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As the results of the July 2 presidential
elections in Mexico head to the courts, it could be several days
or even weeks before the final winner is determined. The current
vote counts have given a razor thin advantage to Felipe Calderón
of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), to which incumbent
president Vicente Fox belongs. Still, with the margin well under
one percent and with irregularities in the vote-counting process
being challenged, progressive former Mexico City mayor, Andrés
Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution
(PRD), might conceivably eke out a victory. While U.S. newspapers
declare Calderón the winner, Mexican electoral authorities
have yet to do so, recognizing the tribunal that is reviewing
disputes as the final arbiter for the race.
The past months in Mexico have
been marked by a campaign of fear against López Obrador.
What conservatives portrayed as a dreaded possibility is the
very thing that would have done most to consolidate the country's
transition to democracy: a peaceful passing of power across ideological
lines.
When Vicente Fox won the last
presidential elections in 2000, his triumph ended more than seven
decades of one-party governance and disrupted some of the traditional
patronage networks that had defined Mexican politics. Yet Fox
furthered the same brand of market-oriented economic neoliberalism
promoted for two decades by long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary
Party, which joined with the PAN to pass NAFTA in the early 1990s.
As in many countries throughout
Latin America, neoliberalism has failed to deliver for Mexico.
Back when he was on the campaign trail, Fox promised that he
would create economic growth of seven percent per year; the actual
average was 1.8 percent. Even with the economy picking up in
the first quarter of 2006, Mexico has not seen anywhere near
the one million new jobs per year that Fox pledged. Instead,
steep inequality, persistent poverty, and desperation have driven
many Mexican immigrants north in search of opportunity in the
post-NAFTA era.
Enter López Obrador.
The center-left presidential candidate became a hugely popular
figure as mayor of Mexico City by actually paying attention to
the needs of the poor. He launched new public works and created
pensions and subsidies for the elderly, single mothers, and the
disabled. Through most of the presidential race, López
Obrador polled as the clear frontrunner. He vowed to end special
privileges and sweetheart contracts for the wealthy, to raise
revenue by stemming an epidemic of elite tax evasion, and to
expand his social programs nationally.
López Obrador's impending
victory offered something fundamental for democracy: the possibility
of real change.
In the months leading up to
the election, López Obrador's political enemies fought
his candidacy with relentless fear-mongering. Even after electoral
officials reprimanded the PAN and forced the party to pull campaign
advertisements that called López Obrador a "danger
to Mexico" and that asserted false links with Hugo Chávez,
right-wing business groups threw the same sucker punch in round
two. They funded a series of "non-partisan" last-minute
attack ads that showed images of the Venezuelan leader and, wink
wink, stated that "Mexico doesn't need a dictator."
Meanwhile, U.S. pundits fanned
the flames by spreading ominous accusations of "populism,"
and political consultants traveled south of the border to help
plot the character assassination.
With all the conservative vitriol,
you would never know that López Obrador has been consistently
criticized from the left for his moderation. Social movement
groups like the Zapatistas paint his social initiatives as stop-gap
measures that wouldn't address the real dysfunction of the economic
system. They contend that López Obrador has been too quick
to affirm that Mexico will remain tied to the U.S. vision of
a neoliberal global economy and too hesitant to forge a distinct
economic path. And they disparage him for his plans merely to
renegotiate the sections of the North American Free Trade Agreement's
that most hurt Mexican producers, rather than to scrap NAFTA
altogether.
As López Obrador's supporters
believed it would, Calderón's lead from preliminary tabulations
narrowed as a full vote count progressed, but the conservative
retained a slight edge. Now, an electoral tribunal will be reviewing
disputes and making a final determination. The conduct at the
great majority of polling places during last Sunday's elections
was a far cry from in the bad old days of one-party government,
when bought votes and stuffed ballot boxes were the norm. Still,
the PRD has alleged serious irregularities in the vote-counting
process. If evidence continues to mount it may well raise the
specter of a stolen election for the wider Mexican public.
In that case, popular protests
would be justified to prevent a repeat of the infamous elections
of 1988, when blatant fraud was used to stop another progressive
candidate from taking office.
A surge of action in the courts
or on the streets may yet alter the results of this election.
But for the time being, the country faces a less dramatic prospect:
that the campaign of fear will have kept the Mexico locked into
the status quo, leaving its democratic transition incomplete.
Mark Engler, a writer based in New York City,
is an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus. He can be reached
via the web site http://www.DemocracyUprising.com.
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