The revolutionary Mexican elections
There is definitely something revolutionary about the ousting of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party. The name of the party is in itself something of an oxymoron as well as a misnomer considering the party’s conservative platform and its seven-decade long permanence in power.
Indeed Mexican political commentary abounds with perestroikian and paleontological metaphors these days, depicting the division between the PRI’s reformers and its steadfast conservatives, dubbed as dinosaurs. Outgoing President Ernesto Zedillo has been nicknamed the Mexican Gorbachev for having initiated the political reforms that would pave the way to true political alternation, a key to the democratic process that has been lacking in Mexico for the last 71 years.
The metaphors undoubtedly fit. Like Gorbachev, Zedillo is admired by foreign leaders for the same reason that he is charged with treason at home, for having set into motion reforms in the electoral process that have led to his party’s very demise. It is unlikely that the conservative dinosaurs that condemn him as a heretic even include the term transition in their political lexicons nor would they trouble themselves with the concept of the passage of power.
President Ernest Zedillo, who will leave office on December 1st, has dedicated most of his 6-year term in office to the electoral reforms that made possible the victory of the center-right National Action Party’s (PAN) candidate, Vincente Fox, in the presidential election held on July 2.
The event is so unique to Mexican history that the winner of those elections, incoming president Vincente Fox, has proposed a period of cohabitation of sorts during which he would spend a few weeks at the presidential palace before he actually takes office. The former Coca-Cola executive would like to study government files with his predecessor and work on next year’s budget in order to present a project to parliament as early as September.
Mexico is Latin America’s second-largest country, Washington’s second most important trading partner, and the world’s thirteenth power. It is an ebullient cultural influence and a point of reference for the Central and South American continent as well as the entire Spanish-speaking world. It is also an important actor in the Organization of American States, engaged in helping countries which are presently going through political crises (Columbia, Haiti, Peru, Venezuela) to commit themselves to a process of normalization.
Considering the ruinous financial situation that he inherited when he took office in 1994, Ernesto Zedillo’s government managed to perform a true tour de force of economic miracles. The unemployment rate has been on a steady decline for the past five year. The inflation rate is down to 12.3 percent from its 52 percent high in 1995. And economic growth has been on the increase for 17 straight quarters or at a rhythm of 5% during the last four years. What’s more, Mr. Zedillo prompted political reforms that had often been promised but never fulfilled. He encouraged the Federal Electoral Institute to acquire more autonomy by detaching itself from the executive branch. With its newly acquired independence, the institute was better able to perform its many tasks, such as scrutinizing the fairness of elections, with competence.
Aided by the increase in democratic competition, little by little statehouses fell to opposition governors and by 1997 a combination of opposition parties had won a congressional majority, allowing for unprecedented scrutiny of both the federal budget and cabinet ministers. However, the watershed event is the change of power that will occur in the Mexican presidency, which is where Mexico’s constitution concentrates political power.
Nothing is more indispensable to a healthy democracy than the possibility of change and no event demonstrates a greater advance for democracy in Mexico than the transformation made possible by the passage of power that will occur in December as the result of the presidential elections held last week.
July 2000
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