Mexico City ON JULY 2, the people of Mexico will elect a president, along with some 2,000 other public officials. Ideally, this exercise will strengthen the democratic process in a country where popular self-government has had a checkered past.
Democracy in Mexico goes back to the constitution of 1857, in which Benito Juárez and others sowed the seeds of self-rule. Unfortunately, the revolution of 1910 brought back to the fore a rival tradition, patrimonial and statist. Many decades would pass before, in the final decade of the twentieth century, the "perfect dictatorship," as the writer Mario Vargas Llosa called the Mexican political system, turned out to be weak. When Vicente Fox--a former Coca-Cola executive running under the banner of the center-right party, PAN--was elected president in 2000, there were grounds for optimism. Many commentators announced the dawning of an era of economic prosperity, political liberty, and social peace.
But once again, the path to democracy has proved uneven. After leading Mexico for more than five years, Fox, it is clear, is not the statesman his country needs. He missed a great opportunity. For one thing, he failed to grasp the meaning of September 11 and how it had changed Americans' thinking. Partly out of parochialism, he failed to see that new forms of international crime had outstripped existing provisions for civilized punishment. His delayed response after the attacks showed a lack of solidarity with the American people--not to mention the many Mexicans incinerated in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
More to the point, Fox made no serious effort to eliminate the remnants of Mexico's ancien régime. Admittedly, the members of the Mexican Congress bear some blame; they were more interested in petty self-interest than in the well-being of the nation. Nevertheless, President Fox failed as leader, and Mexico is in a state of governmental deadlock.
Indeed, there is a wide consensus that Mexico's democracy is at a crossroads. The next president must confront powerful drug cartels and organized crime, promote the rule of law, spur the creation of wealth and jobs, and manage globalization. The coming election is shaping up as a three-way contest.
The corrupt and oligarchic Revolutionary Institutional party (PRI) which ruled Mexico for 71 years, has chosen a candidate of the old guard. Robert Madrazo long flourished as an apparatchik and political leader within the PRI, and now offers empty rhetoric and an outdated program. Even some of his supporters have little confidence in him. The recent involvement of the PRI governor of the state of Puebla in an alleged plot to jail a journalist will likely further damage Madrazo. Ideologically a chameleon party, the PRI has no clear stance on the issues. Madrazo's best hope is to be seen as the least of three evils, an unlikely outcome in light of his party's history. At this point Madrazo is trailing the other two candidates slightly, and it would take a miracle to put him into the lead.
The real contenders are Felipe Calderón, of the center-right PAN, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City and the candidate of Mexico's third party, the left-wing Democratic Revolutionary party (PRD).
Calderón's chief handicap is that, at 43, he is relatively unknown in Mexican politics. He supports free trade, globalization, foreign investment, and sound monetary and fiscal policies, and makes a point of affirming his commitment to the rule of law and the protection of human rights. A Harvard graduate, he seems to understand the importance of Mexico's partnership with the United States. Having defeated Fox's heir apparent, former Secretary of Government Santiago Creel, in the primaries, Calderón is not seen as a Fox protégé .
López Obrador could hardly be more different. He came of age politically in the PRI in the state of Tabasco, where several prominent men of letters were his mentors. When his reformist wing of the party was sidelined by the technocrats led by Carlos Salinas de Gortari, he switched allegiances and helped to found the PRD. Immediately, he became a charismatic leader and helped his party rise. As mayor of Mexico City from 2000 to 2005, López Obrador carried out major public works, notably highway improvements, and laid the groundwork for his presidential bid. However, his tenure as mayor was marred by acts of corruption by close aides and by a lack of accountability. Currently he is ahead in most of the polls.
The trouble with López Obrador is his populist outlook, his parochialism, and his anachronistic ideas, such as complete state control of the electricity and oil sectors and suspicion of globalization. He is also known for his indifference to what happens overseas--he speaks no foreign language and has seldom traveled abroad. Having embraced a facile reaction against pro-market policies, he is seen in some quarters as the hope of the underprivileged. But his populist tilt is combined with a casual attitude toward the rule of law (he has said that his sense of fairness dictates disrespect for "unjust laws"). Moreover, he has not spelled out what he calls his "alternative project for the nation." Would he eliminate NAFTA? Does he seek some alternative to the liberal-democratic order? And what does he think about Fidel Castro's Cuba and Hugo Chávez's Venezuela?
These questions are timely. The Mexican elections are taking place in the context of the victories of left-wing parties all over Latin America. The left is in power in Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say two lefts are in power, for the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez is a far cry from the Chile of Michelle Bachelet. Of these two lefts, the former is authoritarian, antiliberal, and in the end antidemocratic, while the latter is committed in principle to a liberal-democratic order. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in Brazil, seems to be taking the liberal-democratic path.
Chávez and Castro--sensing that for the first time in years a left-wing victory may be within reach in Mexico--are lending rhetorical support to López Obrador. Sure enough, López Obrador displays no commitment to an independent judiciary, the separation of powers, or accountability in government. Nor is the truth his forte: He has been lying to the Mexican people about his religious affiliation, claiming to be Catholic when he is actually Presbyterian.
As for relations with Washington, a President López Obrador would probably try to slight the United States by aligning himself with his Latin American counterparts. There is also some danger that he would contest the results of a close election, which this promises to be. López Obrador has resorted to this tactic in the past, and some of his aides have hinted that they do not trust the electoral authority, which they allege is controlled by the PRI and the PAN. If López Obrador decides to challenge the outcome in July, he will be defying the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), a widely respected autonomous body created under President Salinas to organize elections.
In a nutshell: López Obrador looks like an old-fashioned authoritarian leftist who will lean towards demagoguery à la Chávez.
The United States should take notice of the potential damage to its interests if the Mexican elections produce an unfavorable outcome. Demagoguery from Mexico City would hardly aid a rational resolution of the immigration problem, for instance. Not only does Washington stand to lose a strategic ally, but Mexico's fragile democracy could also be put at risk and the security of the region jeopardized. It is in the interest of the United States, as well as Mexico, that Mexico continue to develop into a full-fledged democracy.
Happily, there is at least one small step the Bush administration could take to facilitate a smooth election: It could publicly express confidence in the IFE. The stakes in this election--given Mexico's geopolitical importance, its partnership with the United States, and Chávez and Castro's new regional ambitions--are too high to ignore.
Angel Jaramillo is a Mexican journalist and political scientist based in New York City.