Las elecciones en México

De Ramiro, la sección The Americas del WSJ de hoy:

Democracy at Risk South of the Border
By MANUEL SUAREZ-MIER

On July 2 Mexico will hold the most closely contested presidential election in its history. That in itself wouldn't be a problem if all the candidates were committed to the democratic process. But in recent weeks two of the three main campaigns have jointly pledged to challenge election results in the streets with massive unrest if their candidates don't win. If that happens, Mexico will be thrown into chaos and Mexicans will be the losers.

A poll by Zogby International last week gave Felipe Calderón a five percentage point lead over Andrés Manuel López Obrador and 12 points over Roberto Madrazo.

That's good news for Mexico. Mr. Calderón of the National Action Party offers the best chance to deepen the market-oriented economic reforms necessary for strong growth and job creation and to ease the exodus of Mexicans abroad. Mr. López Obrador of the hard-left Revolutionary Democratic Party, on the other hand, would return the country to nationalist populism and a closed economy. Mr. Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party is marketing a mixture of both, publicly siding with the left while privately pledging support for centrist reforms.

Yet even if Mr. Calderón can hold the lead, Mexico may be heading for trouble. The PRD and the PRI have announced that they are forming a united front to reject the election results if neither one wins. They charge that Mexico's PAN President Vicente Fox has illicitly used government resources to support Mr. Calderón. This week Manuel Camacho of the PRD signaled his party's nondemocratic intentions when he told the Financial Times that "there are going to be demonstrations on a scale rarely seen in Mexico and that will make it very hard to govern, no matter who wins."

Mexico can ill afford what Mr. Camacho has in mind. And yet, the prospect is looming as, much to the dismay of the PRI and the PRD, it appears that voter preferences have truly shifted toward the more market-minded Mr. Calderón.

The first big turnaround in this election concerns the PRI. It ran the country for 70 years until 2000 and as it enjoyed victories in state and local elections over the past three years, Mr. Madrazo appeared, six months ago, to have a good shot at winning. But he alienated so many would-be allies within the PRI, in his blind ambition to become its presidential contender, that today he appears unelectable. The Madrazo campaign is going nowhere but down.

The contrast with Mr. Calderón could not be more striking. He came from behind to beat Mr. Fox's hand-picked favorite in his party's primaries, and won the nomination. For months his candidacy appeared to stall. But in April he shook up his campaign team, focused his message and sharpened the attacks against his opponents. His cause was further advanced by winning, hands down, the first presidential debate in April in which Mr. López Obrador refused to participate.

Until Mr. Calderón's turnaround, this year's campaign phenomenon had been the PRD's Mr. López Obrador. Popularly known in the Mexican press as "AMLO," the PRD candidate has been running for president since he became Mexico City's mayor in 2000. Using savvy propaganda and generous giveaways, this populist demagogue seemed to have an unbeatable political advantage. But the lead went to his head, and he began acting as if he had already won. He rejected invitations to speak with nongovernmental organizations and private-sector groups and openly insulted Mr. Fox in alarmingly shrill tones.

As public opinion has turned against him, AMLO has resorted to accusing the pollsters, the media and the electoral authorities of plotting against him, a tactic he has employed regularly throughout his political career to boost his "victim" image and create social unrest in the streets. With his recent charges that Mr. Fox's government is illicitly helping Mr. Calderón he appears to be once again laying the groundwork for a challenge to an official ruling, this time the July 2 results. Mexicans are bracing for the protests that are now an AMLO trademark and that Mr. Camacho has threatened.

The surprising development, though, is that Mr. Madrazo -- once AMLO's arch-enemy in politics -- now seems ready to join in claims of an election swindle. This is all the more unusual because the PRI created Mexico's independent electoral authorities, which have gained widespread respect.

The PRD was formed by members of the PRI who bolted their party when it began to reform in the mid-1980s. As one of these dinosaurs, AMLO seeks to restore Mexican rule to the "true" PRI values of 1930s and to ban the "neoliberal" technocrats. If he wins, he could do this by wooing PRI legislators with perks that their losing party can no longer deliver, in exchange for changing parties. Think of it as a leveraged buyout. In this set-up the PRI, as a national party, would probably vanish.

With a congressional majority, AMLO could then change the laws that limit his power and by pledging federal money for state governors, he might also win enough votes to modify the constitution and add the ingredient that he needs to fulfill his mission: presidential reelection. He could crown his authoritarian reforms by uprooting the judicial system that has worked in recent years, for the first time in history, like the independent power intended in the original Constitutional design.

If Mr. Calderón wins and the government subdues the protests of a losing PRD and its PRI allies, the PRI might survive; Mr. Calderón is not likely to offer goodies the way AMLO would. This is what makes Mr. Madrazo's support of the PRD's electoral-fraud scheme so bizarre.

A lot is riding on this election, with repercussions far beyond Mexico's national boundaries. If Mr. Calderon wins by a wide margin, PRD and PRI claims of fraud would have little traction, although they will be tried anyway. But if the Calderón margin is narrow and his competition contests the results by creating serious unrest, it could compel the government to annul the poll's results, forcing a new election.

This situation would weaken the country's institutions, raise uncertainty and fears of anarchy, with potentially serious financial instability and economic disarray. Emigration would mushroom. The long awaited Mexican miracle of fast growth and job creation -- stemming migratory outflows -- would be lost for at least another six years, if not for much longer.

Mr. Suarez-Mier teaches economics at American University in Washington.