A much needed election outcome - tight or not

By Dick Tunison

Six or seven weeks ago I attempted to call to the attention of my readers the importance of the pending Mexican presidential election. Such events are usually well below our radar screens despite their importance.

Socialist candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was locked in a tight race with conservative candidate, Felipe Calderon, a member of outgoing President Vicente Fox’s party. There was a third party candidate, Robert Madrazo, but he trailed the two more prominent candidates by a mile.

From my perspective, this was an important election for several reasons and I hoped that Felipe Calderon would come out the winner. As president, Calderon would be more likely to follow Fox’s support of NAFTA, increased Mexican industrialization and support the growth of middle class – all to the benefit of our mutual national relationship.
Not so if Obrador were to be elected. He was the “representative” of the poor worker class that populates most of the southern part of Mexico. This is not to say that portion of the Mexican population should not have a strong spokesman, but one who adheres to the hard leftist line and unsuccessful land reform schemes is not in the best interest of a nation that sorely needs heavy business and industrial investment from home and abroad. One need only recognize how foreign investors have increased their distance from Venezuela and Bolivia since the leadership has changed there. Foreign investors are queasy about putting their money in projects that may be grabbed by a left leaning government interested in running everything. Mexico ventured down that road three-quarters of a century ago and eventually paid a heavy price for the mistake.

Mexico is a country of great natural resources and a ready workforce. It’s important that a new administration find ways to mate the two. Land reform that divvies up larger holdings for the purpose of placing puny parcels in the hands of ill-equipped peasants is not a system that provides much more than simple subsistence. The ability to feed one’s family is imperative, but simply feeding the family normally leaves little left over to improve living standards.

Rather, Mexico needs to turn toward more substantial industrialization. Felipe Calderon seems to me and many observers here, and south of the border, to be the man more likely to work in that direction.

The election is now over and the counts have been verified. Calderon has been declared the winner, but not without loud protestation from Obrador and his supporters. Last Sunday a reported crowd of a hundred thousand people gathered in Mexico City to show their disapproval of the results. Calderon’s margin had shrunk from the first count, but he was still considered the winner. Obrador threatens to sue in Federal Court, all this not unlike what Americans went through after the 2000 election here. One would hope such disputes could be laid to rest quickly, but we all know they endure a long death struggle that can impact a society for years. Sometimes they even turn into deep hatred that eventually sours the wine.

Not unlike this country’s social splits, Mexico has a significant congregation of people who depend on the government for nearly everything. Among the elements of largess sprinkled on the people over the years are the ever-present promises of more sop for the needy - more social security, more farmland, more lifelines, etc. at the general expense of taxpayers and always offered with the hope of keeping the poor quiet and dependent on the giver. Helping the poor actually move above their poverty level has been a failure in presidential regime after regime, but nonetheless the promise seems to always work as a clarion call for many in the lower class.

In the past I had associations with a few of Mexico’s business leaders, most of them American educated, who understood the need for lifting the lower class in ways different from those advocated by socialist leaders. Yes, lifting the lower class, not subjugating it as the anti-business rabble rousers claimed. These men understood that investments were needed in Mexico’s infrastructure, the people of the nation needed to see educational opportunities that would provide them technical and professional skills, and free trade should be mandated.

Lopez Obrador is not motivated by such goals. Rather, he is an advocate of pursuing failures of the past that should have been seen as lessons for the country’s future. For example, he campaigned on the promise of state pensions for all those over 70 years of age. The interesting thing is that the Yucatan, an area Obrador perceived to be part of his southern advantage, went for Felipe Calderon by a 200,000 vote margin which may indicate not all of the under class believes in the old pipe dream. According to John Fund, writing for the Wall Street Journal, “a top official in the outgoing government of President Vicente Fox had predicted that a Lopez Obrador victory would have tripled the immigration flow to the U.S. as economic uncertainty about the country’s future set in.” That’s a troubling thought.

It will be important for the Bush administration, and those administrations that follow, to see the need to support governments in Mexico that work to achieve both industrial and social progress. This kind of progress must be one that raises standards, expands opportunity in the job market, creates a profitable industrial complex and allows the nation to exploit its resources to the benefit of its people. The kind of socialist regime Obrador would have advanced is not in keeping with such objectives. Let us hope that Felipe Calderon can live up to the challenge. We need positive results from our neighbor to the south.

I’ve never known a Mexican who did not love his country. Perhaps he was disenchanted with conditions at home, but that disenchantment didn’t replace a love for the land. Those of us who worry about the hoards of immigrants who steal across our borders need to see beyond fences and barriers to ways we can encourage changes that will improve the conditions that tempt Mexicans to look north for relief.

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Many of you have asked about the hiatus I’ve taken over the past several weeks. It resulted from a combination of moving into a new home to achieve some level of “downsizing” and a stack of health problems that wouldn’t let me go. I’m happy to report that almost all the boxes have been unpacked by my very industrious and hardworking wife, in whom I will always be indebted. She has quite successfully made our house a home without complaining the way I managed to do in my less than lively state. She’s the mark of what love is all about.

I also need to thank our kids for cheerfully joining in the task while I sat around and supervised in a very hesitant voice. Being unwell is no fun when one knows he is needed and expected to put his own weight to the oars. I’m hopeful that one day soon I’ll be able to return all these favors. In the meantime I’ll do my best to write my essays so that you’ll have something to “Just Consider.”