By María Cristina Caballero
Special to Newsweek
July 12, 2006 - Mexico’s uncertain election is still far from over. Ten days after its July 2 poll, thousands of leftists marched on the capital to protest against what they say was voter fraud. Disputing official results that showed conservative Felipe Calderón had won the presidential race by just over half a percentage point, the protesters insisted that the real winner was rival candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Lopez Obrador has filed legal appeals challenging Calderón’s nearly 244,000-vote advantage; an electoral court now has until the start of December to decide on which candidate will be the country’s next leader.
Political scientist Merilee Grindle, the new director of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, has been studying Mexican politics for 30 years. She spoke with María Cristina Caballero about why the current electoral turmoil is good for Mexico and why who becomes president isn’t the most important issue for the country.
CABALLERO: What is your analysis of the situation in Mexico regarding the standoff between Calderón and Lopez Obrador?
Merilee Grindle: I wouldn’t say that Mexico’s political system is in crisis. I would say that Mexico is doing very well learning about democratic institutions and how they work. There has been a significant amount of interest in verifying the electoral outcome. But I think that is an important part of a democratic electoral experience. I think that unless there is violence, this is a very positive democratic experience for Mexico. Issues can be debated and people can make their choices; they can disagree but there are processes to solve the conflicts.
The electoral institute will make a final decision about the next president on Sept. 6. Could this period of uncertainty generate instability?
When people don’t know—or it is not certain for a while—who the next president is, it becomes hard to think about what the government will be doing in the future. But I am very hopeful that the current controversy will be dealt with without significant violence, without a deep threat to the continuation of the democratic political system. My sense is that Mexicans are very proud of the fact that they are able to resolve issues like this in a legal and appropriate way.
Obrador has presented a 900-page document offering what he says is evidence of vote fraud. Some analysts say that election corruption seems to be part of the Mexican culture. Do you see that?
One thing we leaned in the United States in the 2000 election is that there are all sorts of things that can happen to an individual’s vote. There can be efforts to keep certain kinds of people from voting, there can be honest mistakes, there can be certainly the possibility of fraud. My suspicion is that there is a little bit of all of that in Mexico. Mexico’s tradition under the previous regime, under the PRI [the Institutional Revolutionary Party], [was that] winning elections honestly—or rather dishonestly—had become rather a fine art. Certainly there are lots of historical precedents for officials all over the country to understand various ways of manipulating the vote. However, at the same time, the IFE [Instituto Federal Electoral] is highly regarded. It has done very fine work and has been led by good people. So, I don’t think there has been any national conspiracy to distort the outcome of the vote.
What do you think of Obrador’s request to have a manual recount of the 41 million votes?
The system can only be strengthened by a recount. I would like to see that, and I am sure that many Mexicans would like to see that. If it was an honest vote, then we will be reassured that it was an honest vote.
How do you think this Mexican electoral tension compares to controversies regarding the most recent U.S. presidential elections?
Until the 2000 election, many people in the United States thought that every vote got counted, [but] we discovered that even in a fairly mature democracy there are not only all sorts of mistakes but also deliberate efforts to manipulate the vote.
The percentage of votes separating the two Mexican presidential candidates was less than 0.6. Some analysts have expressed concerns about the polarization of Mexico.
I think the real issue is that the new government, whichever it is, is going to have a very hard time taking any action because of the split in Congress, which will make it very difficult for the administration actually to push through with new initiatives. I am much less concerned about a polarized country because I don’t think that the concerns of the candidates were that different. They are both concerned about poverty and jobs, issues that have to do with infrastructure, investment in the country and economic growth—the differences between the north and the south. They have different responses to those questions, but the issues that they see as being central to Mexico’s development are similar. The real issue is whether the government will be able to take action about those issues or massive problems in Mexico such as unemployment and poverty.
The media has pointed out the differences between the candidates: Calderón supposedly representing the elite and Obrador the poor. What are the similarities?
I think that both of them are aware that they have to address issues of poverty, unemployment and inequality. They see different ways of doing that. The issue is that Mexico is an emerging democratic system, and a democratic system means that you have to learn to compromise, make bargains across parties, you have to build consensus. The negative campaigning that happened during the electoral campaign would make it difficult for the parties to come together in the Congress around common agendas. My concern is not that the country is headed toward another revolution but that it will be very difficult for the Mexican government to govern.
But the candidates’ backgrounds and constituencies seem to be dramatically different.
I don’t think either party can govern or can address the problems of the country if they are only thinking of their natural constituencies. I think the situation in Mexico these days is that there is not a whole lot of room to be radical on the left or radical on the right.
What do you think about the heated U.S.-Mexican immigration debate, particularly the idea of building a wall between the two countries?
Most people migrate because of economic pressures. My recommendation would be to spend a lot less time thinking about it as a legal issue and to spend a lot more time thinking about how policies in rich countries can encourage more development, more job creation and more poverty alleviation in developing countries so the differences between rich countries and poor countries can diminish over time. If there are productive jobs for people in Mexico, most Mexicans, I am sure, would like to stay in Mexico.
And building a wall?
Inappropriate. Crazy. Offensive. As long as they are looking for jobs and need jobs to sustain their families, people will probably do all sorts of things.
María Cristina Caballero is a fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
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