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 Editorials | Opinions | May 2006 
Portrayals of a Weak Fox Could Hurt Party
 S. Lynne Walker - Copley News
| | Mexicans kiss during a demonstration to celebrate the Day for the Liberation of Marijuana in Mexico City on Saturday, May 6, 2006. Mexican President Vicente Fox refused to sign a drug decriminalization act after U.S. officials warned the plan could encourage 'drug tourism.' (AP/Moises Castillo) |
Will President Vicente Fox's troubles never cease?
He's been hammered on both sides of the border for proposing and then rejecting a law allowing Mexicans to have small amounts of drugs for personal use. Federal and state police fled from rioting farmers who had already beaten back Fox's efforts to build an international airport in their violence-plagued town. And at a May Day celebration, Fox was burned in effigy by angry members of the nation's powerful labor unions.
That was just the first week in May.
Fox is once again bending in the political wind, stirring fresh criticism that he is a weak and unskilled president.
“He folds. He folds. He folds. That's Fox,” said political analyst Federico Estévez.
With less than two months left before the July 2 presidential election, the question is whether that perception will damage the presidential candidate from Fox's party, who just took the lead in the hotly contested race.
Felipe Calderón, a 43-year-old lawyer from the National Action Party, or PAN, pulled ahead of leftist opponent Andrés Manuel López Obrador in several polls released last week. But Calderón's lead in most of those polls was so narrow that any misstep could cost him the election.
“You can't count anyone out at this point,” said George Grayson, a Mexico scholar at the College of William & Mary and author of a new book on López Obrador. “Certainly, no one can afford to make gratuitous mistakes.”
The past few weeks have been marred by myriad mistakes that might have been avoided by a more skilled politician.
“Fox fumbled the drug issue. That didn't need to be brought up before the election,” Grayson said. “Fox's office should have put the word out to the president of the Senate judiciary committee that this measure needed further review.”
On the same day Fox vetoed the drug bill, Mexicans watched with horror as a police officer was severely beaten on live television by a mob in the town of San Salvador Atenco. Instead of responding, riot police ran from the machete-waving farmers, who used the same violent tactics four years ago to force Fox to cancel plans for an international airport in their town.
Fox has also “picked a fight with the labor unions,” Grayson said. “It's not a good idea to have confrontations with unions on the eve of an election.”
Tens of thousands of miners and metal workers staged a half-day work stoppage last month, affecting production at major operations like the Fresnillo silver mine. In Mexico City, thousands of workers from the government-owned electric company, the telephone company and other companies blocked streets and waved placards in support of the miners.
The labor unrest was triggered by the April 20 fatal shootings of two workers during a massive police operation ordered by Fox to break a strike at the major steel plant Sicartsa. The strike was called after the federal government ousted union boss Napoleón Gómez and accused him of corruption.
But police failed to retake the plant in the Pacific coast port of Lazaro Cardenas. When they withdrew, they left in their wake enraged union workers, who are still in control.
Now, there are ominous rumblings of a general strike tinged with violence in the final weeks before the election.
“To generate a miners' conflict in the middle of the campaign was a huge mistake,” said political analyst José Antonio Crespo. “The longer this is prolonged, the more violence it is going to generate and the more it puts the election at risk.”
Fox has also erred by injecting himself into Calderón's campaign, unabashedly supporting his party's candidate by running TV spots and giving speeches about the accomplishments of his administration, Crespo said. While that is an accepted – even expected – practice in U.S. presidential campaigns, it is frowned on in Mexican politics.
“Instead of standing to one side and acting as a neutral arbitrator, Fox is putting fuel on the fire in the midst of the social convulsions that we are seeing – the miners, the violence in Atenco,” Crespo said. “This could spill over into the election.”
Calderón's political opponents are certain to take advantage of the unrest.
“There could be nasty TV spots saying that the PAN and Felipe Calderón and Fox don't care about working people. That would be very damaging,” Grayson said.
Violence during the final days of the campaign could damage López Obrador's chances as well, said Estévez. The leftist candidate's Democratic Revolution Party has long used social unrest as a political tactic.
“It will really boomerang on López Obrador,” he said. “His party tends to get the backlash and that just pushes López Obrador farther back in the pack.”
Fox has backed himself into a corner by narrowing his options, political analysts said. Now, he is faced with tough choices – deepening the wrath of union members or caving in to their demands.
“He is going to have to give in. He does not have any option but to allow (labor boss) Gómez to stay,” Crespo said. “And that will be seen as another defeat of the federal government.”
S. Lynne Walker: slwalker@prodigy.net.mx |
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