presidential Election (Mexico Voices)

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Related: Mexico Politics and the 2018 Presidential Election: Mexico Can Endure No More (Mexico Voices)

Related: Poll: 52 Percent of Republicans Would Support Postponing 2020 US Election (TPM)

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