The loss of the presidency
by the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) in July 2000
lays to rest fierce debates over the Mexican transition to
democracy. For some, Mexico's transition had taken place
years ago and although fine-tuning was still required, the
basic institutional changes for democratic rule were in place.
The 2000 election simply confirmed Mexico's democratic credentials.
Others argued, however, that a true transition would only
materialize if and when the PRI lost the presidential chair.
As a result of Vicente Fox's victory both sides now agree
that Mexico is a functioning electoral democracy. Mexico
underwent a "voted transition."
The election revealed
that the ballot box, revised electoral laws, and refurbished
electoral institutions were capable of eroding the PRI's
dominance and dislodging the party from the presidency. In
the electoral arena, Mexico proved that it had the essential
components of a democracy: real voters with real choices,
political parties with national representation, autonomous
electoral institutions, an impartial media and an independent
public opinion. The contest was uncertain and had clear rules,
voters punished the incumbent and brought a different party
into power, the winner was recognized by his adversaries
and civic normalcy prevailed throughout.
The debate over Mexico's
political system has now shifted to the adjectives that should
characterize its new democratic regime: "fledgling," "unconsolidated," "skin-deep," "fragile," "divided." Arguments
abound because of the nature of the political process that
ousted the ruling party from power. Over the last decade,
Mexico experienced a transition from a hyper-presidentialist
regime to a presidentialist system. Political and economic
decentralization led to a transfer from the federal government
to state governments, from the PRI to opposition parties,
and from political parties to civil society. Mexico became
a country in which power was divided in a complex way, ceased
to be concentrated in the hands of the president, and flowed
to other actors within and without the party system. Vicente
Fox and his Alliance for Change capitalized on the changes
produced by power-sharing, but the division of power itself
will constrain the new government's room to maneuver. What
follows is an initial approximation to key themes that will
shape Mexico's new politics and affect the country's prospects
for democratic governance.
The conditions that enabled
Vicente Fox's broad-based coalition to defeat the PRI - and
the political landscape the 2000 election produced -- may
make it difficult for him to govern and deepen the democratic
agenda. Fox assembled a politically heterogeneous and ideologically
divergent coalition; now he will have to negotiate and share
power with it. Mexico still is a presidentialist system of
government, but it is also a multiparty system. Fox won a
majority of votes, but not enough of them to avoid the emergence
of a divided government, wherein his party does not control
congress. The future of democratic governance will be limited
and shaped by a constrained executive, a divided congress,
a party system built on parties in disarray, and a decentralized
political geography in which the PRI still exerts a large
amount of influence.
Democratic governance
will also be complicated by the weight of the past and by
inertia rooted in the country's political culture and institutional
arrangements. Traditional political alignments have been
swept away and yet many of the old institutions and rules
-- including dysfunctional constitutional provisions such
as the non-reelection of legislators -- remain in place.
Major components of the system - such as PRI patronage - have
been weakened, but others - such as PRI veto power - remain
in place. Empowered new actors in the media and civil society
coexist, side by side, with aging attitudes and authoritarian
practices. But perhaps the most daunting challenge for democratic
rule will be institutional renovation to address the precarious
nature of the judiciary, the absence of the rule of law,
the persistence of age-old impunity. Many of Mexico's institutions
are ill-equipped to meet the ongoing challenge of democratic
consolidation. The country has no strong and rooted tradition
of democratic institutions and its main task will be to build
them.
The chapter begins
by examining the historic changes that have taken place
at the executive level of government, that is, the absence
of key elements of old presidentialism in Mexico's post-PRI
era. In this context, I analyze President Fox's challenges
regarding executive-legislative relations as well as the
nature of the new president's political style. The second
part of the chapter focuses on Mexico's political party
system with a special emphasis on the breakdown of PRI
hegemony and the challenges that lie ahead for party institutionalization
and party politics. The chapter later evaluates the divided
nature of Mexico's political power and demonstrates the
extent to which this dispersion can be attributed to the
development of a stronger and more active civil society
as well as a more independent media. The chapter follows
with an assessment of Mexico's perennial challenge of building
effective institutions and practices that assure the rule
of law, especially in areas related to judicial reform,
law enforcement, drug-trafficking, and corruption. I conclude
with an analysis of Mexico's future challenges based on
an initial assessment of Fox's administration. I argue
that although the country has undergone a profound and
positive democratic transition, it remains to be seen the
extent to which democratic governance will be truly institutionalized
and consolidated.
The New Presidency:
Fox In a Box
In Mexico the days of
omnipotent presidentialism have come to an end. Since 1988
the Mexican presidency has lost or voluntarily ceded control
over key areas of its traditional domain due to a combination
of political will, partisan negotiations and public pressure.
The country moved slowly away from an interventionist executive
who exercised meta-constitutional powers to a restrained
executive restricted to his formal role. Through successive
electoral reforms enacted since 1990, the executive abandoned
control over the organization of federal elections. Reforms
carried out in 1993 established that the president could
no longer name the Mayor of Mexico City, who would be elected
by the popular vote. Also in that year the Bank of Mexico
formally became an autonomous institution, thus limiting
the president's capacity to dictate the country's monetary
policy. Since 1995, executive nominations for Supreme Court
Justices have to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate,
instead of a simple majority. In the 1997 mid-term election,
the PRI lost control of the Lower House, and as a result,
the president could no longer get legislation approved without
building coalitions with the opposition. Ernesto Zedillo
(1994-2000) offered a republican presidency, detached from
the ruling PRI, and he frequently kept his word, leaving
decisions to congress and relinquishing his capacity to hand-pick
his successor.
The 2000 election eliminated
the three conditions - unified government, strong discipline
within the majority party, and presidential leadership of
the PRI - that enabled Mexican presidentialism to exist and
flourish. Given the absence of the key instruments of presidentialism,
Vicente Fox has less room to maneuver than post- electoral
euphoria had first suggested. Mexico's president is
governing in a box, under siege, and within the confines
of a contested congress. More people voted for Fox than for
the National Action Party (PAN): the difference between voting
percentages at the party level was not as big as the PAN
wanted or the PRI feared; the "Fox effect" allowed
a charismatic candidate to win, but was not enough to guarantee
a unified congress headed by the president's party. Fox obtained
5.5 percent more of the vote than his party and its allies
did for congress. Fox's coalition, the Alliance for Change
won 43.7 percent of the vote in the presidential race, followed
by the PRI with 36.91 percent, and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas' Alliance
for Mexico with 17.02 percent. But in the congressional races
the Alliance for Change garnered only 2 percent more votes
than the PRI. Beyond the elusive desire for change, Mexico's
newly elected executive was not endowed with a forceful mandate.
He has to continually construct one, and that endeavor will
not be an easy one to the unprecedented division of power
in the Mexican congress.
Executive-legislative
relations prior to the 2000 election cannot be compared to
the new challenges Fox and a divided congress will face.
After the PRI lost its majority in the lower chamber in the
mid-term election of 1997, a true revolution in parliamentary
organization and practices emerged during the second half
of the Zedillo administration. The Mexican legislature turned
into a battlefield, replete with frontal attacks, strategic
retreats, seemingly endless negotiations and frequent stalemates.
In contrast with past passivity, budgets for the fiscal years
1998 and 1999 were heavily modified in committees. Opposition
deputies challenged both taxes and spending, took the budget
negotiations into overtime, and achieved some of their goals.
The executive was responsible for only 11 percent of all
legislation that reached the Chamber of Deputies, lower than
any point in the three previous congresses, and deputies
presented a record number of bills. The president was less
influential than in the past, and congressmen were more so.
But certain trends were
proven and predictable: high party discipline remained in
full force, last minute deals brokered between the PAN and
the PRI - such as those relating to the bailout of the banks
and a set of electoral reforms - became the norm. On economic
and political issues, the PRI-PAN cufflink set the agenda,
rounded up the votes and frequently won the day, despite
the recalcitrance of the leftist Party of the Democratic
Revolution (PRD). PRI control of the Senate meant that many
PAN-PRD initiatives never saw the light of day. Although
highly visible bickering in congress was frequent, in the
end at least two-party consensus assured the passage of key
bills and assured governability. Party cohesiveness prevailed.
The results of the 2000
election, in contrast, have created a new context for practices
and alliances in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.
Mexico is moving into a fluid, unpredictable situation where
no single party has the majority to approve legislation on
its own, and ad-hoc coalitions will have to be built on a
case by case basis. Unholy alliances between traditional
archenemies like the PRI and the PRD may be forged, and even
the president and his party could have very different legislative
agendas. In order to pass a constitutional reform in the
Lower House that requires a two-thirds majority or 333 votes,
the PAN - with 206 deputies - would need an additional 127
votes.
In Mexico's new legislative
landscape, government officials are being forced to defend
their proposals, and congressional lobbying has become an
integral part of daily politics. The real battles over Mexico's
destiny are being fought not in Los Pinos (the presidential
residence) but in San Lázaro (the congressional building).
Therefore the kind of rapid change the Fox team envisioned
upon arrival into office has been difficult to bring about.
Ordinary laws and constitutional reforms have become contested
and combative affairs in congress, in the senate, and in
local legislatures. The election produced a weaker president
who will have to negotiate with a divided congress. And given
the composition of congress itself, some have suggested that
although Mexico is a presidentialist system, in coming years,
the country will function with a parliamentary logic.
Mexico's congress changed
since the 2000 election, but so did the executive. Fox's
victory brought an end to the presidency as Mexicans had
known it. During the PRI's reign, Mexican presidents wielded
great power but were subjected to little accountability.
Their personal styles diverged but they shared a common purpose:
to preserve the PRI-dominated system through discretionary
presidential intervention. In a break with the past, Vicente
Fox inaugurated a new era in which the president is viewed
less as a totemic figure and more as a temporary occupant
of a post that can be won and lost at the polls. The imperial
presidency has ended and the informal presidency has begun.
Instead of imposing from above, the President now has to
engage in bargaining and deal brokering in order to generate
support from below.
As part of the new government's
approach, the President perceives the country as divided
into two different dimensions: the green circle, composed
by the majority of the population, and the red circle, composed
by elites who form opinion and make decisions. The first
circle is where the votes are; the second circle has the
capacity to influence them. The red circle encompasses the
beneficiaries of the president's promised programs whereas
the green circle includes the legislators who can veto them.
The green circle includes those who approve of Vicente Fox
and the red circle incorporates those who have less lofty
opinions about him.
Fox has tried to
govern by "going public," jumping over the red
circle in order to convince the green circle, using his personality
to generate popularity. Instead of locking himself in to
negotiate, the president delegates that task to others. Instead
of encouraging mobilization via political parties, the president
appeals to the media. Instead of working within institutions,
the president jumps over them. Vicente Fox has transformed
the Mexican presidency into a public affair. By doing so,
he is adapting the Mexican presidency to the Information
Age, wherein via the media, presidents speak directly to
the public and appeal to millions of voters instead of convincing
hundreds of congressmen.
As governor of the state
of Guanajuato, Fox set a precedent, a blueprint for current
executive actions. Fox did not exercise power sitting behind
a desk, reading policy briefs. He governed on the streets
and on the screens, consulting and asking, listening and
deciding. He traveled through the countryside, eliciting
public support for his policies. In the presidency he has
adopted the same activist stance vis-à-vis congress.
His presidency is media-driven and television-based. He appears
frequently on television, he has a weekly radio show, he
promotes his programs and responds to his critics.
Fox triumphed over the
PRI due to a successful campaign based on "The Millenium
Project," a political manual and roadmap. Devised by
one of Fox's closest friends and former Coca-Cola colleague,
José Luis González, the document set forth
how Fox, "the product" would be sold, and what
would compel Mexicans to buy him. The Millennium Project
gave Fox precise instructions on how to steal banners from
the left and contain the right, how to take advantage of
his height and how to comb his hair, what to say and what
to wear. Advised by a team of expert marketers, Fox learned
how to develop a winning persona: stubborn and persistent,
charismatic and contradictory, informal and intemperate,
simple and sincere. Vicente Fox toppled the PRI by gambling
on the formula: "Marketing + Money = Presidency."
Since the beginning of
his term in December 2000, Fox has used the same credo to
govern the electorate he courted in an assiduous fashion.
Just as he did during his three-year long campaign, Fox constructs
his image deliberately and carefully. He knows that 69 percent
of Mexicans who wanted "change" voted for him,
and therefore the word has become his sound bite of choice.
He is aware that a majority of voters between the ages of
18 and 34 are his natural constituency, and he wants to speak
as colloquially as they do. He understands that the majority
of Mexicans relate to politics through television, and consequently
he appears onscreen as frequently as he can. Fox ran a personality-driven
campaign and now he is running a personality-driven presidency.
Day after day, event after event, Mexicans are treated to
the presidency as a spectacle in which the president himself
occupies center stage.
Vicente Fox has inaugurated
a new way of doing politics in Mexico, based largely on the
techniques he applied to propel himself to office including
polls, data processing, image management and marketing. Polls
discover what the population thinks, data processing reveals
the depth of those beliefs, image management builds upon
detected desires, and marketing inserts the product into
the media. Behind Fox's carefully crafted persona, an army
of advisors carries out polls and discusses their results,
designs media strategies and evaluates their impact. At the
helm of the Office of the Presidential Image, Francisco Ortiz,
a former marketing executive with Procter and Gamble, takes
the country's pulse through weekly opinion polls. When the
president's popularity dips, quick measures - including a
televised marriage ceremony - are taken to counteract the
downward trend.
Vicente Fox appeals to
public opinion at large, at times bypassing political parties
and their congressional representatives, because he won the
presidential election in that fashion. The president believes
that the successful promotion of himself and his policies
will lead to key legislative victories in a divided government,
thus assuring democratic governance. But the use of public
relations to determine presidential success is fundamentally
incompatible with bargaining, and without it, the Mexican
congress may not respond to the president's demands. Ultimately,
the media-driven, peripatetic and public style that enabled
Fox may be counterproductive for executive-legislative relations.
The presidential campaign
produced a president who has a great deal of media experience
but little political experience, who can speak in front of
cameras but has trouble convincing congressmen, who speaks
to the masses but does not understand the country's institutional
elite. A recalcitrant, divided congress routinely trips the
president at every turn. Because he and members of his team
believe in "going public," Fox fought for negotiations
with the zapatista rebels and the indigenous rights bill
in the initial months of his presidency before building support
for them in congress. Fox also launched a massive media campaign
to advertise the need for fiscal reform in the spring of
2000, before having constructed consensus for it in his own
party. Ultimately, congress passed an indigenous rights bill
that was not to the president's liking, and fiscal reform
languished in the legislature for months.
"Going public" is
a strategy for presidential leadership that frequently works
well in consolidated democracies, but does so less effectively
in their incipient counterparts. In the United States - for
example - the green circle can and does influence the red
circle, but in Mexico, the green circle has very little engagement
with the red circle. In the United States, the population
can and does pressure political elites, but in Mexico elites
routinely ignore the population. In full-fledged democracies,
citizens know who their congressmen are and how to communicate
with them, but in Mexico the majority of the people don't
even know their congressman's name, let alone how he or she
votes. Whereas in the United States, a congressman who ignores
his base runs the risk of losing his reelection, in Mexico
congressmen as a rule ignore their constituencies and pay
no political price for doing so. North of the Río
Grande, the president can use the bully pulpit to pressure
recalcitrant adversaries in the legislature, but in Mexico,
presidential popularity is irrelevant for lawmakers that
do not face re-election. The future of a PAN congressman
hinges more on the goodwill of the party's leadership than
on the good image of the president.
"Going public" in
Mexico has created congressmen who are ill-disposed to a
President who prefers to deal with them indirectly. Fox's
strategy entails posturing, and has frequently fixed the
President's bargaining position, making it difficult to reach
subsequent compromises. As a form of presidential leadership,
the public route undermines the legitimacy and the pride
of other politicians. So when Fox has attempted to jump over
congress, he has won the popularity contest, but has lost
legislative battles. What the president perceives as persuasion,
congressmen perceive as coercion. When Fox appeals to the
public at large, he places obstacles along the road of concertation.
By adopting a final position
on the stage, the president has limited his room to maneuver
behind it. By using public strategies, the president has
jeopardized private negotiations. By appealing to the silent
majority, Fox has often alienated the powerful minority.
Jumping over the heads of party politicians --in order to
sway public opinion - functions effectively in countries
where elected representatives are responsive to their constituencies.
But in Mexico, where congressmen cannot be reelected, and
their destinies depend less on the will of the people, and
more on their party's executive committee, "going public" may
exacerbate problems instead of solving them.
Going public cannot solve
the structural problem the new government faces: Mexico has
a presidential system of government in which the president's
powers have been reined in by divided government. This combination
has created unprecedented challenges of political and economic
management, and may lead to the postponement of pending economic
and political reforms. The Fox team promised a six-year term
of increased competitiveness in telecommunications, stronger
public finances, weakened media monopolies, reforms to the
electricity, micro-credits for mini-businesses, and negotiations
on immigration with the United States. And throughout his
first year in office, Fox underscored his commitment to assure
that these changes took place. But Fox's lack of congressional
support within his own party (and outside of it) has hampered
the government's capacity to construct stable coalitions
of support for its reform agenda.
In the Mexican case,
the combination of presidential popularity and political
will has not been enough to assure the passage of key reforms.
The government had hoped to take advantage of the "bono
democrático" (the democratic bonus produced by
the transition from authoritarian rule). However, government
elites overestimated the president's popularity and underestimated
congressional opposition. Prospects for economic reform - including
the privatization of the electricity sector - have been delayed
due to the lack of congressional support, and this problem
may continue until and unless the Fox government can build
reform coalitions in a divided congress. A weak president
faced with a divided congress could be a recipe for governmental
paralysis.
In the 57th Legislature
under Ernesto Zedillo - Fox's predecessor -- 23 percent of
bills that were sponsored by opposition parties that included
the PRI were approved. Broad-spectrum alliances occurred
in a divided congress in the past and may happen again if
the new executive demonstrates good negotiating skills in
the future. Despite a fractured congress, a limited common
legislative agenda could be feasible if the Fox government
is able to assure the support of his own party and successfully
woo moderate fractions of the opposition, particularly in
the PRI. Yet bargaining may come at a price: in an effort
to obtain the PRI's collaboration, the Fox government could
face the dilution of reforms to a degree that hampers their
effectiveness.
Political Parties:
Shaken to the Core
The 2000 election marks
the end of hegemonic party rule by the PRI and confirmed
how substantially the PRI's predominance had eroded since
the turbulent elections of 1988. The Mexican transition to
democracy was built election after election through a gradual,
evolutionary process wherein the PRI lost power with the
passage of time. Prior to 1982, PRI vote stood at 70-90 percent.
In the 1997 congressional election PRI support fell to a
historic low point of 39.1 percent and in 2000 the ruling
party's vote decreased to an unprecedented 36.91 percent.
Increased electoral competitiveness and several significant
electoral reforms took their toll and led the PRI to ultimately
lose the last crucial bastion: the presidency.
The breakdown of PRI
hegemony poses significant challenges for party institutionalization,
largely because the election has left the party system in
a state of disarray. Prior to the 2000 presidential race
it seemed that despite internal turbulence, Mexico's three
main parties were fairly consolidated. Party officials projected
an ideologically stable image even though voters - as public
opinion polls revealed - did not have strong ideological
orientations compatible with those supported by party leaders.
In the case of the privatization of government enterprises,
for example, the attitude of PAN and PRI voters ran across
the entire ideological spectrum. As a result, the PAN and
the PRD alternated as the PRI's main competitor approximately
once every three years from 1985 to 2000. On the other hand,
voter profiles were comparatively stable: there were PRI
voter profiles, PRD voter profiles and strategic-voter profiles,
and these had not changed much over time.
Fox's victory rocked
the foundations of the country's party system. In the 2000
election, for many voters the choice was for an individual
rather than a party. Fox lacked the constraints of a clear
party platform and his pragmatic, shifting stance blurred
the PAN's ideological profile. In a political system characterized
by widely prevalent cynicism toward parties, Mexican voters
voted more for the candidate and less for his party, more
for change and less for its specific content. Electoral dealignment
from traditional party bases took place and was enough to
create a broad-based coalition of Mexicans from all walks
of life in favor of Vicente Fox.
The profile of the electorate
in the aftermath of the election poses challenges for both
winners and losers. Voters did not vote for policy issues
but for the prospect of better government. They did not vote
for broad-based political reform but for better economic
management, less crime and less corruption. The electorate
decided to "toss the bums out" with the prospect
that the newly elected government would do better. Partisan
positions and policy issues mattered less and empowering
a forceful politician who promised to govern more effectively
than the PRI mattered more. Many voters abandoned their party
affiliations and took risks, and in the future may do so
again if government performance falls below their expectations.
Mexico's main parties thus face a scenario of potential electoral
volatility and lukewarm partisan loyalties. In the aftermath
of the 2000 election, the PAN, the PRI and the PRD have problems
of identity and strategy.
Although the PAN had
made important electoral inroads in the 1990s through a "creeping
federalist" strategy, and had steadily increased its
congressional representation, the party could not have won
the presidency without Vicente Fox and the political phenomenon
he unleashed. Yet the nature and characteristic of Fox's
victory create future dilemmas for a party that was conceived
and has operated largely as an opposition force. The PAN
was created to oppose what its founders perceived as the
populist excesses of Lázaro Cárdenas in the
1930s. During the 1980s it functioned as a "loyal" opposition
and during the 1990s it was rewarded - via recognition for
its local electoral victories - by a larger slice of the
political pie. Yet despite its strategic collaboration with
the PRI, the PAN remained a party defined by distance, opposition,
separateness. Historically, the PAN has distrusted presidential
power, and now finds itself in the unprecedented situation
of having to exercise it.
The PAN had frequently
been described as the only democratic party in Mexico because
its long tradition of internal primaries, of rules and regulations,
of time-honed methods to elect and rotate its leadership.
Yet the PRI was defeated by the ultimate "outsider," even
to his own party, the PAN. Fox won because he did not play
by the rules of the game. Instead of waiting for the National
Action Party to nominate him, he began his campaign before
the nomination period and then presented PAN leaders with
a fait accompli. Instead of relying exclusively on
the PAN's campaign organization he created a parallel fundraising
and electoral mobilization agency known as "Amigos de
Fox" (Friends of Fox). Instead of using the PAN's center-right
agenda as the basis for his presidential bid, he devised
his own pragmatic platform. Fox's victory brought an end
to the PAN's "long march" to conquer the presidency,
but it also raised questions regarding the party's future
course.
Fox's reliance on Mexico's
first Political Action Committee -- "Friends of Fox" --
postponed a necessary organizational rehaul, and encouraged
split-ticket voting in favor of the party's candidate. Post-electoral
surveys underscored that the majority of the population did
not vote for a shift to the right, or for the ideological
position of the PAN's elite, or for social conservatism.
The country voted against PRI incompetence but not in favor
of PAN's platform. The PAN has always been the party of "political
reform" yet the electorate did not endow it with a mandate
for further political change.
PAN supporters tend to
be religious but are essentially heterogeneous on economic
and cultural issues. The party has a core of right wing and
liberal supporters among professionals, the upper class and
highly educated voters. But the PAN also garners support
among left-wing groups that encompass housewives and groups
with lower education and lower income. Thus the challenge
for the Fox government will be to govern at the center but
without alienating the right or the left. The center of Mexico's
political spectrum is occupied largely by voters with weak
or nonexistent party identifications, whose political support
Fox will need to retain while reining in more intemperate
stances.
Relations between Fox
and the PAN since the 2000 election have exhibited a marked
level of conflict, particularly when the president has adopted
stances that contradict the views of PAN elders. In terms
of public rhetoric, PAN leaders and Fox are frequently at
odds with each other. The PAN itself has yet to adjust to
the imperatives, constraints and responsibilities of a party
in power. At times PAN congressmen have exhibited an extraordinary
amount of anti-Fox discipline, as they did when they opposed
the president's stance on the indigenous rights bill. Animosity
between key members of the PAN hierarchy and Vicente Fox
runs deep, and frequently PAN leaders have seemed more intent
on sabotaging the president than on working with him. Many
traditional panistas feel that the party is slipping through
their fingers; they reject the replacement of traditional panismo by
pragmatic foxismo; they fought for power and now do
not know exactly how Vicente Fox should enact his agenda
without selling the party's soul.
The party has confronted
recurrent challenges created by a savvy politician who reaches
out to constituencies directly, and has sought to establish
ties with a wide variety of citizen organizations. Fox's
advocacy of the style and instruments of direct democracy
go against the grain of the PAN's vision of political parties
as the only acceptable mediation between citizens and the
state. The PAN has yet to find a way to govern in tandem
with a president who has publicly declared that he will govern
alone. It remains to be seen whether in light of their mutually
agreed dependence, and with future elections looming large,
Fox and the PAN will develop a mutually supportive arrangement.
On the left of the political
spectrum, the PRD emerged from the 2001 election in a weakened
position in comparison with its electoral gains in 1997.
The left won once again the mayorship of Mexico City but
performed badly at the national level and lost over half
of its congressional seats. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas,
in his third bid for the presidency, became a victim of the "useful
vote" as traditional leftist voters abandoned the PRD's
fold to vote for a candidate - Vicente Fox - who actually
had a chance of defeating the PRI. Even the PRD's victory
in the country's capital was clouded by the PAN's unprecedented
gains that forced the PRD to co-govern with its historic
enemy in the city's legislative assembly.
The PRD's electoral fracas
was due to Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas' bad performance
in office compounded by strategic miscalculations during
his presidential campaign. After a brief honeymoon in office
as Mayor of Mexico City, Cárdenas experienced a steady
erosion of support as his government flailed and media attacks
mounted. Cárdenas' political fortunes also suffered
collateral damage from his party's tumultuous election for
party leadership, and the exit of party founder, Porfirio
Muñoz Ledo. Once again, divisions in the PRD seemed
more pervasive, more constant and more public than divisions
in its rivals. Internal splits tarnished the party's image
as the standard bearer of democracy.
As it had in the past,
the party suffered due to its reliance on the leadership
of a single individual, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas,
who continuously displayed his personal preference for confrontational
tactics. As the presidential race evolved, Cárdenas
campaigned on the proposition that a true transition to democracy
would not take place unless the left won, and therefore was
not concerned about becoming the "spoiler." Instead
of resurrecting the moderate stance that had served him so
well in 1997, Cárdenas remained entrenched in a recalcitrant
leftist identity that appealed to core PRD voters but alienated
everyone else.
Cárdenas refused
Fox's offer to assemble an electoral alliance and instead
gambled that his candidacy would be enough to assure between
20-25 percent of the vote - enough to sabotage a Fox victory
-- and thus guarantee the PRD a solid representation in congress.
From that foothold the PRD would groom Cárdenas' political
protegés, Andrés Manuel López Obrador
or Rosario Robles, for the presidential race in 2004. Cárdenas,
however, misunderstood the significance and weight of the "useful
vote" and overestimated his capacity to retain popular
support. Electoral results revealed that the independents
who had cast their lot with him in 1997 defected and even
leftist voters left the fold: Cárdenas received significantly
fewer votes than his coalition did for congress. His failed
crusade left the PRD in a beleaguered and embattled state.
The true tragedy for the PRD has been that the democratic
transition it was created to bring about has already occurred.
The PRI did not understand
the election and underestimated the desire for change. Party
leaders believed that they could only win by resorting to
the party's traditional modus operandi and they were
wrong. Instead of building on the political capital produced
by the PRI's first-ever presidential primary in November
1999, the PRI squandered it. Instead of committing themselves
to the "new PRI" announced by presidential candidate
Francisco Labastida, regional powerbrokers returned to clientelistic
practices. Instead of reinventing itself, the PRI mimicked
itself. The party relied on the old voices, on the old machinery,
on the old forms of intimidation. The PRI looked to the past
and discarded modern campaign methods that might have assured
its future.
The 2000 presidential
election revealed that clientelism was no longer enough to
guarantee the PRI's electoral dominance. One of the key contributing
factors to the PRI's defeat was the decline of the "mobilized" voter
whose vote was bought, coerced or induced. Vote-buying did
not disappear, but its impact on electoral behavior was less
significant than in the past, proving that old-style machine
politics in Mexico reached their limits. Throughout the country
many Mexicans accepted the PRI's gifts --bicycles, washing
machines, foodstuffs, basic grains - and still voted against
the ruling party. The PRI bought, spent, distributed and
doled out but was unable to convince.
Overall voter turnout
was lower than during the 1994 presidential election, but
the machine-driven voter turnout favorable to the PRI decreased,
while the citizen-motivated vote favorable to Fox increased.
In southern Mexico the PRI machine malfunctioned: the party
was not able to mobilize the "green," rural vote
as it had in the past. The levels of voter turnout in southeast
Mexico were lower than in the rest of the country. In contrast,
urban educated Mexico turned out in droves to vote for change
and against the PRI. Voters between 18-34 years of age gave
Vicente Fox a 15 point advantage over the PRI's candidate
Francisco Labastida. Fox won with a 20 point advantage over
Labastida in the cities.
Fox successfully turned
the election into a referendum about change versus continuity:
69 percent of Mexicans who wanted change voted for Fox while
only 13 of those who favored change cast their ballots for
Labastida. Fox also won because many undecided voters - who
made up their minds in the last two weeks of the campaign - voted
for the Fox-PAN formula. Fox and the PAN's strong showing
in Mexico City and the state of Mexico - where the left leaning
PRI had made important electoral inroads since the mid-90's - revealed
that Fox's appeal to the "voto útil" (the
useful vote) of the left ultimately did work in his favor.
Fox also received electoral support from Mexicans who voted
for Roberto Madrazo - Labastida's unruly rival in the PRI
primary in November 1999 -- and from every 1 in 4 people
who had voted for Ernesto Zedillo in 1994. By waving the
banner of change and promising to "kick the PRI out" Fox
was able to assemble a heterogeneous coalition that encompassed
the country's ideological spectrum, from left to right.
The Fox coalition in
effect stole the PRI's identity as multi-class organization
that had the capacity to be all things to all people. The
identity of the PRI was defined by not having an identity
at all. The party had functioned successfully since its inception
in 1929 as a pragmatic coalition of interests. Over the years,
the PRI was able to unite in a single political force the
interests of most social groups: conservatives and revolutionaries,
peasants and agro-industrialists, workers and patrons. Its
ideological arch was so wide, so broad and so encompassing
that it could embrace most political stances. The PRI was
an emblematic "inclusionist" coalition. But in
order to survive the loss of the presidency and compete successfully,
the PRI will be forced to define itself. Definition, however,
implies exclusion, and it is unlikely that in the future,
the PRI will be able to maintain its diffuse ideology and
multifaceted constituency.
Despite its defeat, the
PRI was not destroyed; it became an opposition party, but
it did not disappear. The once ruling party still controls
59 percent of the states, it is still a majority in 65 percent
of the local legislatures and still has the strongest national
presence. In the past, the PRI had the power to impose its
will; in the aftermath of the 2000 election it has the power
to veto the government's initiatives. The PRI could become
the ultimate "spoiler," the volatile veto, the
hangman of any constitutional reform. Mexico's congressional
institutional dynamics will depend on what happens to the
PRI, on whether the party divides and/or disintegrates, regroups
and rebounds, decides to collaborate with the Fox government
or hampers it at every opportunity.
The PRI has yet to develop
a new identity in the aftermath of the election. Some factions
want the PRI to go back to its nationalist-populist-revolutionary
roots, while others still support market-led reforms and
the technocratic tilt the party took during the last decade.
The PRI's legislative behavior is a central question mark,
and underscores Mexico's curious paradox: the future dynamics
of the country's legislative life depend on a divided and
downtrodden party that does not really know how to behave
as one. The future of Fox's legislative agenda is in the
hands of a disorganized organization with no direction, no
leadership, no ideology and no clear course.
Up until the 2000 election
the PRI was a highly disciplined party in congress. The prohibition
on consecutive reelection of deputies meant that congressmen
were loyal to party leaders but detached from their constituencies.
Candidacies were decided by the PRI's top brass, not by open
primaries. Party loyalty was actually rewarded with a candidacy,
a bureaucratic position, a senate seat, or a governorship.
Congressmen followed the party line and the president and
his men delivered on their promises. The "dedazo" - the
president's capacity to hand-pick his successor -- kept this
system alive and well for decades, as the incoming president
protected the interests of the former president, including
all promises made to PRI legislators who voted the party
line.
That era has ended.
In all probability, a constitutional amendment that would
allow the reelection of congressmen will be approved during
the Fox term. PRI deputies will listen more to the demands
of their constituencies and have fewer incentives to obey
orders from above. As the PRI struggles to rebuild its bases
of support and democratize internally, open primaries will
become the rule instead of the exception. PRI discipline
will decrease. The PRI's loss of the presidency also entails
the loss of a large bureaucracy whose posts can no longer
be offered as a political reward. As a consequence, party
loyalty will no longer be a foregone conclusion. For 71 years
the PRI was the party of organized Mexico and most major
unions, peasant organizations, and professional associations
swelled its ranks. But after the 2000 election it is unlikely
that the PRI will be able to count on its past pillars of
support and traditional strategies to win the vote.
During hegemonic
rule, the PRI could always rely on vote-buying in rural areas
to assure electoral success. But in coming years, the real
political battleground will be the cities, where votes can
be garnered more efficiently and other parties can engage
in clientelist practices as well. The problem for the PRI
is that urban areas are highly competitive in electoral terms,
and the PAN, as the party in power in many cities, has the
upper hand. The PAN has also developed clientelist strategies
with a national coverage, and in the 2000 election the party
relied on them to mobilize its own voters with a greater
degree of effectiveness: 82 percent of those targeted by
the PAN voted for Vicente Fox. Not only has clientelism declined;
its effectiveness as a method for voter mobilization by the
PRI has also decreased.
The PRI is divided and
chaotic; it lacks autonomous organizations and routinized
procedures; its mere survival is unclear. Yet the PRD also
faces its own travails stemming from relatively weak organizational
links to civil society and organizational mishaps, that have
earned it a well-deserved reputation for divisiveness and
disorganization. Both parties have lost the driving forces
that fueled their electoral behavior and assured their unity.
The PRI has lost the presidency and the power and resources
that came with it and the PRD has been confronted with the
irrefutable fact that a democratic transition has already
taken place. Both parties now face the tasks of ideological
redefinition and leadership renovation. Perhaps, as Andreas
Schedler has suggested: Mexico will witness the birth of "a
two-and-a-half" party system, with one of them reduced
to a miniscule presence."
The party system that
has emerged from the 2000 election confirms several past
trends, but also faces new uncertainties. The system is highly
competitive and is centered on the three main parties, all
of which face uncertain futures and hard choices. The PRI
as a state party must learn how to become an opposition party.
The PAN as a former opposition party must learn how to become
a party in government. The PRD as a party of the old left
must learn how to become a party of the new left. While the
parties resolve their crises of identity, one thing is clear:
none of them show great appetite for congressional cooperation.
All three - the PRI, the PAN and the PRD - are thinking about
the mid-term election to renew the lower house in 2003 and
the next presidential race in 2006, and will structure their
future strategies accordingly.
The PRD will continue
to vote against most of the Fox government's legislative
initiatives for rational reasons. The electoral base of the
left - composed largely of low-income voters with lower levels
of education - may swell if former members of the PRI switch
over in light of the party's defeat. The PRD will continue
to decry the negative impact of economic neoliberalism, and
argue that the new administration is merely more of the same.
Meanwhile, the PRI's ad-hoc cooperative strategy will enable
the PRD to articulate a political discourse that blames the
PAN and the PRI for persistent social inequalities. The PRD
knows that crucial legislative decisions, such as the budget,
will ultimately be approved by the combined votes of the
PAN and the PRI. The left can maintain a purist, opposition
stance without jeopardizing governability, but pay no political
cost for its strategic stance,
In Mexico's new political
context, opposition parties will play predictable roles dictated
by the libretto of their current circumstances. They know
that they will not be able to obtain all their demands at
the negotiating table, but nonetheless hope to make a dent
in the government's armor. The PRD consistently voted against
most economic initiatives put forth by PRI regimes, and will
do the same under Fox. The PRI supported political and fiscal
centralization when the party was in power, and will now
demand devolution to the states it still governs. The PRI
does not have the credibility to provoke governmental paralysis,
and the PRD - as a free rider - does not have to face the
prospect of provoking it. Political compromise may occur,
but the Fox government may have to pay for it via budgetary
allocations to its only feasible congressional ally, the
PRI. Fox may promote a policy of appeasement towards the
PRI throughout his tenure in order to garner the party's
legislative support for key presidential initiatives.
Political Power: Dispersed
and Divided
The July 2000 election
confirmed that politically speaking Mexico is many Mexicos.
The decentralization of power, begun under President Carlos
Salinas de Gortari, accelerated by Ernesto Zedillo, and reinforced
by electoral results throughout the 1990s had consolidated
a political landscape where PAN and PRD governments share
power with their PRI counterparts. Parties other than the
PRI now govern in 13 of 31 entities, with over half the population.
Divided governments, once the exception, have become the
norm. The results revealed a political system where many
states are strongly competitive, and have been competitive
for over a decade. By 1994, the PRI faced electoral threats
in all 300 electoral districts. Democratization had already
taken place at the local level and the national transfer
of power from the PRI to the opposition merely reinforced
a pre-existing trend.
Over the last decade,
state and municipal governments slowly became laboratories
of local democracy, due to the onset of divided governments.
State governors learned how to deal with local congresses
dominated by opposition parties, and the increased competitiveness
of political processes in the provinces led to increased
responsiveness and accountability among public officials.
Particularly in northern states, citizens became accustomed
to rewarding or punishing parties at the polls. Party organizations
learned how to compete, draft better candidates and wage
better battles.
Divided government
was accompanied over the last decade by decentralization,
and the two tandem trends have led to the emergence of checks
and balances, and rowdy battles over the budget. Decentralization
has entailed the substantial and rapid devolution of financial - and
political -- resources from the federal to the state to the
municipal governments, thus shifting political power to the
states, away from the federal bureaucracy and away from Mexico
City-based politicians. Governors and municipal presidents
are becoming power-brokers in their own right and are participating
in national coalition-building in a way that will create
future challenges for democratic governance.
Decentralization may
breathe new life into the PRI, as the party struggles to
regain the power it lost and preserve the power it has. The
2000 election left many members of the PRI without a map,
without a compass, without a leader, without a job. After
the party's national defeat, many of its members migrated
to the periphery, to the states they still controlled. From
there they have emulated the PAN's past strategies and have
become the most vociferous advocates of economic and fiscal
decentralization. Fueled by the PRI's diaspora to the provinces,
Mexico is experiencing a vigorous, combative, demanding,
and possibly anti-democratic federalism.
During the Zedillo term
decentralization opened spaces for subnational politics that
were promptly occupied by old-guard priistas. In states
and localities still controlled by the PRI, modernizers and
traditional party leaders constantly struggled over issues
ranging from electoral fraud and unfair electoral competition
to human rights violations and unresolved labor disputes.
Even in the afterglow of an exemplary election, Mexico is
witnessing a growing gap between the national-level democratization
process and what occurs in PRI-controlled authoritarian archipelagos
at the state and local level. PRI members may copy the PAN's
longtime strategy and use the periphery as a way of regaining
the center. The PRI may become a major migraine for the Fox
government as it attempts to rebuild itself by challenging
the central government from the periphery, using every means
at its disposal.
In the long term,
however, the possibility that regional caciques continue
to control the population through fraud and coercion has
decreased. The PRI no longer has access to the presidential
pocketbook, and therefore can no longer buy political support
at the local level through federal government spending. In
addition, divided governments will increasingly act as a
counterweight to provincial powerbrokers. Clientelism may
not disappear but it will be harder to enact at the national
level. And although local patronage machines may subsist, caciques - in
states like Tabasco and Yucatán -- will increasingly
become the exception instead of the rule.
In light of this
new landscape, the PRI has faced three choices: retrench
and regroup at the local level as a nationalist, center-left,
anti-government force; succumb to internal cannibalism; or
thoroughly reinvent itself as a moderate, centrist alternative
to the Fox government. The "state-within-a-state" scenario
appeals to some of the hard-line governors who foresee the
maintenance of authoritarian archipelagos as their only route
to survival. However, a scenario whereby the PRI succumbs
to gradual self-destruction or to an implosion provoked by
an internal split should not be discounted. Cleavages within
the PRI run deep, particularly the divide between those who
supported Francisco Labastida during the PRI primary and
the presidential race, and those who sided with his main
rival, Roberto Madrazo. Some factions have called for thorough
internal democratization, while others continue to resist
it. Without an ideology to defend, without bureaucratic positions
to offer, without goods to distribute, without the presidency
to lean on the PRI may be no more than a hollow man.
If the August 2000 defeat
of the PRI in the southern state of Chiapas is any indication,
the party has found it more difficult to deal with the sort
of electoral competitiveness at the local level that is here
to stay. Political decentralization coupled with competition
has created an unprecedented situation wherein the PRI's
staying power depends on how well it performs in state and
local elections, without federal support. Politics for the
PRI has become local. In some areas - like Tabasco -- the
PRI has been able to retain its hold, but in others - like
Yucatán - the party's political predominance has come
to an end due to popular resistance and the growing political
strength of the PAN. The PRI's salvation will ultimately
depend on the party's ability to use its positions of power
in the states and in congress to construct a real alternative
to the Fox government.
The dispersion of
political power in Mexico during the 1990s has also been
fueled by the continued empowerment of civil society. Approximately
15 percent of the urban adult population consider themselves
participants in civic associations, excluding religious and
recreational groups. This is a surprisingly high figure for
a country without a civic tradition. The process of democratization
has created new local governments more open to societal initiatives
related to the struggle for justice, democracy and human
rights. The 1ate 1990s also mark the beginning of greater
NGO interest and focus on matters of public policy. Women's
groups and environmental non-governmental organizations were
particularly successful in promoting the adoption of new
laws and obtaining greater public recognition. The efforts
of some groups in recent years have centered on improving
public accountability, including the legal suit against President
Zedillo in order to force him to make information public
regarding his salary.
The indigenous uprising
in Chiapas in 1994 also became a catalyst for the formation
and strengthening of pro-democracy movements and networks
of zapatista solidarity. For many non-governmental
organizations, the main form of civic mobilization was the
popular "consultas" held in 1995 and 1999, on the
issue of indigenous rights and the future of the EZLN (Ejército
Zapatista de Liberación Nacional). Sporadic violence
in the state - including the Acteal massacre in 1996 - kept
public interest focused on the issue of authoritarian enclaves
and indigenous demands. Heightened civic consciousness combined
with the electoral alliance of the PAN and the PRD behind
a single candidate, led to the PRI's historic loss of the
governorship of Chiapas.
Beyond grassroots activism
related to accountability, human rights, women's rights and
Chiapas, Mexico has also witnessed the emergence of new actors
with new roles, including the Catholic Church and the Mexican
media. In the aftermath of President Carlos Salinas' historic
decision to reestablish the government's diplomatic ties
with the Vatican, the Catholic Church has developed a more
visible and potent profile. Over the past decade, some progressive
sectors of the Church became a force for democratization
through their calls for voter participation during electoral
contests. The Catholic Church also contributed to the emergence
of urban cultural groups working outside the framework of
the state. During the Zedillo period, some members of the
Church's hierarchy engaged in vocal criticism of the neoliberal
components of economic policy, and may continue to do the
same if Fox's decisions do little to improve the lot of the
poor. Yet at the same time, the Church could view Fox's conservative
stance on social issues as a window of opportunity to engage
in public and political activism related to its own agenda.
For better or for worse, the Church has become a key - albeit
controversial -- actor in Mexico's political process.
Significant changes have
also taken place in the realm of the media, which have metamorphosed
from government scribes into members of a burgeoning fourth
estate. Objective reporting, critical journalism, and government
bashing are now daily routines instead of episodic occurrences.
The media's political subservience has largely become a relic
of the past, and today Mexican journalism can be criticized
more for its lack of professionalism that for its pro-government
stance. During the 2000 election, coverage provided by the
country's main television networks still displayed a PRI
bias, but was much more plural and inclusive than in prior
contests. The pressure to increase ratings guides more content
and editorial decisions than does the desire to please the
Office of the Presidency. Print journalism increasingly functions
as a political watchdog, and has uncovered key stories on
corruption and government malfeasance. The media's evolution
is both cause and effect of greater electoral competition,
given the key role that television plays in political campaigns.
For many Mexicans, campaigns
have ceased to be ritualistic forms of behavior with foreseeable
results. American-style campaigns in which key battles are
waged in the media have now become everyday forms of political
performance. Mexicans make up their own minds after viewing
the screen, instead of following the PRI's explicit or implicit
instructions. As a result, political participation is more
open-ended and less predictable. Government accountability
is becoming an important facet of Mexican political culture,
and explains the sort of retrospective voting that forced
the PAN out of the governorship of Chihuahua in 1996.
Over the past two decades,
Mexican political culture has undergone important transformations,
leading to what Vikram Chand has called "Mexico's political
awakening." Whereas corruption was once tolerated as
an unavoidable component of the political system, today it
is increasingly denounced. Clientelism was an effective strategy
to garner support, but the PRI's decline underscores its
terminal weakness. Gift giving affected the vote, but today
its use by the PRI has little impact on electoral outcomes.
Government accountability was an elusive goal but now it
is increasingly perceived as a public right. The difficult
road from clientelism to citizenship has been hard to build,
but in the aftermath of the 2000 election, it will be easier
to follow.
After the contested election
of 1988, political debates among elites in Mexico centered
on the essential unfairness of the electoral process, on
the lack of impartiality of electoral authorities, and on
the improper tallying of the votes. As electoral fraud subsided,
subsequent political negotiations shifted to the need to
assure a level playing field among contenders and address
issues of electoral credibility. As those problems were gradually
resolved via successive rounds of electoral reform, new items
emerged on the public agenda including campaign financing
and party coalitions. Mexico's democracy has not arrived
to a final, pristine destination. It is a work in progress.
As democratic consolidation proceeds, public debates on pending
issues such as redistribution and economic wellbeing, public
insecurity, minority rights, indigenous rights and women's
participation must be addressed. For years Mexicans debated
whether or not democracy had arrived; now they will need
to argue over its content.
The Rule of Law: Unenforceable
and Elusive
The main challenge to
democratic governance in Mexico lies not only in the realm
of executive-legislative relations, party politics or civil
society. The highest hurdle the new regime faces is the establishment
of institutions and practices that assure the rule of law.
Mexico's transition has cast a glaring light on the country's "precarious,
uneven, and limited rule of law." Crime has been on
the upswing since the 1995 crisis, and public insecurity
is now an integral part of the country's psyche.
But perhaps even more
troublesome than increased criminality is the government's
incapacity to deal with it in an effective fashion. Overwhelmed
by its caseload, and saddled by inefficiency and corruption,
the Mexican judiciary cannot establish, ensure or enforce
the rule of law. Plagued by financial and institutional deterioration,
courts frequently cannot process cases quickly or effectively
enough to deal with Mexico's growing wave of criminality.
As a result of judicial
inefficiency, impunity runs rampant. In Mexico City in 1997,
out of the 95 cases processed out of every 100 reported crimes,
72 were tossed out due to insufficient evidence, 23 were
actually resolved, and only 4 of those 23 actually culminated
in conviction and detention. Cases of official corruption - including
former governors accused of drug-trafficking abound - and
the credibility of public institutions has suffered when
even those proven guilty have eluded punishment. The Fox
government has underscored its commitment to transparency
and accountability, but its effort may be undermined by judicial
institutions that cannot assure those goals.
Mexico's culture
of illegality is not only the result of government inaction
or institutional dysfunctionality. In Mexico the lack of
respect for the rule of law is "encrusted in the heart
of citizen beliefs." In a poll conducted in 1999, 49
percent of Mexicans believed that laws should not be obeyed
if they are unfair. Circumventing the law has become an old
tradition. Mexicans partially follow laws, negotiate their
implementation, tolerate illegality and justify it with economic,
political or practical reasons. As long as ambiguity persists - among
the government and the governed themselves -- regarding the
rule of law, legality will be subject to negotiation. Justice
or injustice will be the result of "influence, pressure,
public opinion or the conciliation of interests." An
unhealthy skepticism regarding rules has become entrenched
and is exacerbated by societal distrust of the state.
The precarious nature
of Mexico's rule of law is compounded by drug-trafficking,
a pervasive and growing problem. The Drug Enforcement Agency
(DEA) believes that Mexico earns more than $7 billion a year
from the drug trade, and that the drug business provides
employment to roughly 200,000 people. As much as 70 percent
of the South American cocaine bound for the United States
market enters through Mexico; Mexico also supplies between
20 and 30 percent of the heroin consumed in the United States
and up to 80 percent of the imported marijuana.
Mexico's weak and malfunctioning
judicial and law enforcement institutions have been unable
to withstand the corrupting influence of the drug trade,
as illustrated by the series of high profile murders and
scandals - involving public officials -- in recent years.
Enormous profits provide the means to buy political protection.
Cocaine traffickers spend as much as $500 million a year
on bribery, which is more than double the budget of the Mexican
Attorney General's office. Oftentimes it becomes difficult
to distinguish those charged with policing smuggling from
the smugglers themselves. A report by Mexico's Interior Ministry
estimates that by 1995 there were approximately 900 armed
criminal bands in the country, and 50 percent were composed
of current or former law enforcement agents. Policemen frequently
play dual roles: they act as drug enforcers and as drug-smuggling
protectors.
Under President Zedillo,
drug control dominated the Mexican judicial system, with
the majority of the federal budget for the administration
of justice devoted to the effort. But corruption within Mexican
law enforcement itself also burgeoned: in 1996 the Attorney
General estimated that 70 to 80 percent of the judicial police
were corrupt. Police corruption, in turn, has generated growing
pressures to turn to the military to take on more drug control
tasks, and currently about one third of the military's budget
is devoted to the anti-drug effort, with some 25,000 Mexican
soldiers involved in drug control operations.
As a result of its anti-drug
role the military has become the supreme authority -- or
in some cases the only authority -- in parts of some states
such as Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Jalisco, and Guerrero. While the
military has traditionally concentrated on crop eradication,
its anti-drug mission has expanded significantly in recent
years. But greater militarization has also led to greater
corruption in the military. When Sinaloa drug cartel leader
Hector "El Guero" Palma was arrested in 1995 he
was at the home of a local police commander and the majority
of the men protecting him were federal judicial police who
he had bought off. The lucrative payoffs from the drug trade
also fuel intense competition within and between law enforcement.
Violent conflicts often erupt between police and military
personnel operating as law enforcers and police and military
personnel acting as lawbreakers.
According to Peter Andreas,
drug corruption in Mexico reflects a paradox: the government's
drug enforcement effort is undermined by the corrupting influence
of the drug trade, yet the drug trade cannot survive without
the protection of compromised elements within the government.
When drug corruption scandals have erupted in Mexico the
official response has been to fire or transfer individual
officers and at times disband entire agencies and create
new ones. A report by the Attorney General's office indicates
that over 400 agents of the federal judicial police (more
than 10 percent of total personnel) were fired or suspended
between 1992 and 1995 on drug-related charges. Such mass
firings, however, only begin to make a dent in the problem.
Moreover, many fired police officers were simply rehired
in other regions of the country and hundreds of other officers
were reinstated after challenging their dismissals in court.
The prospects for effective
democratic governance in Mexico will be contingent on the
country's capacity to hold all significant actors - inside
the state and beyond it - accountable to the rule of law.
This development, in turn, would require a clear hierarchy
of laws, interpreted by an independent judicial system, and
supported by a strong legal culture in society. In concrete
terms, that goal would require a major overhaul of Mexico's
judiciary and its law enforcement apparatus. In addition,
corrupt practices would have to be sanctioned in a clear,
non-partisan and legitimate fashion. Government institutions
would have to be reinvented to resist the temptations of
the illicit activities related to the drug trade. Accountability
would have to become, in a nutshell, "the only game
in town,"
The turn to transparency
has already taken place in the electoral realm, and the government
can learn lessons from the renovation of the country's electoral
institutions in the 1990s. The institution in charge of organizing
and supervising elections - the Federal Electoral Institute
(IFE) -- emerged from the 2000 election as a consolidated
and strengthened entity. Its electoral counselors demonstrated
impartiality and intelligence, prudence and professionalism.
Electoral booths were installed on time, electoral representatives
were generally well-trained, data flowed in a normal fashion
and the Institute proved that it was capable of running an
impeccable contest. Parties competed on a largely level playing
field, electoral results were viewed as legitimate, electoral
authorities were recognized as impartial and fair, and the
election itself empowered new faces with new political stripes.
Real "alternancia" - taking turns in office --
took place. Electoral authoritarianism came to an end. These
dramatic changes to the IFE and the rules governing electoral
competition were brought about by ongoing, intense negotiations
over time, among the country's main political forces. They
were the product of political agreements and pacts undertaken
to transform the system. This past history of pact-making
could set a precedent for future negotiations on what remains
to be done to enable democratic governance in the future.
Institutional reform
will be crucial to address the pending items of Mexico's
democratic transition. The retreat of the state in the 1980s
and 1990s was not accompanied by the construction of a new,
democratic, institutional structure aside from the electoral
arena. The privatization of state enterprises did not bring
about the desired transparency of economic transactions.
The turn toward neoliberalism did not remedy dramatic disparities
and income inequalities. The weakening of state control over
security forces left an open field for the burgeoning of
crime and corruption. Mexico is a more democratic country,
a more open society, a more competitive economy, but it is
not a safer or a more equal place.
Conclusion
As an astute analyst
predicted, Mexico's classic hegemonic party system ended
not with a bang, but with a whimper. The country was blessed
with unexpected good fortune: A resounding victory by an
opposition candidate, a longstanding ruling party that lost
and had no choice but to recognize its defeat, a sufficiently
large margin of victory that allowed for a surprisingly peaceful
passing of the torch. For once, after a long history of bloody
battles, Mexicans enjoyed the best of all worlds and experienced
a peaceful transition of power. Long time union leader and
PRI icon Fidel Velazquez had declared: "We (the PRI)
arrived shooting and we'll leave shooting." Yet voters,
electoral officials, pollsters, the media and Mexicans at
large proved him wrong.
Mexico has become a country
of exiled PRI dinosaurs, an empowered PAN and intense legislative
negotiations. Mexico now has a congress that acts as a counterweight,
a media that functions as a watch-dog, and a civil society
that demands more and accepts less. Mexico today looks more
like a democracy that has arrived, warts and all, and less
like a democracy in waiting. Suddenly the challenges for
democratic governance - a constrained executive, a divided
government, an increasingly decentralized political system - have
become proof of Mexico's great leap forward.
Yet post-PRI Mexico will
not be an untroubled place. The challenges are significant
and should not be underestimated. Forty percent of the population
lives in poverty. Drug-trafficking continues apace. An ineffective
judiciary and a corrupt police force create more problems
than they solve. Some of these hurdles are inherited, but
the Fox government also faces new ones created by the conditions
under which it was elected. The peculiar nature of the political
process that ousted the ruling party from power may make
future political and economic reforms more difficult to carry
out. In the future, democratic governance in Mexico will
be hampered by the fact that Vicente Fox arrived into office
on the shoulders of a disparate array of forces, many of
which do not support the president's initiatives.
As a result of contending
imperatives, instead of rapid change, inertia has prevailed.
Since the 2001 election, the president has attempted to govern
at the center but without alienating the right or the left.
In an effort to straddle both ends of the ideological spectrum
and address the concerns of disparate groups, the new government
has often diluted reforms or accepted their postponement.
Necessary transformations in the areas that Mexicans want
and the country needs will only occur when the government
defines a clear set of priorities, follows them consistently,
and forges consensus in the legislature.
This will not be easy
to accomplish in a divided democracy. President Fox's ambitious
agenda has frequently been sabotaged by a recalcitrant congress.
Opposition parties have often blocked the government's plans
for reform without producing alternative proposals of their
own. Post-PRI Mexico is saddled with a divided government
and a fragmented legislature, making legislative coalitions
difficult to create and difficult to sustain. Parties in
opposition have no incentives to carry out responsible policies,
either because they are in crisis or without any prospects
of governmental responsibilities. The enactment of "second
stage" reforms - including further economic liberalization - faces
staunch opposition from both the PRI and the PRD. The PRD
exercises permanent veto power in an effort to solidify support
among its electoral base, while the PRI exacts a high price
for its ad-hoc collaboration.
The President has attempted
to govern in a divided democracy by "going public" and
using presidential popularity to bring about legislative
victories. But in cases like Mexico, where presidential and
congressional reelection are prohibited by law, courting
public opinion to pressure congress does not work effectively
as a method to enact the executive's reform agenda. The future
of congressmen depends more on party leaders than on the
president's political fortunes, and this will only change
until and unless congressional reelection is allowed.
Most Mexicans who voted
for Vicente Fox endowed him with the mantle of change - better
economic management, less crime, less corruption -- and they
expect the new government to assure it occurs. High expectations
that often accompany new democracies are a source of political
capital, and Mexico is no exception. If expectations are
left unmet, however, support may be withdrawn and a "punishment
vote" could ensue in the 2003 legislative elections.
Mexican voters are rewarding and punishing parties and presidents
at the polls, and will continue to do so.
Mexicans today expect
democratic governance to be about performance. As Roderic
Camp's world values poll suggests, Mexicans perceive democracy
as "bienestar social" (social wellbeing), and although
citizens celebrate the arrival of liberal/procedural democracy,
they will continue to demand the material benefits they believe
it affords. In the long run, sustained and equitable economic
growth, coupled with greater government transparency and
less public insecurity may be the best way to bolster confidence
in the virtues of democratic governance.
A democratic transition
undoubtedly has occurred in Mexico, but the country still
needs to establish institutions and cultivate habits and
attitudes that will allow democracy to thrive and flourish.
Mexico has an increasingly free and lively civil society,
but citizens have yet to be fully represented in a congress
where reelection assures responsiveness. Mexico exhibits
a relatively autonomous political society, but the terms "institutional
routinization" and "compromise" have yet to
become part of the country's daily vocabulary, particularly
where relations between the executive and the legislature
are concerned. And most importantly, Mexico still lacks a
critical component of democratic consolidation: a rule of
law. The future of democratic governance will hinge on the
interaction of the following conditions: divided government,
diminished presidential power in a former presidentialist
regime, a party system in flux, political and economic decentralization,
and the absence of an institutional framework that assures
the rule of law.
Yet despite the enormity
of the task at hand, the possibility of incremental change
and institutional renewal - in wake of the PRI's defeat - is
real. During the PRI's uninterrupted reign, politics in Mexico
had become a fig leaf for corruption and complicity. Vicente
Fox's victory entails more than the arrival of an opposition
government to power, more than another landmark in Mexico's
tortuous transition to democracy. When Fox won, the PRI lost
its capacity to buy and sell factories and favors, banks
and businesses, drug routes and political protection. "Alternancia" has
opened the door for greater accountability, the stuff of
which democratic governance is made of. Old institutions
have collapsed and new ones have yet to be built, but the
country has the building materials and the appropriate site
to do so. As Mexican historian Héctor Aguilar Camín
has suggested, Mexico is simultaneously treading on "ashes
and seeds."
Paper in
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