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 Editorials | Opinions | July 2006 
Democracy Wins in Mexico
 Alan Kellogg - The Edmonton Journal
| | A woman walks past an electoral poster for the closing rally of leftists Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution party, PRD, in downtown Mexico City on Saturday. (Associated Press) |
We don't hear much about it, but Canada's ties with the republic are profound, and its election has parallels here.
Different the world's people may be, but some things are universal.
Mexicans are going to the polls today in what will almost certainly be an historic presidential election. And like public holidays - the country celebrates more than any on earth - Mexicans love elections, embracing the mixture of passion, gaiety and cynical resignation that underpins the national character.
Still, the Friday front page headlines of El Universal, Mexico's largest daily were all about the World Cup, which reminds us of our own sports mania in recent weeks. The homies are out, having been defeated by Argentina by a sickening overtime goal. In fact, soccer-mad Mexico bears the dubious distinction of having lost more World Cup tilts than any other country.
With Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the PRD and the PAN's Felipe Calderon locked in a statistical tie according to the latest polls, it remains unclear who the loser will be on the electoral field of dreams. The PRI - the comically titled Institutional Revolutionary Party - which ruled the nation for seven decades until the 2000 election of the PAN's Vicente Fox isn't far behind. But the very fact that the long dominant party seems unlikely to win and may well finish third is surely a victory for nascent Mexican democracy and the rule of law.
Whether the nation's millions of desperately poor will materially benefit is another story.
Finally breaking the PRI stranglehold in a free election led to immense reform expectations for Fox. Even PAN supporters admit the results have been mixed, hampered by a deadlocked Congress, a toxic political climate and institutional corruption that won't die easily. The economy has improved - Mexico sits well within the G-20 with a GDP of over $700 billion - but for many, surviving with dignity, never mind prosperity, remains a distant dream.
In some cases, it's pursued north of the border, straining relations with the Americans. That is almost certain to deteriorate further when looming NAFTA regulations will soon unleash a flood of cheap U.S. factory-farmed corn and beans on the market, worsening the plight of millions of small Mexican farmers. It's a fact not lost on populist Lopez Obrador - known as AMLO to friends and foes alike - who has campaigned on renegotiating NAFTA. It's a plank many observers consider purely rhetorical, since the Americans have served notice that they don't intend revisit the agreement.
We don't hear much about it, but Canada's ties with the republic are profound, and deepening beyond winter snowbirds sipping margaritas on the beaches of Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. Some 1,500 Canadian firms currently operate in Mexico, as trade between the two countries has tripled over the past decade. Mexico is our fourth-largest commercial partner, Canada, Mexico's second-largest. Potential links between Alberta and Mexico's state-owned PEMEX oil monopoly are obvious. With a refining capacity that hasn't kept pace, Mexico must now send oil to the States for processing. AMLO has promised to build new refineries without detailing who will pay for the immense cost.
And, of course, both Canada and Mexico share a border with the United States, the relationship that dominates national life.
There were parallels too, in the recent Mexican campaign that Canadians might find familiar, if with turned tables. In many ways, the contest has boiled down to fearmongering, as the business-friendly PAN has sought to cast AMLO as a dangerous, myopic and simple-minded socialist fellow traveller of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. And it's worked to some degree, narrowing the PRD's once double-digit lead to three points. In fact, each party has moved to the centre, at least in tone. It's been a fight between a charismatic populist concerned with domestic policies first, and a colourless Harvard-trained technocrat who looks to the globalized market as the engine to defeat poverty.
AMLO, who like Calderon, preaches economic growth, has never met Chavez and has carefully kept his distance. As the popular mayor of Mexico City, he hired Rudy Giuliani to advise on security matters, a move you
wouldn't figure Fidel would approve. PRD leaders scoff at notions of a hard turn to the left, listing off the experienced moderates who would form a new cabinet. On the other side, Calderon warns of dreamy social programs and naive strategies that would bankrupt the nation.
Most of the American media that seriously follows Mexico has largely avoided overheated predictions of a red menace gathering on the border. Friday, columnist Andres Oppenheimer of the Miami Herald, which co-publishes Mexico's only English-language daily, opined that AMLO is no Chavez, that a PRD government would join the "reasonably responsible left" of Latin America, breaking the "region's history of wild ideological swings that trigger massive capital flight and greater poverty."
Whoever wins will have immense challenges, since Mexico, like Canada, must also contend with competitors such as China, India and Eastern Europe for markets and investment. Expectations will be high again.
That said, while democracy alone certainly won't put beans and rice on the tables of the dispossessed, the very fact that Mexicans are freely choosing their future again is a cheering development. On the weekend of our national day when we celebrate our own good fortune, we might toast our neighbours to the south. The hope is that they are taking the steps to fashion a better life for all, long overdue in a great and fascinating country with much to offer the world, not to mention its own citizens.
akellogg@thejournal.canwest.com |
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