Mexico: Now, the Hard Part
Summary
With nearly all the votes counted in Mexico, Vicente Fox has won
43.8 percent of the vote, as well as ensured the defeat of the
country's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). However,
Fox is unlikely to realize the public's broad, contradictory - and
nearly messianic - hopes. Fox's coalition has failed to win a
working majority in the Mexican Congress, and the ruling party
continues to permeate the country's bureaucracies. Fox's own
alliance is a contradictory mix of conservatives and greens. As a
result, the president elect's six-year tenure is likely to be
constrained by compromise.
Analysis
With 93 percent of voting booths counted by late Monday, Alliance
for Change candidate Vicente Fox held 43.8 percent of the vote for
the presidency, compared to 36.7 percent won by the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party's (PRI) candidate Francisco
Labastida. Fox's victory marks the first upset for the PRI since
1929. According to international observers, turnout was
extraordinarily high and the elections were reportedly the fairest
in Mexico's history.
This turnout, however, will do more than pick the next occupant of
Los Pinos, the presidential mansion. Also at stake are seats in the
Mexican Congress, revitalized in recent years. Fox's coalition is
reportedly winning elections for the Senate and Chamber of
Deputies, though by a thinner margin. Preliminary results also show
the National Action Party (PAN), one of the parties in the
alliance, winning governorships in Guanajuato and Morelos while the
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) reportedly retained
control of the Mexico City government.
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After the euphoria of victory subsides, Fox faces the unenviable
task of living up to the messianic expectations placed upon him. He
will govern without a working majority in the Congress. Throughout
the campaign, he has promised to be all things to all people. To
Mexico's poor, Fox has promised to more evenly distribute the
country's wealth, implement jobs programs and nearly double
spending on education. To Mexico's business elite, the former Coca
Cola executive promised to seek foreign investment and to remain
committed to market oriented economic policies.
Fox's greatest challenge will lie in his vow to stamp out the
corruption that is endemic in Mexico. The PRI lost the presidency,
and the majority in the Mexican Congress, but it is far from
toppled. It is pervasive at all levels of national, state and local
government; even presidents in recent years have had trouble
getting bureaucracies and state governments to toe the line. Fox's
next campaign - the one that will seek to root out corruption and
spark economic reform - will crash headlong into this entrenched
PRI rank and file.
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In addition, the Alliance for Change fell short of winning a
working majority in the Chamber of Deputies, which under Mexico's
electoral rules requires more than 42 percent. As such, the new
president will be forced to consider compromise from the start; he
will find his time absorbed in the task of coalition building,
appealing either to the PRI or to the leftist PRD-led Alliance for
Mexico. Preliminary results show the leftist alliance winning 19.1
percent of the vote in the Chamber of Deputies and 19.3 percent in
the Senate.
Fox also faces potential problems from within his own coalition, an
unlikely marriage of his own conservative PAN and the Ecological
Green Party (PVEM). His pro business agenda will be under close
scrutiny from the PVEM. Fox has also vowed to form a broad-based
administration, with representatives from all parties.
He may have no choice. Without decisive control of Congress, and
facing entrenched opposition at all levels of the Mexican
bureaucracy, Fox has little choice but to compromise. His
supporters, expecting dramatic change in reward for rejecting the
status quo, are in for a disappointment.
(c) 2000 WNI, Inc.
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