Mexico's dangerous political chasm
THIS MONTH, Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal formally certified Felipe Calderón's victory in the July 2 presidential election. Although this decision is the legal end of the electoral process, it will not resolve the post-electoral conflict. Leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador has rejected the court's verdict and called for a parallel government. These actions threaten to plunge Mexico into political turmoil, with consequences for such key issues in US-Mexican relations as trade, investment, immigration, and law enforcement.
To many observers, López Obrador's behavior only confirms charges made during the campaign that he represents ``a danger to Mexico." The reality is more complicated, and understanding it requires some appreciation of how the losing side views the controversy. To them, López Obrador's reaction is not demagoguery from a politician who cannot accept defeat, but rather a natural response to past electoral fraud and to deeply rooted injustices in Mexican society.
Mexico has seen many protests like those orchestrated by López Obrador. They represent a revival of the so-called second round -- practiced by both Calderón's National Action Party, or PAN, and López Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, during the early 1990s -- in which candidates cheated of victory by the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, took to the streets to ``defend the vote." Such tactics are far less justifiable since a set of electoral reforms took effect in 1996, but memories die hard. The left faced more fraud than the more conservative PAN did over the last two decades, and López Obrador himself lost a deeply flawed election for governor of Tabasco in 1994.
Even the post-reform period has not been free of controversies. In 2003, the PAN joined forces with the PRI to name the leadership of the independent agency that administers elections over the objections of the PRD. Then, last year, PAN and PRI legislators impeached López Obrador as mayor of Mexico City on a minor charge, and Mexico's attorney general attempted to prosecute him. Had legal proceedings continued, they would have prevented López Obrador from running for president. Only widespread public opposition and mass protests forced the administration of President Vicente Fox to back down.
Although the 2006 election was free and fair, some of its aspects reminded the left of earlier controversies. Among other things, Fox pushed the limits of Mexican electoral law by using tax dollars to advertise his achievements and by implicitly campaigning for Calderón. Business groups launched a barrage of issue ads against López Obrador, even though electoral rules reserve all advertising ``oriented toward influencing the vote" to political parties. In certifying Calderón's victory, the electoral tribunal noted that Fox's actions had prejudiced the electoral process and that the issue ads were illegal.
Complaints about the integrity of the electoral process constitute half of the leftist narrative; the other half concerns social injustice. Mexico's income distribution is one of the world's worst. The legal system often operates under to the principle of ``guilty until proven rich." Mexicans believe that connections matter more for social mobility than talent or hard work.
To an impartial observer, social justice and electoral integrity are conceptually distinct issues; the first concerns public policy; the second the overarching rules of the political game. López Obrador's conflation of the two poses a threat to democracy. His campaign of civil disobedience fails to acknowledge that, however unjust the distribution of socio economic resources may be, the current electoral rules are not. But wishing that López Obrador would think differently will not make it so.
How, then, can Mexico resolve its current political crisis? In theory, the left should drop its obstructionist tactics; there will be other opportunities to win office. In practice, however, ending the political crisis will require concessions from both sides. One essential step will be to ensure that the next set of judges on the Electoral Tribunal and the next leaders of the Federal Electoral Institute are named by consensus, rather than by PRI and PAN legislators alone.
The leaders of the three main parties must decide what other concessions are needed, and overt attempts by outsiders to involve themselves would be counterproductive. No matter what, making the policy compromises necessary to reintegrate the left constitutes the best path out of Mexico's political impasse, and the most important challenge for Calderón's administration.
Chappell Lawson is an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a nonresident fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy. 