Fox victory, a historic moment for Mexico

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, JULY 4. The vote and outcome in Mexico has been hailed as a historic turning point for the country and the hemisphere as the stunning victory of Mr. Vicente Fox is being celebrated with a great deal of enthusiasm. Mr. Fox defeated the ruling party candidate, Mr. Fransisco Labastida. Mexican stocks rose 6 per cent and so did the peso against the dollar.

In the United States, the President, Mr. Bill Clinton, spoke to both the winner and the incumbent - congratulating Mr. Fox on his facile victory and Mr. Ernesto Zedillo for having put in motion democratic institutions and processes that enabled such an outcome.

``Yesterday's elections in Mexico were a triumph for the democratic process and the Mexican people. We salute them for their achievement'', said the State Department. The former President, Mr. Jimmy Carter, who was monitoring the vote, termed the Sunday vote as ``almost perfect''.

Mr. Fox will take over as the new head of State on December 1 and the outgoing leader, Mr. Zedillo, has promised him a peaceful transfer of power. What is seen as unprecedented though is that never in its 70-year history has the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, has come close to losing an election. By the same token, the Opposition in Mexico has not had a chance of tasting power. Political analysts in this part of the world are now focussing less on personalities as much as they are on the emerging political structure and process in Mexico; and what all this will have to do with relations with the United States. Economically, the point is being made that Mr. Fox's margin of victory is comfortable in that his party, the National Action Party, has a plurality in both chambers of Congress and hence there will be no pressure on the national currency, the peso, as it happens during times of uncertainty and fluidity.

The kind of legitimacy that has come about in the aftermath of the Sunday vote is seen in terms of economic stabilisation as well. Further, analysts are making the point that Mr.Fox will pursue an aggressive privatisation policy besides taking steps to clean up the system, the economic sectors in particular. One of the main areas of concentration in the United States has been on the narcotics front with Mexico being the main transition point of entry for illegal drugs. An unnamed senior official of the Clinton administration has been quoted as saying that the political turnaround in Mexico would mean less corruption and a stronger enforcement of the law. The U S will also hope that Mexico will take steps to extradite drug traffickers wanted in the United States.

In Mexico, the attention in the next several months will be on the changing political landscape and equations with the focus being on the PRI itself. For seven decades this party remained unchallenged but under loose trappings of democracy. Now that it has been dealt a blow, and a real one at that, there is keen interest on how the party structure itself was going to withstand the change that has come about.

One view is that the PRI, in shedding the present leaders, may look to the leaders of the past in a bid to consolidate. On the other hand, there is also the feeling that in seeing the record turnout for the elections, the PRI will have to eventually start looking at a younger generation of leaders if it is to remain a viable force in the system.

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