ANALYSIS: POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN MEXICO

Presidential Primary And Election

Mexico's long-ruling and dominant political party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), for the first time in its 70-year history opened the selection process for its presidential candidate in a Nov. 7 primary.  Francisco Labastida Ochoa, a former state governor and cabinet official, won the vote by taking 272 of 300 electoral districts, according to preliminary results announced by the party.  In the process, Labastida was positioned as the frontrunner for the July 2000 presidential election.  

Four candidates ran in the PRI primary.  Roberto Madrazo, state governor in Tabasco, was Labastida's main challenger.  Because of challenges within the party, PRI, the most powerful party in the last 70 years, became fractionalized.   

The main opposition candidates in the 2000 presidential election were Vicente Fox, a former state governor and president of Coca-Cola de México, who was running for the conservative National Action Party (PAN), and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a former governor and leader of the left-of-center Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).  Neither party had an open primary. Fox was popular in the north of Mexico, with businessmen and with Mexico's growing middle-class. Cárdenas' natural constituency was the urban working class.  Fox performed well in polls and Cárdenas had long been an important voice in Mexico's politics.  

The July 2, 2000 national election was historic on several accounts. Internal reforms over the past decade have led to significant changes in the nation's political landscape, dramatically opening up the electoral process. This  was the first time in Mexico's modern political history that a sitting president did not choose his successor.  Additionally, Mexico had been undergoing profound social and economic changes. However, The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had held the presidency uninterrupted since 1929. 

Vicente Fox Quesada of the Alliance for Change Coalition, headed by the National Action Party (PAN), won the 2000 elections with 43% of the vote, beating Francisco Labastida the PRI candidate who won 36% of the vote. These elections are considered to have been the most free and fair elections in Mexico's history. Fox's Presidential term began on December 1, 2000. This election was a big step for Mexico toward a greater democracy.

After the 2000 presidential election, many political analysts believed that the PRI's political power was declining in Mexico. However, the PRI continues to hold the most seats in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, with 211 seats in the former and 60 seats in the latter.  Yet, as a result of the 2000 elections, other parties have gained seats and the Congress is more diverse than ever.  In the Chamber of Deputies: 

211 seats are held by the PRI; 206 by PAN; 50 by the PRD;17 by PVEM; and the remaining 16 seats are split among smaller parties.  

In the Senate:  The PRI holds 60 seats; PAN holds 46; PRD holds 15; PVEM holds 5 seats; and two smaller parties each have one of the remaining two seats.  

State and local elections have been a mix of success and defeat for various parties.

State Elections

In 2001, thirteen Mexican states have scheduled state and municipal elections.  The elections began on May 27, 2001 in the state of Yucatan.  Political analysts are trying to find broad implications in these 2001 state and municipal elections.  Leaders of the National Action Party (PAN), who succeeded in helping to elect Vicente Fox Quesada President of Mexico in July 2000, are eager to build upon this victory, while leaders of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) hope to rebuild its political leadership.  In recent elections, the PRI has lost 12 statehouses, Mexico City's mayoralty, majorities in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and the Presidency.  At the same time, the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) is looking to pick up at least two governorships after it faired poorly in the Mexican Presidential elections.  Its candidate failed to receive even one-fifth of the votes cast.

See Table:

Tabasco (August 5, 2001)

Results from an October 2000 Tabasco election were overturned by a federal court, saying the elections in the southeast Gulf state were fraught with errors. New elections were held on August 5th under careful watch of election monitors.  Manuel Andrade, the PRI candidate was declared the winner of the overturned October vote, but Enrique Priego was declared the winner of the August 2001 vote. 

Chiapas (October 7, 2001)

Mexico's former ruling party, the PRI, won the majority of local municipal and congressional races during the elections in the southern state of Chiapas.  The state election commission reported that the PRI won 72 out of 118 mayorships and 21 of 40 local congressional seats.  The PRD won 20 mayorships and two legislative seats, while the PAN, which governs the state of Chiapas, won 11 mayorships and one legislative seat.  

Landmark Elections: July 2000

On July 2, 2000, Mexico held the most transparent and fair elections in its history and the US-Mexico Chamber of Commerce (USMCOC) was there to witness it.  The Chamber led a delegation of ten business representatives, headed by President Albert Zapanta, who were invited and credentialed as official observers by Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE).  

The results of the election are another milestone in Mexico's forward movement in becoming a modern democracy.  While the election result will promote a cascade of changes in the way Mexican citizens look at government and governance, the most important change is that now Mexicans know that their vote counts.  Recent reforms and changes gave momentum to the feeling that this time the voice and will of the people would be heard and heeded.  And it was.  

The delegation concurred that the elections were a watershed event in Mexico's political history.  They were trailblazing not only because they marked the first time in 71 years that a president from a party other than the PRI has been elected, but also because the elections were peaceful and judged by the international community, and most importantly, by Mexicans to be fair.  Although there were some minor glitches, the elections were as fair and free as could have been.  The Mexican electorate showed enthusiasm, hope, and patience in voting, with waits of two-to-three hours to vote in some places.  This did not discourage the people from voting.

The Electoral Process

The IFE was responsible for organizing not only the elections for president, but also those for the Chamber of Deputies, one-third of the Senate, the mayoralty of Mexico City, as well as state and local elections.  Thousands of candidates, representing eleven parties were vying for these positions.  The IFE recruited over three million volunteers and set up 113,424 voting stations throughout the country's 300 electoral districts to accommodate the 58,789,209 registered voters.  

The delegation witnessed the voting routine, which generally went as follows.  First, a voter was required to show his identification card to election officials, who proceeded to check that the identification card number corresponded to the number and picture in the election register.  The voter then was given color-coded ballots corresponding to each of the elections, i.e. for president, congress, etc.  The voter then went on to cast his or her vote in a curtained booth that allowed for full privacy.  It should be noted that election observers were in a position to see whether the voter in fact cast one ballot, since the ballot boxes were transparent.  The rationale behind having transparent ballot boxes is to avoid the accusation of past practices of ballot box stuffing.  Finally, the voter had his or her election card checked and indelible ink put on his or her thumb.  The latter was done to ensure that no one attempted to vote more than once, a common accusation in previous elections.  

The first round of counting the votes was done at the local polling sites, with IFE officials tabulating and party representatives monitoring.  The results were then posted on the doors of the voting station and the ballots delivered to a district office, where the results were put into a computer.  The district head offices fed the polling data it collected to four separate computers to ensure against any failures as experienced in a previous very close election.  On the basis of an IFE calculation referred to as a "fast count" President Zedillo was able to announce that the Coalition for Change candidate, Vicente Fox Quesada was the winner of the presidential race.  According to the final tally, of the 37,103,466 votes cast, Mr. Fox got 42.54% of the votes, followed by PRI candidate Francisco Labastida with 36.07% and Chautemoc Cardenas of the PRD with 16.65%.  

Congress and Multi-party Democracy

In the race for Congress, the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) increased its numbers in both the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate.  However, the PAN did not win enough seats to win a majority in Congress, although they now have the plurality, in conjunction with the Coalition for Change member Green Party (PVEM).  This circumstance will force the PAN to have to build alliances with the political opposition; an exercise that many believe will further strengthen Mexico's democracy and assure the long-term sustainability of legislative initiatives.

Landmark Elections: July 1997

Mexico City's voters for the first time in recent history elected their own mayor, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who was inaugurated Dec. 5, 1997. Candidates throughout the country also contested six state governorships, the entire 500-seat Chamber of Deputies, and a quarter of the 128-seat Senate during a July 6, 1997, vote. The elections resulted in a significant political setback for the PRI, which has dominated Mexico's political scene for nearly seven decades. Opposition parties captured the Mexico City mayor's post (PRD) and two state governorships (both PAN). In addition, the ruling party failed to maintain an absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress (the PRI holds 239 seats, the PRD 125 and the PAN 121; the remaining 15 are held by the PVEM and PT).

Since the election, four opposition parties have used their combined majority to elect a leader from the left-of-center PRD and take control of 32 of the 61 legislative committees in the Chamber of Deputies. The opposition's new-found power did not derail President Zedillo's budget proposal for 1998. The 1999 budget proposal, however, met stiff opposition and was only passed at the last minute, Dec. 31, following a marathon legislative session. The final deal eliminates phone taxes outlined in the president's proposal but includes $1.4 billion in spending cuts, higher taxes on business and the top earners and higher import tariffs on goods from countries that do not have a free-trade deal with Mexico. The agreement, forged between the PAN and the PRI, maintained the 1999 fiscal deficit target at 1.25 percent of gross domestic product.

September 2001