Mexico's Disputed Election

Luis Rubio and Jeffrey Davidow

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2006

Summary:  The July 2 Mexican election was about more than picking a president. It represented a choice between continuing the liberalization of recent years or returning to the past. Neither alternative, however, offers a solution to the country's problems. To address those, the next president must not only deepen reforms but also extend their benefits to the many Mexicans who have been left out of the process.

Luis Rubio is President of CIDAC (the Center of Research for Development), in Mexico City, and a co-author of "Mexico Under Fox". Jeffrey Davidow is President of the Insitute of the Americas and the author of "The U.S. and Mexico: The Bear and the Porcupine." He was U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 1998 to 2002.

A WAKE-UP CALL

Mexico's July 2 election was not only a contest to select a president and a new Congress. It was also a referendum on the future of the country, and voters recognized it as such. The national question essentially came down to whether Mexicans wanted continuity with the reforms of recent years or a return to the past -- whether the country should keep pursuing the political and economic liberalization that started in the mid-1980s or go back the state-driven development model of the 1970s.

The first choice was represented by Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), the second by Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Although Calderón seems to have edged out López Obrador for a victory, both received about one-third of the vote. (López Obrador rejected the results and took his protest to the streets and the courts.) But neither Calderón's promise of continuity nor López Obrador's reactionary populism offers a solution to Mexico's deep and abiding structural problems.

Calderón's appeal -- most evident among the better educated and the better off and in the northern half of the country, where the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and economic reform have had the most beneficial effects -- rested on his argument that the financial stability, social peace, and moderate economic growth of recent years were too important to risk with a return to the policies and governing methods that had not served the country well in the past. López Obrador spoke more to the less educated and the less well off and to the center and south of the country, where the reforms of the past two decades have produced considerably less positive change. He rejected Mexico's current governing doctrine, which holds that the nation is best served by the internationalization of its economy, the reduction of state controls, the creation of independent, counterbalancing institutions, a greater play of market forces, and a decreased role for politics and parties in the running of daily life. López Obrador argued that the country has been heading in the wrong direction since it broke away from its tradition of strong government and a subordinate economy. During the campaign, Calderón attempted to distance himself from fellow PAN member President Vicente Fox, who had canned him from the cabinet. He argued for more effective and expansive social programs. But in fact, Calderón's message was an endorsement of Fox's policies and the recent trends in Mexico's economic and political development. His campaign was oriented toward the future; López Obrador looked to the past.

Nostalgia for a simpler time played a strong role in López Obrador's campaign. As mayor of Mexico City, he "got things done" -- a new highway and city beautification projects -- in a way that suggested that he was a throwback to the power brokers of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) before that mammoth became hopelessly mired in the tar pits of corruption, cronyism, and economic crisis. (Rebels such as López Obrador abandoned the PRI to form the PRD.) He also capitalized on Fox's inability to meet the inordinately high expectations that he had created. (Probably no politician could have met those expectations, even one much more skilled in political infighting than Fox proved to be.)

López Obrador's greatest strength was his ability to exploit Mexicans' sense of victimization and disillusionment. He spoke to and for those who see themselves as the losers in the process of modernization. With a campaign appeal more blatantly class-based than anything recently seen in Mexican politics, he turned a passive population of poor and middle-class people who have remained on the sidelines of economic growth into a social movement demanding to play a role in the transformation of their society.

Poverty in Mexico remains endemic. Neither the old PRI approach to development (which in this election was espoused by López Obrador) nor the more recent attempt to modernize the economy through limited market-based policies has succeeded in reducing inequality in any significant way. In fact, Mexico never really liberalized its economy and politics to the extent necessary for a modern society: some reforms were ambitious, but many favored cronies, and under the PRI governments that preceded Fox, reform left the old political system and its vested interests untouched. As a result, the benefits of reform have been less than expected, and many people were wounded and left wanting: the peasants, workers, and small-business and factory owners overwhelmed by international competition and displaced by the forces of a modern economy. It was from these groups and their sympathizers -- the intellectuals and social activists of the left -- that López Obrador constructed his movement. He reinforced their belief that now more than ever success in Mexico depends on having the right parents rather than on effort and merit, and that there is an imbalance not only of wealth but of opportunities kept in place by the rich and the powerful.

López Obrador's supporters were unconcerned that much of what the candidate advocated -- stronger state control, more subsidies, greater government spending, lower international reserves -- had been tried before and failed, often resulting in monumental financial crises for the country. Nor were they particularly troubled that his approach might lead to a more heavy-handed and intolerant and less open government. He seemed to promise a return to a purified, powerful, but this time honest and competent PRI (although he never explained his vision in that way).

Optimism characterized Fox's 2000 campaign: the expectation that the alternation of parties in government would open up a world of possibilities for the country and its citizens. Although an understandable thirst for social justice motivated many of López Obrador's followers, that desire was heavily mixed with feelings of disappointment, resentment, bitterness, and jealousy, which were so apparent in the masses of people who came to the streets to protest the electoral results. The deep divisions that marked the campaign and the post­July 2 reaction do not bode well for Mexico. When he is inaugurated on December 1, the new president will have to deal with a challenge that neither continuity nor a return to the past can successfully overcome.

AN INCOMPLETE TRANSITION