Guest Columnist Community - Coalitions or common candidacies?

By Sonia Pérez Pérez

This November 5th is the deadline to register coalitions for the Head of Government, but, if this position is not involved, it will be until November 25th; while, to submit the application for registration of the common candidacy agreement you have until next January 25.

If this is the case, the General Council of the National Electoral Institute must resolve the admissibility of the registration of the coalition agreement within ten days after its presentation and, in the case of the common candidacy, the period is five days.

Political parties, coalitions or common candidates must issue and make public the criteria to guarantee parity in the internal selection processes of the candidates for deputations, mayors and councils that apply; Likewise, guarantee the equal participation of women and men in their registration.

And a recurring question: what is the difference between these two figures?

Both are forms of temporary political association, made up of two or more political parties whose common purpose is to participate together in the electoral competition, to maximize their chances of victory, but there are several themes that distinguish them:

There are three types of coalitions: a) total: all the candidates are nominated in the same electoral process; b) partial: at least 50% of the candidates, and c) flexible: at least 25% of the candidates; On the other hand, with respect to common candidatures there is no established percentage of applications.

In coalitions, the parties participate as if they were one, so they are required to have the same electoral platform and in the common candidacies each party presents its own; Regarding prerogatives, in the coalition public campaign resources are concentrated in a single account and use radio and television time as if they were a single party; On the other hand, in the common candidacy each party manages its campaign financing, gives its own report of income and expenses, and controls its time on radio and television.

Another distinction is that, under the common candidacy, the parties retain their legal personality without sharing among themselves the responsibility for committing conduct that contravenes electoral regulations, which does occur in coalitions.

Furthermore, in the propaganda broadcast on radio and television, in the coalition the messages must identify that quality and the party responsible for the message, while in the common candidacy it is not required to identify all the applicant political forces.

The regulation of common candidacies in the Electoral Code was recently modified, now the parties that associate will appear on the electoral ballot with a joint emblem and the distribution of the votes to each of them will be carried out as established by the agreement, which It does not happen in coalitions where votes are distributed equitably based on those they receive on the ballots. These aspects were challenged before the Supreme Court, who a few days ago determined their validity, since the federal entities are empowered to regulate this form of association.

Furthermore, regarding the distribution of votes, the Supreme Court determined that the fact that the agreement establishes the way in which the votes of each of the parties that postulate the common candidacy will be allocated is not contrary to the Constitution. since with this system the decision of the electorate is respected, who does not vote for an individually identified party, but for the aforementioned common candidacy.

In this regard, at the Electoral Institute of Mexico City we established that the distribution of votes determined in the agreement must be in proportion to the number of candidates nominated by each party, that is, there must be an equitable and logical correlation, with the purpose of not generating fictitious majorities in the election of deputies and mayors.

Given these differences, the parties will choose, if applicable, to participate individually or in association in one of these figures.