With Mexico’s midterm elections two weeks away, the most spirited campaigning has been for a candidate with no name, no face and no particular policy positions. Call him Nulo.

Nulo—Spanish for null and void—is drawing support from disgruntled Mexicans who say the country’s politicians are focussed more on their own power games than on the people they are supposed to serve. So, instead of urging voters to throw their weight behind any of the real candidates vying to be elected mayors, governors or members of Congress on July 5, Nulo’s backers are calling on Mexicans to nullify their ballots—and vote for no one at all.

“There have been campaigns like this in the past, but it’s never caught fire,” said Daniel Lund, president of the MUND Group, a Mexico City polling firm. “Now, it’s catching fire.”

Support for the Voto Nulo campaign has spread on the Internet, where supporters extol the virtues of sending Mexican political parties a stark message: voting for nothing is better than backing the politicians currently running the country.

Mexico was essentially a one-party state until 2000, when the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, finally lost its grip on the presidency. But a sense of frustration has developed in recent years as more choices on the ballot have not, in the minds of many Mexicans, translated into a more responsive government.

The country is now in the midst of a particularly rough patch. The economy is in the doldrums, political corruption is rampant and insecurity remains a constant worry, despite the anticrime offensive being waged by President Felipe Calderón.

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