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Defying concerns that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) might resort to fraud in an effort to hold on to the political domination it has wielded for 71 years over Mexico, center-right opposition candidate Vicente Fox won a historic victory for the National Action Party (PAN) in the presidential election on July 2, ending the reign of the world’s longest-ruling political party and heralding the birth of a new kind of government for the nation.
But, if by winning by seven percentage points over the PRI’s candidate Francisco Labastida, Fox has made history, so has sitting president Ernesto Zedillo. He will be remembered not only in Mexico but in the United States and around the world as the man who believed that his fellow citizens should be given the chance to express their will in a free and clean election (which was not the case in the last few decades), had the courage to put that idea in motion and was strong enough to prevail over those in his party who could not accept the possibility of giving up power.
Fox’s victory sets the stage for a dramatic transformation of the authoritarian system that has controlled virtually every aspect of Mexican political life, from the presidency to town halls, and has lasted so long that most Mexicans have known only the PRI in government.
In the last few decades the PRI accumulated a history of corruption and economic mismanagement, but it should be remembered that at its founding in 1929, by harnessing the energies of post-revolutionary warlords, it restored peace and order to a country left in ruins by a bloody revolution.
At that time, a substantial level of endemic corruption was present in the government in Mexico—as it was in the rest of Latin America then and, for that matter, in the United States—and that was the way it remained throughout the late 60’s under successive presidents that emerged from the PRI’s grassroots political machine, But, paradoxically, it was when the winning PRI candidates began to come from the ranks of well-educated technocrats—usually graduates from U.S. top universities—that government corruption increased exponentially.
In a move that might be seen as redeeming to some extent the PRI’s political sins, it was political reforms initiated by current President Zedillo that laid the groundwork for his own party’s defeat. Under his leadership, the government made political campaign funding more equitable and turned control of the election over to the independent Federal Election Institute. Until the July 2 ballot, the Interior Ministry had overseen presidential races and frequently fixed the voting to ensure a PRI victory.
Vicente Fox, who turned 58 years old on the day he was elected, is certainly no bureaucratic technocrat but rather a product of the private sector. Starting as a route supervisor for Coca-Cola in 1931, working in six Mexican cities in seven years, he climbed to the top of the company’s corporate hierarchy as its chief executive in Mexico from 1975 to 1979. As to the “U.S. educated” tag American media invariably pins to his name, the extent of his U.S. schooling is one year at an academy at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, to polish his now fluent English.
When Coca-Cola wanted to make him the head of its Latin American operations, which would have meant living in Miami, Fox chose to go back to his roots in the central state of Guanajato, to work in the family business with his father and brothers. Drawn to politics by an urge to change the government’s oppressive style he had experienced in his dealings with it as a business executive, he won the governorship of his state in 1995, after been deprived of a victory four years earlier through fraud.
Fox not only promised to present a budget and announce a cabinet three months before taking office in December, which would be unprecedented, but he also said he would push a wide-ranging reform program to transform Mexico after seven decades of one-party rule.
To build a common market with the U.S. he promised to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) with the U.S. and Canada, with the aim of including the free flow of migrants and, eventually, coordinated monetary policies. He also pledged to squeeze corruption out of the system during his six-year term.
“We think Nafta can do much better than it has done up to now,” he said, revealing plans to deepen it to the level of small businesses. He also spoke of the possibility of a common currency in the region but said it could take as long as 40 years.
Referring to drug trafficking, Mexico’s biggest source of friction with the U.S., he was sharply critical of the process by which Washington certifies countries for their seriousness and effectiveness in tackling drugs. Instead, he says, there should be a new international approach to drugs.
Mindful of the uniqueness of the political situation — his party doesn’t have a majority in Congress and he will have to tackle the PRI’s entrenched interests in the labor unions, rural sectors and bureaucracy when he takes office — Fox stressed the importance of developing a consensual approach to the transition. His cabinet, which could include members of the PRI, would be announced in the next few weeks, and will work with the outgoing team of President Zedillo.
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com