Jose Woldenberg

For more than seven decades, Mexico’s elections had the dubious and often well-deserved reputation of being “fixed.” The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has won every national election, and its political operatives invented such ploys as “pregnant” urns (ballot boxes filled with pre-marked ballots) and “taco” balloting (bundling ballot slips). Yet, for the July 2 elections, things have changed dramatically.

Next Sunday, close to 60 million Mexicans will go to the polls to elect a president, Congress (500 deputies and 128 senators), three governors and lesser officials in state and local races. The presidential race among PRI candidate Francisco Labastida, Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN) and Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) is considered Mexico’s tightest. Whatever the outcome, there is an almost universal belief among Mexican voters, parties, authorities and electoral officials that the election will be the freest and fairest ever.

“This election ought to clear out a lot of myths about current Mexican elections,” says Jose Woldenberg, president of the independent Federal Electoral Institute and the man upon whose shoulders rest the hopes and fears of all Mexicans. With an annual budget of some $900 million, the institute, known as the IFE, is responsible for registering voters, organizing elections and tallying the vote at each of Mexico’s 114,000 polling stations.

Born in Monterrey, Mexico, Woldenberg, 47, studied political science at Mexico’s National University, earning a master’s there. While teaching at his alma mater, he became one of the most visible leaders in the drive to unionize college teachers. He is the author of several books on labor and political issues and still occasionally writes for newspapers and magazines. His essays on the need for electoral reform in Mexico were so widely read that, in 1996, when the Mexican Congress chose the current electoral council, it named Woldenberg as its president and charged him with cleaning up Mexico’s electoral process.

Woldenberg is recently divorced from Julia Carabias, secretary of the environment in President Ernesto Zedillo’s Cabinet. They have a teenage daughter. He was interviewed in his office in Mexico City.

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Question: Can you say without a shadow of a doubt that elections in Mexico are as clean and transparent as possible?

Answer: Yes. I do not mean that there may not be an occasional irregularity. But the votes of the citizens will be respected, and those who win elections will do so legitimately. Before 1994, there was always a post-election conflict; since IFE has overseen presidential elections, however, there has hardly been a post-electoral conflict.

Q: Does the IFE operate without interference from the government?

A: Absolutely.

Q: Will the Mexican people believe the election was clean if the PRI wins the presidency?

A: Mexico has gone through an enormous transformation. The opposition to the PRI rules in half the territory, and no party has an absolute majority in Congress.

Q: Is the process fair for opposition parties?

A: Yes. Regarding campaign financing, the 1996 electoral-reform laws established that virtually all campaigns would be publicly financed, and there are limits to private contributions.

Sergio Munoz is an editorial writer for The Times.

Q: Do the media cover the candidates of all parties equally?

A: The media are now open to all parties, and the IFE gets free radio and TV time to pass on to the parties. The main national TV and radio networks have fairly covered the three main presidential candidates, yet, unfortunately, there’s still some media in some rural areas that have not followed suit.

Q: Some of the old vices of the political system--vote coercion and handouts to voters--still exist. What can be done to eliminate them?

A: Let me put this phenomenon in its proper perspective. Mexico is a very poor country with enormous disparities and where some people have very serious needs. It is true that for a lot of people, one kilo of sugar or beans is more important than a vote. We must also acknowledge that there are unscrupulous political operatives who know these needs and will find ways to capitalize on them. These are facts of life, and we work very hard to get rid of them. First, our media campaigns tell the people that their vote is secret and free. We warn them against vote buying and coercion, telling them they should not feel beholden or intimidated. We also tell them that when they go to vote, they will do so in an individual booth. We assure them that no one will be able to see how they vote. So, by election time, even people who received gifts will know that nobody else will be able to tell how they voted.

Q: How much does coercion or vote buying influence an election?

A: There is an enormous correlation between poll and election results. This makes me think that the influence of vote buying in an election in which millions of people participate is only, if at all, marginal.

Q: Are you concerned about the personal, sometimes insulting, tone of the presidential campaigns?

A: Each candidate campaigns the way he and his strategists believe will be more effective for their cause, and there is nothing the IFE can do about it. . . . The only way we can intervene is if there is libel. Then we can fine them.

Q: Some Mexicans living in the U.S. are organizing groups to travel to Tijuana and other border towns to vote. Will they be able to?

A: Mexicans who live in the United States and have a picture ID to vote can vote in special booths on Mexican territory. But they should be aware that the law calls for five special booths per district. In the case of Tijuana, for example, that means there will only be 15 special booths, with 750 ballots at each. No more.

Q: What role will foreign observers play in the elections?

A: We want them to acknowledge that the process is clean and transparent. But that’s not all. Their presence in Mexico will help us inhibit attempts to stain the process.

Q: How soon will Mexicans know the results of the July 2 elections?

A: Results will begin flowing after 8 p.m. and will continue until 2 p.m. the next day. We have commissioned three agencies to provide us with exit-poll results in the presidential race. We want to announce the result by 11 p.m. Yet, if the race is too tight, we will announce that the exit-poll projections are not the final results.

Q: Who will sanction the election?

A: Once we have tallied the results and notified the winners, if a party or an individual has a complaint, it goes to the Federal Electoral Tribunal. The magistrates of the tribunal will consider the case and rule on it. The deadline for filling a complaint is Aug. 28, because Congress must be installed Sept. 1. In the case of the presidential race, the deadline is Sept. 6.

Q: Is Mexico’s transition to democracy now complete?

A: The roots of democracy in Mexico are getting stronger by the day. First of all, Mexico has gone from a one-party to a multiparty system. Just as important is the fact that elections, which in the not-so-distant past used to be noncompetitive, are now extremely competitive. The conjunction of these factors creates a dynamic that keeps on changing the map of Mexico’s political representation, making it much more pluralistic.

Q: When did Mexico’s transition to democracy begin?

A: It started with the electoral-law reforms of 1977. [The Chamber of Deputies gained 200 members chosen by the political parties, based on the proportion of votes they received in national elections.] That year’s reforms opened the floodgates of political forces that had been kept on the margins. It was as if, suddenly, all the political options that already existed in society found their way into Congress’ lower house.

Q: Did the 1988 presidential election, which current PRD presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas claims the PRI stole from him, provide a special impetus to the transition?

A: That year’s election was the first really competitive one in many years, and the opposition discovered there was a way to challenge the system in an election. The government’s sloppy handling of the process made it evident that there was a need for deep reform of the electoral system. It showed that the organization of the elections was anything but transparent. It demonstrated the partiality of the people and the institutions charged with administering the process.

Q: Did the ’88 election make it necessary to have a Federal Electoral Institute?

A: After that election, the consensus of all the political parties was that the country needed to create a new and independent electoral institute. The reforms in 1989 and 1990 made it possible to create the IFE and have it handling the 1991 midterm elections.

Q: Do Mexico’s political parties respond to the needs of the citizenry?

A: I think we have a system of political parties that is maturing at a very fast pace but that, of course, is suffering from growing pains. I cannot tell you that the parties that exist today will be around tomorrow. New forces are emerging. But the growth of democracy is now very robust in Mexico.

Q: Some people say you lean toward the left. Do you consider yourself a man of the left?

A: I guess. I believe in the separation of church and state. I also believe that, in countries like Mexico, the issue of economic inequality should be a top priority in everybody’s minds. I believe there should be mechanisms in place that can help compensate the needy for these inequities. . . . In Mexico, there are two types of leftists: Those who believe in revolution and those who believe in democracy. Their ideas are incompatible. . . . I believe in representative democracy.

Q: What is your worst fear for the elections?

A: I can’t think of a worst-case scenario. I mean, I can’t foresee a problem that we cannot fix. We have learned so much doing the 1991, 1994 and 1997 elections.

Q: What’s needed to consolidate democracy in Mexico?

A: It is not enough to have competitive political parties and to clean up the process. The next step must create confidence that Mexico is governable. The time of the absolute majority is gone. *