Disappearing reforms in Mexico
Only last July, President Ernesto Zedillo proudly advertised a bold series of electoral reforms in Mexico, negotiated by the country's main political parties under his sponsorship. These promised, for the first time, to allow opposition parties to compete for votes on equal terms, beginning with next year's nationwide congressional elections.
That advance has now been undermined by the president's own Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which last month used its congressional majority to dilute the reforms. Zedillo, quick to claim credit for a new electoral order last summer, must now accept blame for failing to lock it into law. Yet instead of chiding his party, he has publicly defended its wrecking operation and pretended it is of little consequence.
In fact, the damage is considerable. Congress set campaign- spending limits too high and applied them unequally. It also decriminalized spending violations.
In next year's elections the PRI will receive public subsidies of US$109 million, compared with $65 million for the main opposition party. Congress approved restrictions that will make it hard for opposition parties to unite behind a single candidate, for example in next year's race for mayor of Mexico City, where a joint opposition candidate would have a good chance of winning.
Fortunately, one of the main reforms announced in July survived the congressional ambush. Elections will no longer be supervised by a political ally of the sitting president but will be run by an independent elections council.
Democracy requires a level playing field open to all legitimate contenders. In Mexico an incumbent majority elected under unequal rules has blocked the changes needed to make future contests fair.
Zedillo, a sincere though weak reformer, understands that economic changes cannot go forward without honest political competition. If he wants to make his country a modern capitalist democracy, he will have to fight the reactionaries controlling the PRI.
-- The New York Times