Heart of the Presidential Race Is More Reform

Mexico’s July 2 presidential election will be competitive--and thus historic. For the first time, the media will be filled with an array of political ads and unprecedented exchanges of political ideas. There’s even a chance, small though it is, that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) will lose after 71 years of monopolizing power.

Whatever the outcome, the presidential campaign will show just how remarkably Mexico has changed, from a relatively isolationist state protected by high tariffs to one opening up to the world. Yet, much remains to be done before Mexico has a government that is truly accountable, efficient, democratic and ready for the challenges of the global economy.

At its heart, the election is about whether Mexico will set the stage for reforms needed to create a modern government. Two such sweeping and much-needed changes are allowing the reelection of officeholders and strengthening municipal government.

These issues are often hidden beneath the babble of daily campaign politics, which focus on the latest media attack by a candidate. Still, they are essential reforms if Mexico is ever to free itself of the suffocating weight of governmental corruption and incompetence.

Permitting the reelection of legislators, mayors and city councils would inject greater accountability into Mexican government. The provision was abolished in 1933 to boost presidential power at the expense of Congress. If reinstituted, Congress could better counterbalance the traditionally all-powerful president. An experienced Congress with accumulated expertise in government, moreover, could effectively oversee the executive branch. That, in turn, would foster the rule of law in Mexico.

The PRI uses vacant congressional seats to reward loyal mid-level priistas. Although the rise of a viable opposition has diminished the number of available seats for the PRI to hand out, the practice has not died.

Weak and impoverished local government is the greatest obstacle to the country’s economic development. Economic growth occurs locally. Yet, Mexican local government is unprepared to control, direct or benefit from it. Cities have chronically minuscule budgets. They cannot build or maintain infrastructure. Nor do they have funds to hire capable civil servants. Their taxing power is slight. Barred from reelection, the mayor, city council and city staff turn over every three years.

Mexican city government is thus an essay in improvisation. It cannot plan long term or provide basic services that residents and businesses require. This in part explains why Mexico’s economic growth translates so slowly into higher standards of living.

Changing this situation would require taking authority and tax revenue from the central government in Mexico City and shifting them to states and cities. In other words, nothing less than a total redesign of government is necessary to ensure the continual development of Mexican democracy.

Many more reforms are needed. Mexico needs a real civil service. Mexican citizens living abroad, primarily an estimated 12 million in the United States, should be allowed to vote in the country’s presidential election. Congress should approve cabinet nominees based on their qualifications to run their respective agencies; currently, nominees need only a close relationship with the president.

Above all, Mexico needs to begin nurturing institutions to enforce political rules and impose checks and balances on the power of the president. For this reason, many observers believe Mexico’s Constitution needs rewriting.

But the only way this will happen is if the PRI loses the election in July.

In its current form, the PRI would be hard pressed to survive the advent of a modern, accountable system of government. It was created to administer power, not fight for it. It has no ideology. The party has survived by using its governmental powers to enrich loyal cadres and punish dissidents. In monopolizing government, the PRI created an anti-institutional, ad hoc governance that gave birth to a system of “unwritten rules,” rampant corruption and incompetence.

True, the party’s first-ever primary, held in November, to choose its presidential candidate has been ballyhooed as a great democratic advance. Yet, far from being neutral, the party apparatus was geared toward engineering a victory by Francisco Labastida, who eventually won. Then, in early December, in an old-style authoritarian act, President Ernesto Zedillo ordered Jose Antonio Gonzalez, the first man to be elected PRI president by party rank and file, to take over the Ministry of Health, thus allowing Labastida to put his own people in top party positions. This happened though Gonzalez was supposed to have remained in his elected office until his term expired.

Whatever its surface changes, the party will remain Mexico’s greatest impediment to modernization as long as it controls the presidency and thus can assure impunity for its members. Forcing its departure from power would be the single most important reform Mexico could make.

A PRI defeat would not immediately cure what ails Mexico, to be sure. An opposition-party president would likely stumble through his first years. But opposition parties, divided on many issues, generally agree on the basic reforms needed to make Mexican government modern and accountable. The center-left Democratic Revolution Party and the center-right National Action Party, especially, have made strengthening local government a top priority for some time now. Reelection is still controversial, but many in the opposition are convinced it will be necessary some day soon, and there is wide agreement on other reforms that strengthen Congress’ oversight role, such as a real civil service. Both also support the right of Mexicans abroad to vote.

Still, at this early date, the PRI seems poised to win. Labastida is campaigning on a time-tested message, one that has persuaded Mexicans, foreign governments and investors: that the PRI knows how to govern and guarantee stability. But the party’s record during the last quarter-century includes a series of disastrous economic crises, rampant corruption, an explosion in crime, pathetic law enforcement, a shabby education system and a ravaged environment. Should the PRI win, one might wonder what exactly the party has to do before the Mexican electorate punishes it.

Three years ago, Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute, which oversees national elections, was made an independent and neutral body, no longer the PRI’s prostitute. As a result, Mexicans’ votes count now. They can punish a state party for its arrogance and excess. They can require accountability from those with power. At the beginning of a new century, they can stage another revolution, bloodless this time, and begin merging with the world. Or they can retreat from the democratic changes they have already made, shrink from the task and say, “Never mind.”

That’s what this Mexican election is all about.