This Week in the Americas
Latin America: Lessons to be Learned
By Laura Carlsen
The rapid-fire changes taking place in Latin America offer some important lessons on globalization, at a time when the historical process seems to be reaching its first major crossroads. These lessons are being overlooked in U.S. policy circles, due to a combination of ideological blind spots and the absorption of the policy community in the dramatic events unfolding in the Middle East.
But to ignore them would be a big mistake. Latin America's experience—and the way it is being assimilated—provides ways to avoid costly errors and offers hope for new alternatives. Even crisis situations—like Mexico's post-electoral conflict—contain important lessons about social adjustments in the globalized world that go beyond that country's borders.
The political economy of globalization—as laid out by the U.S. government and the international financial institutions in the so-called “Washington Consensus”—continues to be the flashpoint for controversy.
In Bolivia, a new government critical of that past, now faces the dual challenge of breaking away from modern neoliberal policies that have ceded control over valuable national resources to corporations, while at the same time deeply reforming institutions built on colonial relations.
This month saw the inauguration of the body created under the Evo Morales government to do just that—the Constituent Assembly. As it confronts this overwhelming task, political analysts Raquel Gutierrez and Dunia Mokrani dissect the question of who these constituents are and how they reflect and represent the changing landscape of Bolivian politics. While undoubtedly an exercise in democracy, they show that the Assembly has some flaws in popular representation and procedures that will complicate its mission.
The experience bears close observation; civil society in many countries has noted that national constitutions have become contradictory and need either adjustments or an affirmation of principles, and that the pace of change under globalization requires forging a new social pact. Bolivia's attempt to leap from being one of the most institutionally backward nations on the continent to the democratic vanguard in building greater fairness into globalization is daring, laudable—and very risky.
Finally, here in Mexico the political thermometer rose again as the Electoral Tribunal threw out most of the center-left's challenges to the July 2 presidential elections and later certified Felipe Calderon as president-elect. The seven judges cited mostly procedural reasons for discarding the complaints, and did not announce the full results of their review.
The huge number of “arithmetic errors,” the lack of transparency in the tribunal's deliberations, the legalistic excuses for rejecting the opposition's complaints—all have added fuel to the fire of those who claim fraud. As a sad admonition of the real state of the union, Vicente Fox was the first president in Mexico's history to be unable to read his address before Congress. He arrived by helicopter and then van to a building that has been surrounded by some 6,000 armed police since last week. The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) had taken over the floor in protest of the suspension of constitutional guarantees caused by the state of siege ordered by the federal government. Fox dropped off his speech and left.
The decision by the Electoral Tribunal to validate the contested elections raises more questions than it answers. By explaining away the challenges to the fairness of the presidential elections held July 2, it affirms many of the doubts the opposition had over its impartiality. The official declaration does not close the book on the elections; it merely opens up a new chapter, this one in the uncharted territory of massive civil resistance.
If there's a lesson to be learned from the on-going events in Mexico, it's that in a transition to democracy, the establishment of laws and institutions is a necessary but not sufficient step. More and more evidence arises that the electoral institutions have served vested interests and that the laws have been selectively interpreted to favor the status quo. The statistically impossible results released by the Federal Electoral Institute, the millions of “errors” at the polling places, and the Electoral Tribunal's refusal to count the ballots all point to collusion and at the very least merit full investigation. No one relishes the combative days that lie ahead, but there are times when real democracy is forced to take to the streets.
Laura Carlsen is director of the IRC Americas Program in Mexico City, where she has worked as a writer and political analyst for the past two decades. The Americas Program is online at www.americaspolicy.org.
The Hidden Politics of Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly
By Dunia Mokrani and Raquel Gutierrez
Assembly make-up and party affiliations and alliances are key to understanding the Constituent Assembly. How will the composition of Bolivia's new Assembly affect the shape of Bolivian politics and the nation?
Raquel Gutiérrez and Dunia Mokrani are researchers at the Center for Andean and Mesoamerican Studies in Mexico and Boliviam, respectively. They are analysts with the IRC Americas Program, on line at www.americaspolicy.org.
See full article online at:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3486
Chance for Legal Solution Narrows in Mexican Election
By Laura Carlsen
The Mexican Electoral Tribunal has discarded the challenges for a full recount and set the nation on a collision course. What are the chances for a legal solution and a future for Mexican democracy?
Laura Carlsen is director of the IRC Americas Program in Mexico City, where she has worked as a writer and political analyst for the past two decades. The Americas Program is online at www.americaspolicy.org.
See full article online at:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3487
Welcome to the World of Hazardous Waste Inventories
By Talli Nauman
Mexico's Pollutant Release and Transfer Register is finally available to citizens, media, and activists in order to access information online about toxic releases. Follow the instructions here to be among the first to use this valuable information.
Talli Nauman is a founder and co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness, a project initiated with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. A contributor to the IRC Americas Program, she originally published this article in The Herald Mexico / El Universal at www.mexiconews.com.mx.
See full article online at:
http://www.americas.irc-online.org/am/3477
Letters from our Readers
Re: Mexican Elections
I really appreciated your discussion of what counts as “legal” in the Mexico elections debacle of 2006. As an anthropologist who also studies law in society, I thought your analysis was very good (I also liked Claudio Lomnitz's comments in Excelsior 4 September). Yours is the only discussion that actually seems to argue that there were other legal options open to the electoral commission. Thanks for your insights.
Ana Maria Alonso
Associate Professor of Anthropology
University of Arizona
The title (“Mexico s Critical Moment”) expresses very well the situation. The article is a good analysis of why it is crucial that the electoral results are free of suspicion. Anything less would further deteriorate an already eroded political legitimacy in an increasingly unstable social balance.
Umberto Mazzei
