The best assessment of Mexico's recent presidential election is the ruling handed down by the Federal Election Tribunal (TEPJF) on the challenges submitted by the Coalition for the Good of All (Coalición por el bien de Todos). The tribunal found that there had been improper meddling by the president of the republic; an illegal fear-mongering campaign orchestrated against López Obrador by business and some civil organizations; and a smear campaign waged by the national television networks. While acknowledging that all of these irregularities occurred, the tribunal, astonishingly, did not consider them grounds to annul the election. The tribunal's decision is at the center of the country's current political crisis and democratic regression.

A Setback for Alternating

This is the best way to describe the current political situation in Mexico. At both the federal and state level, it is very clear that the process of transition to an alternating-party system of power, which began with the state governorships in 1989 and continued with the presidential election in 2000, has hit an impasse.

The country's institutions were not up to the task. The entire regulatory and institutional framework, forged by Mexican society and political parties as a basic instrument of the transition to democracy, cracked in this year's presidential election. Neither the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) nor the TEPJF were up to the challenge posed by a hard-fought contest marked by the legal or paralegal intervention of extremely powerful economic interests and the de facto powers that rule this country.

The IFE's ineptitude, especially in tallying the votes but also beforehand, in its extreme pusillanimity and its powerlessness to halt the dirty war against López Obrador, raises many questions about its capacity to fulfill its duties. Moreover, the tribunal's ruling that irregularities did occur but “were not sufficient to affect the outcome of the election,” leaves no doubt about the bias of those who control that institution.

And not only in federal elections has alternation come to a standstill. In Tabasco's Oct. 15 elections for governor, state deputies, and mayors, all the corrupt practices and dirty tricks that PRI (the former dominating party) governments have always resorted to once again reared their head, including vote buying, busing in supporters to campaign rallies, and threatening activists and leaders of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Tabasco confirmed that the country's governors have become caciques, or bosses, controlling electoral and other processes in their states. One cacique is Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz, who has obstinately remained in power despite nearly five months of a massive popular insurrection demanding his resignation.

With the de facto powers intact, the capitulation of electoral agencies, and governors running their states like fiefdoms, we are led to the conclusion that political transition in Mexico has come to a standstill, is bogged down, and there appears to be no way to pull it out of the quagmire.

The Vigorous Movements from Below

Amid the signs of a democratic regression, the energy of the people at the bottom, the underdogs, has made itself felt. In the spring of 2005, the government attempted to strip López Obrador of his immunity from prosecution to prevent him from running for president. In response, a broad social movement emerged supporting him. This movement evolved and grew stronger when López Obrador won that battle and launched his presidential campaign. It thus became a new expression in civil resistance against electoral fraud and the imposition of the candidate of the National Action Party (PAN).

A very significant moment in the evolution of this movement, the most important in Mexico in recent decades, was the National Democratic Convention (CND) held on Sept. 16. Now named the Broad Progressive Front (FAP), the movement is vigorous, creative, and much more broad-based than the parties that made up the Coalition for the Good of All. Although it has a nationwide presence, its influence radiates out from the Federal District, specifically the via sacra of Mexican politics: the corridor from the city's main square, or Zócalo, to Avenida de la Reforma, which was occupied for 45 days by the CND's rank and file. The encampments set up along the corridor were a hotbed of political, social, and cultural activity, festivities, and rebellion.

Installed in the Zocalo for over a month, the protest camp campaigned for a full recount, which was not granted. Photo Credit: Katherine Kohlstedt, IRC.

The movement's most visible representatives are the deputies who had run on the Coalition's ticket. It has become an authentic alternative power since it prevented President Vicente Fox from delivering his sixth and final State of the Union address before the Chamber of Deputies on Sept. 1. Subsequently, on the night of Sept. 15, Fox was unable to give the traditional "Cry of Independence" at the Zócalo, which had been taken over by Convention representatives. Instead, the "Grito" was given by López Obrador's successor as mayor of the Federal District.

But the civil resistance against electoral fraud has hardly been the last expression of bottom-up democracy. Since June, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), an umbrella group representing teachers and social, popular, indigenous, and campesino organizations in that rural state, has practically held the state capital under siege. APPO's main demand is the resignation of the governor, Ulises Ruiz, who also came to power through electoral fraud. The first two years of Ruiz's term have been characterized by repression, disdain for social and popular organizations, corruption, and heavy-handed rule. The movement in Oaxaca is not led by any party or armed group. It emerged as a spontaneous, organized expression of direct social participation, of neighborhood assemblies, of plebeian democracy

Expressions such as this have been seen in several parts of the country, including the uprising of comuneros (rural land holders) in Atenco, the protests by relatives of miners killed in Pasta de Conchos, and the striking workers at the Siderúrgica Lázaro Cárdenas steel plant. Movements that not only express and symbolize the disgust from the depths of society but that have also been instrumental in seeking actions to defend the Earth, community, and union rights.

A Country that is Breaking Apart

All these processes are taking place in an increasingly fragmented country. This social fragmentation is on display in various forms in the country's different regions. There is a great bipolar divide: on the one hand, the Mexico of the integrated, as sociologist Sergio Zermeño calls them—those who have bet on successful globalization, who believe that the key to solving the country's problems is taking the free-market and free-trade model to its extreme conclusion. Most Mexicans who are banking on this model voted for Felipe Calderón and, to a lesser extent, Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI); although they mainly live in the north and the west, many also belong to the urban middle and upper classes elsewhere in the country.

At the other extreme are those who believe that Mexico urgently needs a transformation to bring about greater equity and end the structural poverty preventing the nation's integration and development, which is a cause of the ongoing violence. These are the lower class and working sectors, both urban and rural, above all in the center and south of the country. But they are not only there, since growing numbers of Mexicans in the north and west, and also an important segment of the enlightened middle class, belong to this group. This is the Mexico that supported López Obrador's Alternative Nation Project.

Lastly, there is what Zermeño describes as the broken Mexico: the Mexico of extreme poverty, the lumpen, the mass of underlings who serve as the manpower of criminal organizations, those who live on the edge. This is the sector that failed to turn out at the polls; they have never been interested in voting, because they see no possibility of improving their situation through elections. The few among this sector who did cast a vote sold it to the PRI.

Mexico's Short Summer of Liberal Democracy

Electoral democracy appears to be undermining, rather than consolidating, certainty, stability, and governability in Mexico . Far from serving as an instrument to solve the country's problems it has become a problem in its own right. Why?

Because the postelectoral political crisis is more than that, more than the manifestation of a merely electoral problem; it is the venting of very deep social discontent produced by 24 years of structural adjustment policies.

Reforma Avenue in Mexico City was transformed into a camp for protesters from all areas of the Federal District and around the country, hoping to obtain recognition of electoral fraud. Photo Credit: Katherine Kohlstedt, IRC.

As Ernesto Laclau notes, there is a price to be paid for “the traumatic experience of the virtual destruction of the hemisphere's economies through neoliberal adjustment” and the enormous consequences of this adjustment—vulnerability, a lack of organization, the dismantling of the social safety net, and anomy. These effects go beyond the economic sphere and have shaken the entire social edifice.

In other words, in Mexico there is no social platform for liberal democracy to function properly. The social fabric has been so torn, society has become so fragmented, that an all-out effort to heal the wounds is needed for institutions to work reasonably well.

When a candidacy such as López Obrador's arises, liberal democracy becomes overburdened with expectations, with demands from below. At the same time, in the face of the threat not only of political transition but of change in the model of accumulation, the precarious electoral institutions crumble and show their class orientation. The pressure from the groups that wield economic and political power underscores the deep-seated classicist bias in the IFE, the TEPJF, the executive branch, and the television duopoly.

Hence, we could posit a double hypothesis:

On a social terrain as torn as Mexico's, the prognosis for liberal democracy is poor. Its institutions are being hollowed out from below and from above. From below, by the excessive expectations and demands of the excluded sectors. From above, because, during critical times such as these, those institutions are managed with a classicist bias by power groups intent on perpetuating their privileges.

Therefore, without a concomitant social democratization, political democracy quickly runs its course. In other words, human rights will not be respected if only civil and political rights are enforced, and when the State fails to enforce economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights.

In Mexico, reading Giovanni Sartori is not enough; we also need to read Pablo González Casanova.

Outlooks

The French sociologist Alain Touraine points out that Latin America is in the throes of a crisis of the institutions that make up the political system. There is no effective link between social movements and political parties. The movement headed by López Obrador appeared to be overcoming this obstacle: Many organizations and social sectors have made themselves heard within the political system, not through the PRD, on whose ticket López Obrador ran, or the Labor Party, or the Convergencia party, but through the candidacy of the former Mexico City mayor. The movement being constructed is a break not only with the economic but also with the political elites and with the professional politicians, whom López Obrador has harshly criticized. The groundswell of participation of the masses was more evident in the postelection protest, in the encampments on the corridor from the Zócalo to Reforma, and in the massive, million-person-plus assemblies called by the candidate of the Coalition for the Good of All. Slowly, symbols of identity are being generated and a community is being constructed around civil resistance to the imposition of Felipe Calderón . The cement of all this is the charisma and the unquestioned leadership of López Obrador, who was declared “legitimate president” at the people's National Democratic Convention on Sept. 16.

What is next for the movement and the Convention? There are two possible scenarios.

The first is that the Convention's momentum and energy will fizzle out. There would be two fundamental causes of such an outcome: The attempt of some government sectors and especially the electronic media to corner and destroy López Obrador. In addition, there is the possibility that the Convention will make strategic mistakes, such as remaining solely focused on resistance without proposing alternatives, especially vis-à-vis the sectors that want a more immediate solution to their demands, or that there will be insufficient internal discussion or insufficiently strong ties with other social movements.

If this scenario plays out, we will be entering a period of much greater tension between society and the political system. In the best scenario, this would occur through manifestations of discontent throughout the country, the appearance of direct, plebian democracy; in the worst, it would mean the proliferation of outbreaks of irrational violence, in attempts to vent pent-up rage.

The second possible outcome is that the Convention will consolidate and become an authentic, collective, popular actor, composed of men and women citizens in control of the processes that affect their lives. For this to occur and for the Convention to become a decisive political and social force for the transformation of Mexico, the following conditions need to be met:

Formulation of a solid strategy on the left, with the convergence of all of the country's democratic, popular, and progressive forces.

Maintenance of López Obrador's unquestioned leadership, all while giving the movement systemic mechanisms allowing for joint decisionmaking and dialogue.

Combination of civil resistance with actions in favor of direct democracy and with legislative proposals to establish and consolidate participatory democracy as the general rule and not the exception in the country's most important political and social processes.

Establishment of ongoing, systematic ties with social movements in all regions in the country.

Promotion of the participation of citizens as effective stakeholders rather than as an excuse to channel lavish amounts of money to political parties and electoral institutions, especially the IFE and its state committees and institutes and federal and state agencies charged with ensuring transparency and public access to information, etc.

Reliance on participatory mechanisms to design, reach consensuses on, and carry out a plan for the social transformation of the country and the eradication of inequality and extreme poverty and to lay the foundations for economic development with a sufficient number of dignified, well-paid jobs and with a type of social development that meets the needs of all citizens, both men and women.

The Tasks of Civil-Society Organizations

Civil-society organizations (CSOs), above all those involved in grassroots communication and education, need to actively participate in constructing the new social and political actor who will bring about this social transformation. The most likely actor is the National Democratic Convention. To accomplish this, the CSOs need to contribute all their experience, knowledge, critical capacity, values, and working methods. They also need to overcome some of their limitations, for example, their narrow outlook, their difficulties in moving beyond microsocial levels, and their distance from the masses and lack of access to the mass media.

If the CSOs are unable to construct this social actor, either based on or coming from within the Convention, they should join other forces, for example, the coordinating groups of campesino and labor organizations, to reinforce each other's efforts in that construction.

In any event, as of now they are faced with the urgent, immediate task of rescuing the political system from the monopoly that professional politicians made it depend on. This entails fighting for greater citizen participation in all the institutions referred to above; publicly criticizing the squandering of public monies and the high salaries and generous benefits of the political elites and proposing an ongoing austerity policy; promoting the adoption and implementation of mechanisms for participatory democracy; and, above all and at all times, making a systematic, creative, efficacious attempt to promote a new political culture in Mexico, that is, a new type of relationship between the citizenry and the political system. A relationship in which citizens are the actors, the ones who demand, who insist on accountability, who make proposals, and in which politicians, as neo-Zapatistas say, “lead by obeying.”

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