Mexico: Citizens Disappointed After Presidential Candidate Debate · Global Voices
Andrea Arzaba

Millions of Mexicans were expectant on the night of Sunday, May 6, when presidential candidates were scheduled to debate. The debate was especially popular among young people, who are mostly hesitant as they face the difficult decision of picking their next President.
The transmission lasted two hours, and thousands of comments where available on the web in real time and shortly after the end of the debate. In general, there was an atmosphere of hopelessness and despair after the discussion.
A Lopez Obrador supporter before the presidential candidate debate on Sunday, May 6. Sign reads "Votes don't have prices, they have consequences. We vote for real change. Lopez Obrador, we trust you" Image by Flickr user Eneas (CC BY 2.0)
Khublai Villafuerte, a blogger at Circulo de Cafe [es], affirmed that the reality of Mexican Politics hit the country once again:
La realidad política de México nos pega una vez más. Golpes por doquier y muy pocas propuestas contundentes; sólo el candidato más rezagado se dignó a presentarnos un manual de cómo formar un régimen autoritario, neoliberalista pero eso sí, sustentable. Quién pudo presentar modelos de cambio se limitó a hacerlo durante un minuto y atacar, a veces de manera muy floja; la candidata oficialista sólo declamó y el puntero repitió sus comerciales que diario escuchamos en la televisión y la radio. Casi nadie contestaba a las preguntas planteadas.
Later, he added [es] that real change will not come from a president, but rather from all of the citizens:
Como ciudadanía hemos ganado un golpe de realidad, hemos recordado que el cambio no depende de una persona que sentada en cierta silla sino de nuestra exigencia, de nuestro trabajo y sobretodo de nuestro compromiso con el país. Que este debate nos sirva para llamar nuestra atención y recordarnos que un verdadero cambio sólo vendrá desde y a través de nosotros mismos.
Animal Politico blogger Antonio Marvel argued that nobody won the debate [es]:
Un debate que no ganó nadie: no ganó Enrique Peña Nieto, no perdió Andrés Manuel López Obrador, no aprovechó Josefina Vázquez Mota y no fue para Gabriel Quadri.
The public's expectations and results were so low that, as a joke, the model designated to help during the event was named the “real winner of the debate” on social networks, simply because of her beauty and revealing attire. Blogger Chilakil [es] from Hazme el chingado favor [es] explained it:
Y entre los dimes y diretes, propuestas huecas, números, estadísticas y un sin mil de acusaciones la que mejor aprovecho el breve tiempo que se le dio y la indiscutible ganadora fue nada más y nada menos que la edecán Julia Orayen.
Among the gossip, hollow proposals, numbers, statistics and countless thousands of accusations, the one who took real advantage of the short time given, and the undisputed winner was the model, Julia Orayen.
On Twitter, 3 out of the 22 popular discussion topics became worldwide trending topics: #Debate2012 [es], #JuliaOrayen [es], and #HastaLaVictoriaConJosefina [es] (“until victory with Josefina).
Evelyn Castillejos from the blog Merca2, mentioned [es] the impact of social media, especially Twitter, during the debate:
Unfortunately, the debate did not help a lot of Mexicans make up their mind and decide who they will vote for during the next elections. Only very few proposals were mentioned and most candidates gave an answer on “what they want to tackle” instead of “how they are planning to do it”.