Summary
#HoyasInMexico, sponsored by GU Politics and supported by the Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS), offered Georgetown students a chance to witness first hand the political strategy, perspectives, and popular energy of Mexico’s 2018 general election. For a week, Sunday, June 24th through the evening of Monday, July 2nd, these students spent a week in Mexico attending meetings with candidates, campaign staffers and strategists, party leaders, and journalists, and witnessing events in the run-up to the July 1st vote.
Attendees
Students included: Ruwa Romman, Ernesto Comacho, Maria Cornell, Joshua Marín-Mora, Katie Rogers, Kevin Washam, Sophia Mauro.
The trip was led by GU Politics Chief of Staff Hanna Hope and Office Assistant Jennifer Solorio.
Recap
Students attended a PAN rally – National Action Party, the leading conservative party in the nation’s political spectrum. Watching voting occur on election day, students noticed some of the substantial cultural and legal differences in how voting works in Mexico. Citizens were guaranteed free voting IDs, while some particularly popular polling sites ran out of ballots. Ultimately, they saw the historic win of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Ahead of the election, they sat down with Agustín Barrios Gómez, a PRD – Party of the Democratic Revolution – Deputy representing the Federal District of Mexico City. That discussion focused on the unique dynamics of this election, background on Mexican politics, and answers to many of the students’ questions.
Reflections
Coming back to Georgetown, some of the students wrote about their experiences observing what would prove to be the largest election in Mexican history. They shared here highlights of what they saw and ultimately took away from the trip.
Ernesto Camacho
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