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Mexico: From PRI Predominance to Divided Democracy
Denise Dresser
The loss of the presidency by the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) in July 2000 lays to rest fierce debates over the Mexican transition to democracy. For some, Mexico’s transition had taken place years ago and although fine-tuning was still required, the basic institutional changes for democratic rule were in place. The 2000 election simply confirmed Mexico’s democratic credentials. Others argued, however, that a true transition would only materialize if and when the PRI lost the presidential chair. As a result of Vicente Fox’s victory both sides now agree that Mexico is a functioning electoral democracy.[1] Mexico underwent a “voted transition.”
The election revealed that the ballot box, revised electoral laws, and refurbished electoral institutions were capable of eroding the PRI’s dominance and dislodging the party from the presidency. In the electoral arena, Mexico proved that it had the essential components of a democracy: real voters with real choices, political parties with national representation, autonomous electoral institutions, an impartial media and an independent public opinion.[2] The contest was uncertain and had clear rules, voters punished the incumbent and brought a different party into power, the winner was recognized by his adversaries and civic normalcy prevailed throughout.
The debate over Mexico’s political system has now shifted to the adjectives that should characterize its new democratic regime: “fledgling,” “unconsolidated,” “skin-deep,” “fragile,” “divided.” Arguments abound because of the nature of the political process that ousted the ruling party from power. Over the last decade, Mexico experienced a transition from a hyper-presidentialist regime to a presidentialist system. Political and economic decentralization led to a transfer from the federal government to state governments, from the PRI to opposition parties, and from political parties to civil society. Mexico became a country in which power was divided in a complex way, ceased to be concentrated in the hands of the president, and flowed to other actors within and without the party system. Vicente Fox and his Alliance for Change capitalized on the changes produced by power-sharing, but the division of power itself will constrain the new government’s room to maneuver. What follows is an initial approximation to key themes that will shape Mexico’s new politics and affect the country’s prospects for democratic governance.
The conditions that enabled Vicente Fox’s broad-based coalition to defeat the PRI – and the political landscape the 2000 election produced -- may make it difficult for him to govern and deepen the democratic agenda. Fox assembled a politically heterogeneous and ideologically divergent coalition; now he will have to negotiate and share power with it. Mexico still is a presidentialist system of government, but it is also a multiparty system. Fox won a majority of votes, but not enough of them to avoid the emergence of a divided government, wherein his party does not control congress. The future of democratic governance will be limited and shaped by a constrained executive, a divided congress, a party system built on parties in disarray, and a decentralized political geography in which the PRI still exerts a large amount of influence.
Democratic governance will also be complicated by the weight of the past and by inertia rooted in the country’s political culture and institutional arrangements. Traditional political alignments have been swept away and yet many of the old institutions and rules -- including dysfunctional constitutional provisions such as the non-reelection of legislators -- remain in place. Major components of the system – such as PRI patronage – have been weakened, but others – such as PRI veto power – remain in place. Empowered new actors in the media and civil society coexist, side by side, with aging attitudes and authoritarian practices.[3] But perhaps the most daunting challenge for democratic rule will be institutional renovation to address the precarious nature of the judiciary, the absence of the rule of law, the persistence of age-old impunity. Many of Mexico’s institutions are ill-equipped to meet the ongoing challenge of democratic consolidation. The country has no strong and rooted tradition of democratic institutions and its main task will be to build them.[4]
The chapter begins by examining the historic changes that have taken place at the executive level of government, that is, the absence of key elements of old presidentialism in Mexico’s post-PRI era. In this context, I analyze President Fox’s challenges regarding executive-legislative relations as well as the nature of the new president’s political style. The second part of the chapter focuses on Mexico’s political party system with a special emphasis on the breakdown of PRI hegemony and the challenges that lie ahead for party institutionalization and party politics. The chapter later evaluates the divided nature of Mexico’s political power and demonstrates the extent to which this dispersion can be attributed to the development of a stronger and more active civil society as well as a more independent media. The chapter follows with an assessment of Mexico’s perennial challenge of building effective institutions and practices that assure the rule of law, especially in areas related to judicial reform, law enforcement, drug-trafficking, and corruption. I conclude with an analysis of Mexico’s future challenges based on an initial assessment of Fox’s administration. I argue that although the country has undergone a profound and positive democratic transition, it remains to be seen the extent to which democratic governance will be truly institutionalized and consolidated.
The New Presidency: Fox In a Box
In Mexico the days of omnipotent presidentialism have come to an end. Since 1988 the Mexican presidency has lost or voluntarily ceded control over key areas of its traditional domain due to a combination of political will, partisan negotiations and public pressure. [5] The country moved slowly away from an interventionist executive who exercised meta-constitutional powers to a restrained executive restricted to his formal role. Through successive electoral reforms enacted since 1990, the executive abandoned control over the organization of federal elections. Reforms carried out in 1993 established that the president could no longer name the Mayor of Mexico City, who would be elected by the popular vote. Also in that year the Bank of Mexico formally became an autonomous institution, thus limiting the president’s capacity to dictate the country’s monetary policy. Since 1995, executive nominations for Supreme Court Justices have to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, instead of a simple majority. In the 1997 mid-term election, the PRI lost control of the Lower House, and as a result, the president could no longer get legislation approved without building coalitions with the opposition. Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000) offered a republican presidency, detached from the ruling PRI, and he frequently kept his word, leaving decisions to congress and relinquishing his capacity to hand-pick his successor.
The 2000 election eliminated the three conditions – unified government, strong discipline within the majority party, and presidential leadership of the PRI – that enabled Mexican presidentialism to exist and flourish.[6] Given the absence of the key instruments of presidentialism, Vicente Fox has less room to maneuver than post- electoral euphoria had first suggested.Mexico’s president is governing in a box, under siege, and within the confines of a contested congress. More people voted for Fox than for the National Action Party (PAN): the difference between voting percentages at the party level was not as big as the PAN wanted or the PRI feared; the “Fox effect” allowed a charismatic candidate to win, but was not enough to guarantee a unified congress headed by the president’s party.[7] Fox obtained 5.5 percent more of the vote than his party and its allies did for congress. Fox’s coalition, the Alliance for Change won 43.7 percent of the vote in the presidential race, followed by the PRI with 36.91 percent, and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas’ Alliance for Mexico with 17.02 percent. But in the congressional races the Alliance for Change garnered only 2 percent more votes than the PRI.[8] Beyond the elusive desire for change, Mexico’s newly elected executive was not endowed with a forceful mandate.[9] He has to continually construct one, and that endeavor will not be an easy one to the unprecedented division of power in the Mexican congress.[10]
Executive-legislative relations prior to the 2000 election cannot be compared to the new challenges Fox and a divided congress will face. After the PRI lost its majority in the lower chamber in the mid-term election of 1997, a true revolution in parliamentary organization and practices emerged during the second half of the Zedillo administration.[11] The Mexican legislature turned into a battlefield, replete with frontal attacks, strategic retreats, seemingly endless negotiations and frequent stalemates. In contrast with past passivity, budgets for the fiscal years 1998 and 1999 were heavily modified in committees. Opposition deputies challenged both taxes and spending, took the budget negotiations into overtime, and achieved some of their goals.[12] The executive was responsible for only 11 percent of all legislation that reached the Chamber of Deputies, lower than any point in the three previous congresses, and deputies presented a record number of bills.[13] The president was less influential than in the past, and congressmen were more so.
But certain trends were proven and predictable: high party discipline remained in full force, last minute deals brokered between the PAN and the PRI – such as those relating to the bailout of the banks and a set of electoral reforms – became the norm.[14] On economic and political issues, the PRI-PAN cufflink set the agenda, rounded up the votes and frequently won the day, despite the recalcitrance of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). PRI control of the Senate meant that many PAN-PRD initiatives never saw the light of day. Although highly visible bickering in congress was frequent, in the end at least two-party consensus assured the passage of key bills and assured governability. Party cohesiveness prevailed.[15]
The results of the 2000 election, in contrast, have created a new context for practices and alliances in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Mexico is moving into a fluid, unpredictable situation where no single party has the majority to approve legislation on its own, and ad-hoc coalitions will have to be built on a case by case basis. Unholy alliances between traditional archenemies like the PRI and the PRD may be forged, and even the president and his party could have very different legislative agendas. In order to pass a constitutional reform in the Lower House that requires a two-thirds majority or 333 votes, the PAN – with 206 deputies – would need an additional 127 votes.[16]
In Mexico’s new legislative landscape, government officials are being forced to defend their proposals, and congressional lobbying has become an integral part of daily politics. The real battles over Mexico’s destiny are being fought not in Los Pinos (the presidential residence) but in San Lázaro (the congressional building). Therefore the kind of rapid change the Fox team envisioned upon arrival into office has been difficult to bring about. Ordinary laws and constitutional reforms have become contested and combative affairs in congress, in the senate, and in local legislatures.[17] The election produced a weaker president who will have to negotiate with a divided congress. And given the composition of congress itself, some have suggested that although Mexico is a presidentialist system, in coming years, the country will function with a parliamentary logic.[18]
Mexico’s congress changed since the 2000 election, but so did the executive. Fox’s victory brought an end to the presidency as Mexicans had known it. During the PRI’s reign, Mexican presidents wielded great power but were subjected to little accountability.[19] Their personal styles diverged but they shared a common purpose: to preserve the PRI-dominated system through discretionary presidential intervention. In a break with the past, Vicente Fox inaugurated a new era in which the president is viewed less as a totemic figure and more as a temporary occupant of a post that can be won and lost at the polls. The imperial presidency has ended and the informal presidency has begun. Instead of imposing from above, the President now has to engage in bargaining and deal brokering in order to generate support from below.
As part of the new government’s approach, the President perceives the country as divided into two different dimensions: the green circle, composed by the majority of the population, and the red circle, composed by elites who form opinion and make decisions.[20] The first circle is where the votes are; the second circle has the capacity to influence them. The red circle encompasses the beneficiaries of the president’s promised programs whereas the green circle includes the legislators who can veto them. The green circle includes those who approve of Vicente Fox and the red circle incorporates those who have less lofty opinions about him.
Fox has tried to govern by “going public,” jumping over the red circle in order to convince the green circle, using his personality to generate popularity.[21] Instead of locking himself in to negotiate, the president delegates that task to others. Instead of encouraging mobilization via political parties, the president appeals to the media. Instead of working within institutions, the president jumps over them. Vicente Fox has transformed the Mexican presidency into a public affair. By doing so, he is adapting the Mexican presidency to the Information Age, wherein via the media, presidents speak directly to the public and appeal to millions of voters instead of convincing hundreds of congressmen.
As governor of the state of Guanajuato, Fox set a precedent, a blueprint for current executive actions.[22] Fox did not exercise power sitting behind a desk, reading policy briefs. He governed on the streets and on the screens, consulting and asking, listening and deciding. He traveled through the countryside, eliciting public support for his policies.[23] In the presidency he has adopted the same activist stance vis-à-vis congress. His presidency is media-driven and television-based. He appears frequently on television, he has a weekly radio show, he promotes his programs and responds to his critics.
Fox triumphed over the PRI due to a successful campaign based on “The Millenium Project,” a political manual and roadmap.[24] Devised by one of Fox’s closest friends and former Coca-Cola colleague, José Luis González, the document set forth how Fox, “the product” would be sold, and what would compel Mexicans to buy him. The Millennium Project gave Fox precise instructions on how to steal banners from the left and contain the right, how to take advantage of his height and how to comb his hair, what to say and what to wear. Advised by a team of expert marketers, Fox learned how to develop a winning persona: stubborn and persistent, charismatic and contradictory, informal and intemperate, simple and sincere. Vicente Fox toppled the PRI by gambling on the formula: “Marketing + Money = Presidency.”
Since the beginning of his term in December 2000, Fox has used the same credo to govern the electorate he courted in an assiduous fashion. Just as he did during his three-year long campaign, Fox constructs his image deliberately and carefully. He knows that 69 percent of Mexicans who wanted “change” voted for him, and therefore the word has become his sound bite of choice. He is aware that a majority of voters between the ages of 18 and 34 are his natural constituency, and he wants to speak as colloquially as they do. He understands that the majority of Mexicans relate to politics through television, and consequently he appears onscreen as frequently as he can. Fox ran a personality-driven campaign and now he is running a personality-driven presidency. Day after day, event after event, Mexicans are treated to the presidency as a spectacle in which the president himself occupies center stage.
Vicente Fox has inaugurated a new way of doing politics in Mexico, based largely on the techniques he applied to propel himself to office including polls, data processing, image management and marketing. Polls discover what the population thinks, data processing reveals the depth of those beliefs, image management builds upon detected desires, and marketing inserts the product into the media. Behind Fox’s carefully crafted persona, an army of advisors carries out polls and discusses their results, designs media strategies and evaluates their impact. At the helm of the Office of the Presidential Image, Francisco Ortiz, a former marketing executive with Procter and Gamble, takes the country’s pulse through weekly opinion polls. When the president’s popularity dips, quick measures – including a televised marriage ceremony – are taken to counteract the downward trend.