Medicine for Mexico

When the final results of Mexico’s hotly contested presidential election were announced last week, it seemed fitting that Carlos Salinas de Gortari claimed victory by the slimmest of majorities--50.36% of the vote. That margin is symbolic of the divided nation whose leadership Salinas inherits from outgoing President Miguel de la Madrid.

Also indicative of the unhappiness that significant numbers of Mexicans feel concerning the election results was the large protest held in Mexico City last weekend by supporters of rival candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who continues to claim that he actually won on July 6. A former member of the once-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Cardenas believes that PRI’s political bosses stole the election for Salinas. There is evidence of fraud in the Mexican voting, but it is not clear that it was widespread enough to make Cardenas’ claim of victory credible. However, that will not keep millions of Mexicans from believing that Salinas came to power dishonestly. And one of the two great challenges that Salinas will face as Mexico’s president over the next six years will be overcoming this public cynicism and mistrust.

The irony of the outcome is that Salinas seems to be genuinely different from PRI politicians of the past, men whose notorious corruption and arrogance caused the revulsion against the party that now permeates Mexico. Salinas campaigned as a modern politician who wants to give Mexico a more honest and efficient government. He publicly warned PRI members that their countrymen are no longer willing to accept their old-style politics. He should be given a fair chance to put his proposed reforms to work, and both the political left and right should put his promise of more democracy in Mexico to the test.

To their credit, Salinas’ main opponents--Cardenas and Manuel Clouthier of the conservative National Action Party (PAN)--have so far urged their supporters to confine their anger at the outcome to peaceful protests. Both men must now begin using that political energy with an eye toward the future. Cardenas must attempt to shape the coalition of leftist parties that supported him into a more permanent structure, akin to the loyal opposition that PAN has been on Mexico’s right for the past generation. PAN, for its part, must try to build on its traditional base of support in northern Mexico to create a truly national party.

Salinas also deserves a fair chance to tackle the greatest single problem that Mexico currently faces--a severe economic recession that has left the country in its worst financial shape since the Great Depression. De la Madrid has wrestled with Mexico’s economic troubles for all of his term in office--doing so responsibly and constructively, in the view of most economists. Salinas was De la Madrid’s budget director, and most likely it was Salinas’ reputation as a level-headed fiscal manager that persuaded De la Madrid to name him as his successor.

During the campaign Salinas talked about making tough but necessary decisions that will help Mexico recover--decisions like reducing the government’s role in the national economy and promoting more investment from abroad. Putting these proposals into practice won’t be easy, because of the fiercely nationalistic and protectionist views of many Mexican businessmen and union leaders. But Salinas could make his harsh medicine easier to take by raising wages for Mexican workers, as he promised union leaders he would do toward the end of the campaign. Even conservative economists think that a modest wage increase now could help stimulate the Mexican economy without making inflation worse. A wage boost might be a good first step for Salinas to take once in office to help reassure the many Mexicans who view him with unease. It could help convince Mexicans that, no matter what they think of the way in which their new president came to power, he means to do the best for them and for the nation.