PAN in a Pickle

President Calderón’s PAN party is in a tough spot. Drug violence dominates media headlines, with many Mexican newspapers publishing extended obits of victims. For the most part, Mexico’s president explains the surging violence as proof-positive that the government’s crackdown is working. Regardless, many Mexicans care more about jobs and the economy than the drug gangs.

Who will carry on Calderón’s policies after 2012? The president cannot run again. And the center-right PAN has a weak bench, as an article in this week’s Economist points out. In recent months this has fueled speculation that the PAN will join with Mexico’s center-left PRD party in a coalition against the revived PRI, which ruled Mexico from 1929-2000.

But the PAN is not an amorphous party naturally inclined to sustain a coalition across the political aisle. “Whereas the PRI is driven by power, the PAN tends to be driven by ideology,” says Luis Rubio, the head of CIDAC, a think-tank.

Some scuttlebutt has the PAN throwing their support behind Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico City’s mayor and a star in the PRD. He’s unlikely to soothe the PAN rank-and-file, given that he tacks to the left on social issues—last year, for example, Ebrard legalized gay marriage in D.F.