PERSPECTIVE ON MEXICO : Debate Makes It a Race : For the first time, a televised presidential debate lets people the judge contenders for themselves.

In one fell swoop, the first presidential debate in Mexico’s history has altered the country’s political prospects. Well-armed with an acerbic tongue and a combative style, Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, the candidate of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), won the debate and emerged as a contender in the August election. His victory has transformed into a three-party contest what pundits had predicted would be a two-way race between Ernesto Zedillo, the candidate of the ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) and left-leaning contender Cuauhtemoc Cardenas.

More than half the population watched transfixed as Fernandez went straight for the jugular of his two main opponents, leaving them reeling under the onslaught of his verbal jests. Fernandez poked fun at Zedillo’s technocratic background, calling him “a good boy who got good grades, but who failed the democracy test.” He dug out documents linking avowed democrat Cardenas to authoritarian decisions in his incarnation as PRI governor of the state of Michoacan. His biting tongue and self-assured, aggressive demeanor won praise from a population trained to admire men with a heavy hand.

Before the debate, Fernandez had been trailing far behind in the polls and was perceived by many as politically irrelevant. His aristocratic bearing, his habit of collecting expensive cars, his social conservatism and his willingness to endorse the PAN’s legislative marriage of convenience with the PRI throughout the Salinas term made him a controversial figure. Fernandez knew that the debate was his last window of opportunity to leap back into the presidential race, and he seized it. His support in the polls jumped from 14% to 31%.

The PRI’s hastily chosen candidate, Ernesto Zedillo, revealed one serious Achilles’ heel: his incapacity to react as a politician. Zedillo arrived with a well-constructed, prefabricated speech. He arrived ensconced in the typically arrogant attitude of a member of the PRI, feeling that he owed no explanations, nor did he have to debate anyone. Confronted with Fernandez’s attacks, he behaved as his party usually does: He ignored the opposition and came off as an insecure, inexperienced and cornered candidate. He fell from 45% to 38% in the polls.

However, the big loser of the debate was Cardenas. Armed with his most powerful weapon--moral authority--Cardenas also believed that he could win merely by appearing presidential. He gambled on the power of his personal integrity, without realizing that in a debate, even moral superiority is up for grabs. Cardenas seemed wooden, sullen, ill-prepared and perhaps worst of all, surprised: shocked that his political foe on the right would call his PRI past into question and condemn him as a Janus-faced, hypocritical leader not to be trusted. Once Fernandez’s sword slashed through the garments of Cardenas’ moral superiority, Cardenas was left defenseless.

The Mexican political scenario has become so volatile that public preferences can change overnight. But the debate has undoubtedly affected the presidential race in a long-term, structural manner, and has revealed to PRI, PAN and PRD that public support is not a given. Even more so than before, the three parties will have to behave as though the electorate really mattered.

Fernandez will have to devise an effective campaign strategy that goes beyond televised blows. Zedillo will have to realize that being a member of the PRI does not guarantee automatic victories or unconditional support. And Cardenas will have to understand that he is not the Mexican messiah and learn to rely less on his moral certitude and more on a clear alternative-governance strategy.

The televised debate also placed the three main contenders on equal footing for the first time and thus contributed to Mexico’s political evolution. Instead of standing passively by, the population participated, observed and judged. Politics reached peoples’ homes and psyches. The government did not announce the winner; the public did. One debate does not democracy make, but the candidates’ first cross-fire may have shown the Mexican people--for the first time--the stuff of which democracy is made.