What a difference 71 years can make. Since 1929, following decades of civic unrest, internal warfare and repeated U.S. military interventions, the PRI, the Spanish acronym for the Institutionalized Revolutionary Party, has controlled Mexican politics.
The party's name suggested revolutionary zeal, but in fact it brought genuine institutional stability to several generations who preferred authoritarian rule and a centralized government to chaos.
The PRI incorporated every powerful element in Mexican society – the church, the army, the professional-business class, the landowners, the urban middle class and the trade unions. It created vast monopolies while oppressing the peasants and workers who formed the bulk of the population.
The system foiled all potential opponents through brutality, patronage and corruption. The emigration of millions of Mexicans to the United States served as a safety valve against demographic pressures and economic downturns.
So why the change now?
January 1, 1994 is the date future history books will designate as the beginning of the end of the PRI domination. The North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect and transformed Mexico's situation in the world. Meanwhile, the Chiapas uprising led by indigenous Marxist militants exposed the socioeconomic fault lines in Mexican society.
The center could hold no more. Forces of globalization coupled with a decaying party and a restive electorate cracked it. The assassination of a PRI candidate in mysterious circumstances nearly lost it the 1994 elections.
Thereafter the economy took precedence over the government. Being a NAFTA partner diminished the importance of the state as the sole arbiter of labor and political issues. The concomitant opening of the markets hurt several domestic giants in the oil and telecommunication sections. The increased mobility of skilled young people dampened loyalty to the PRI.
Exposure to universal standards of human rights militated against the traditional abuses in police conduct, which violated individual liberties and collective rights. Demands for better work conditions, civic freedoms and land reforms grew.
Both glasnost and perestroika were in the air; now they merged, although the outgoing leader, Ernesto Zedillo, fell short of being a Gorbachev. The PRI did not implode, but it could no longer count on traditional loyalties. The growing maturity of Mexican politics became apparent in the considerable openness in the process of selecting candidates, as opposed to handpicking by incumbent party leaders or cabals. The final contenders used relatively sophisticated advertising.
The opposition candidate elected on July 2, Vicente Fox Quesada, was cautious and not so populist as to alarm entrenched powers. His message was relatively conservative, highlighting political evolution and law and order, not a revolution or a purge.
Fox exuded a business-like, cooperative approach. Perhaps the decisive element was his ability to listen. Fox was receptive to public opinion and to shifting agendas in different generations and various parts of Mexico, and assembled a professional and competent team of advisers.
The one-time Coca-Cola executive projected an image of a regular guy with a big mouth. But he also utilized an able cadre of damage-controllers and planners. He struck the right chord in an electorate eager for a change.
But will President Fox be a Jefferson? In 1800, the United States experienced its first peaceful turnover of power from elected officials of one party to their opponents. Thomas Jefferson then presided over a process of democratization facilitating the foundation of a genuine Empire for Liberty.
The Revolution of 1800 recast American politics. Only the sectional crisis that culminated with the Civil War rivaled it in importance. With few exceptions, elections ever since have been hotly contested. Their results reflected the public will (with the possible exception of 1876). The United States became a democracy in which real issues and changes of policy affected by popular desires became the norm.
If the transfer of power in Mexico proves smooth, it will establish a precedent. If Fox manages to sidestep the dinosaurs of bureaucracy, and if the PRI will abandon its strongholds of feudal power, and if the huge stratum of people dependent on patronage and favoritism will yield, then Mexico may merit acceptance into the community of democracies.
Itai Sneh is an assistant professor of history for world civilizations, human rights and international law at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York.
