Mexico's Elections: A Choice for Change

Never in the modern history of the country has so much been at stake. The rotation of presidencies throughout the rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party was carried out with the trappings of democracy and little of the substance. Policies were guaranteed to continue without a change in course, since the outgoing president hand-picked the incoming one. The 2000 elections offered a change in parties without changing policies.

But this year a candidate has proposed at least modifications to the political and economic orthodoxy. The largest event yesterday was the rally of leading candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador held in the heart of Mexico City. The center-left candidate spoke to over 200,000 supporters waving yellow flags and fervently chanting his name.

Unlike previous campaign speeches and the rallies of his opponents, the speech laid out the policies that would guide his presidency and responded only indirectly to the accusations of his opponents. In the forty-minute address, it hit the obligatory points expected by followers--with special emphasis on programs for the poor--and sought to allay the fears expressed by big business and the opposition.

The message to defend against privatization of the state-run oil industry drew strong cheers as did the program defined for a "new social pact." The candidate promised to tour the country following elections to draw up a pact based on free healthcare, universal access to public education, pensions for the elderly and recognition of indigenous rights as defined by the San Andrés Accords, which were signed by the federal government but largely rejected in Congress.

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