He is Gastón Luken Garza, and he likes to tell it like it is. A Far cry from the demagogic rhetoric of your traditional politician, Gastón doesn't run around the subject and puts his finger squarely in the sore when it comes to talking about the challenges that Baja California faces on the verge of the new governments time in office.

For Gastón the worse that the political party PAN can do right now is sleep on its laurels due to it's victory and think that the people of Baja California have given them an eternal vote of confidence. Luken points out that now more than ever, PAN has to be self critical and deeply analyze what it did correctly during the elections, and most importantly what it did wrong.

VIDEO : Interview with Gastón Luken

Gastón doesn't hesitate to point out that the people of Baja California had to endure horrid mock campaigns, lacking actual proposals and imagination, where smear campaigning and dismissals simply ended up in the voters being fed up and uninterested. The fact that absenteeism hit record lows should be a blinding red light of an issue that needs to be dealt with immediately.

One of the main causes, according to Gastón, is the saturation of the electoral campaigns. The ideal thing would be to have an election every 3 years, so the electoral processes in Baja California would be on par with those of the nations elections. Otherwise we will continue living in the same mock campaigns, where demagogy and cheap smear campaigns will continue to take center stage over actual proposals. In Baja California and in all of Mexico, there is lack of true proposals. Candidates believe that all it takes to win is to promise more schools in Baja California, but none of them actually propose on how they will achieve it.

A subject that should be dealt with urgency, according to Gastón, is that of congressmen and the way they get their seat during elections. The figure of the plurinominal congressman, being that they receive several paychecks, has long since run its course. The solution is clear: Whoever wants to be a congressman, has to go through the ballots.

He also didn't hesitate to salt the wound when it came to pointing out that a closer look as how candidates buy ad space in printing, that should registered in the accounting books as campaign publicity, but seldom is.

The great challenge for the new government, Luken considers, is to achieve and effective dialog with congress as well key political figures. The conditions are set for dialog. "You can't just make governments because we say so", the entrepreneur points out that each state and government wants to make they're own set of rules and disregard those placed by congress.

Luken, who recently joined the political party of PAN, affirms that even though being a member of the party he has an obligation to the party itself, his primary concern will continue to be that of the citizens organizations. Baja California is an example when it comes to civil organizations, however it is still evident that there is a great deal of apathy. A Citizen, Gastón affirms, cannot be a passive and conformist being that sleeps in his comfort zone while blaming the government for everything. Everything about a government is a reflection of it's people. You can choose to simply be a civilian, or to be a CITIZEN.

About his political future, Luken says that he will take it calmly and without rushing anything. A few months back he was seeking to run as PAN's candidate for governor of Baja California and he reassures he does not regret it, given that he has gained so much experience. He decided to join PAN after his pre-campaign, but before campaign time started, when the political party PRI seemed to be the peoples favorite and the question of "who will win?" was still a long way from being known.

"Experience is what you obtain when you don't get what you want. Experience is what you need to get to where you want." the entrepreneur concludes.

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daniel.aguilar@sandiegored.com