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| Professor Denise
Dresser addresses her audience. |
From PRI Predominance
to Divided Democracy
Annelise Wunderlich,
Graduate School of Journalism
The same winds of change
that swept Vicente Fox into power may hold him back as he
struggles to consolidate his power, according to political
scientist Denise Dresser. Currently a Fellow at the Pacific
Council on International Policy at the University of Southern
California and on leave from the Instituto Tecnológico
Autónomo de México (ITAM), Dresser came
to CLAS on November 7 to discuss the state of Mexico's fragile
democracy.
A well-respected and
outspoken voice on Mexican politics, Dresser put Fox under
the microscope during her talk. Fox, using considerable charm
and media savvy, won the presidency in 2000 by a slim margin
and initiated a historic shift in Mexican political culture,
she explained. The PRI's demise was met with cheers from
across opposition party lines. Helped by the reform efforts
of Carlos Salinas and Ernesto Zedillo, the electoral process
was finally freed from 71 years of fraud and omnipotent rulers.
With Fox, Dresser said, came a new multi-party era and "the
end to the Mexican presidency as we knew it."
But as Mexico makes the
transition to a more democratic regime, Fox faces a sharply
divided Congress and a more complicated political landscape.
Dresser explained that Fox must share power with the broad
coalition of interests that helped him defeat the PRI--a
task that leaves him governing "under siege."
For the first time in
decades, Dresser explained, the Mexican people voted for
an individual rather than a party. With his cowboy boots
and folksy style, Fox was seen as a true man of the people.
Yet recently he has "lost some of his spark," she said. A
continuously bickering legislature and the lingering PRI
influence at all levels of local and federal government block
real change. So far Fox has failed to resolve some of the
country's most pressing problems: corruption, a precarious
judiciary, and an age-old impunity. Mexicans may have "tossed
the bums out," she said, but the PRI's legacy remains.
Dresser described Mexico's
political culture in terms of the "green circle" (the popular
majority) and the "red circle" (the elites). Fox jumped over
the red circle to convince the green circle to vote for him,
but in doing so he alienated the real power brokers in the
country. Though the former Coca Cola CEO is an expert in
marketing to the masses, Dresser said, he has more trouble
persuading congressmen. As a result, major legislation is
stuck in limbo and the government has become paralyzed. Meanwhile,
those in the green circle are left with empty promises.
Mexico's political parties
were "rocked to their foundations" by the PRI's defeat, Dresser
said. Fox faces conflict even within PAN, his own party.
On the one hand he has Jorge Castaneda, the left-leaning
foreign minister, advising him not to negotiate with the
PRI on key policies. On the other he has Santiago Creel,
his interior secretary, urging him to work closely with the
PRI on fiscal reform packages. As Fox waffles back and forth
between cabinet members, panistas in Congress often act against
him--hurting the PAN's credibility in the process.
The other main opposition
party, PRD, has fared even worse. The real tragedy for Mexico's
center-left party is that the democratic transition it has
been fighting for has already occured, Dresser said. Torn
apart by infighting and mismanagement, the PRD has effectively
become a rebel without a cause.
The real mystery, she
added, is what will happen to the PRI. For most of its existence
it was a pragmatic coalition of interests with no real identity.
Now, she suggested, it will be forced to define itself: "[The
PRI] will either succumb to internal cannibalism or reinvent
itself as a modern, centrist alternative."
All parties have lost
the driving forces that assure their unity, Dresser said.
She predicted that one of them will be reduced to a minimal
presence in the new multi-party government. They have no
incentive to promote effective policies, she explained, and "instead
of rapid change, inertia has prevailed in Mexico."
But despite her pessimism
about Mexico's political present, Dresser remains positive
about its future. "I still believe that the possibility of
change is real," she said. Vicente Fox's arrival has opened
the door to greater accountability; and the end of one-party
rule was a necessary step on the path to democracy. Most
importantly, she said, the Mexican people have seen that
they have the power to effect their government at the polls.
