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| A MANDATE FOR CHANGE | |
 November 29, 2000  | |
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Jeffrey Kaye reports on the challenges Vicente Fox faces as he becomes Mexico's new president.
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RAY SUAREZ: Next, a North American country that managed to elect a president on schedule. The new president of Mexico takes office this Friday. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles reports on the challenges he faces. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Promises of dramatic change | ||||||||||||||||||||
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JEFFREY KAYE: Castañeda, a left-wing writer and political scientist, is part of a transition team which spans the ideological spectrum. Fox has cast himself as a pragmatist. Since the election, he has enlisted support from a cross-section of leaders ranging from business and labor officials to representatives of the nation's often-neglected indigenous communities.
JEFFREY KAYE: Many Mexicans are taking Fox's promises of dramatic change at face value, literally arriving on his doorstep to press their case. At his Mexico City transition offices, delegations of petitioners show up from across the nation. ISMAELA ORTEGA: (speaking through interpreter) We have been in this situation for many years. The sugar workers are the most exploited, the ones who live in the most poverty. JEFFREY KAYE: Sugar workers came 250 miles from the coastal state of Vera Cruz to complain about union corruption and poor wages.
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| The middle class response to Fox | ||||||||||||||||||||
| JEFFREY KAYE: Fox's strongest supporters, Mexico's middle class, also have their expectations. Owners of small and medium-size businesses were crucial to Fox's victory - people like Carlos Guzman, head of a soft drink company. Guzman supported Fox because of his business-friendly proposals to cut red tape, increase exports, and stimulate lending. For himself, Guzman wants Fox to open up soft drink markets at home and in Central America.
JEFFREY KAYE: While Fox will enter the presidential palace on December 1 with a mandate for change, perhaps the most significant change may have already happened -- the election of a president from an opposition party. Fox will face major challenges in actually implementing the reforms he promised in this tradition-bound country. Even Fox's advisers are cautioning Mexicans not to expect rapid reforms. JORGE CASTAÑEDA: There will be dramatic change in the way Mexico is governed and in the way the Mexican people relate to their government, but over the entire administration, this is not going to happen overnight. I think the Mexican people know that the polls that the transition team has been carrying out show very clearly that people do not expect everything to change overnight.
RAFAEL RUIZ: It's not more weapons; it's not more men. JEFFREY KAYE: Criminologist Rafael Ruiz is a leading Mexican human rights activist. JEFFREY KAYE: Should Mexicans expect dramatic change as far as cleaning up corruption is concerned?
JEFFREY KAYE: So systemic that Ruiz and other Mexicans point to a culture of illegality. Mexico's off-the-books underground economy is thriving and not hard to find. On a major street in downtown Mexico City, sellers of pirated computer software operate under the noses of police. JEFFREY KAYE: So this is, this is illegal, to sell this. MAN ON STREET: Yes. RAFAEL RUIZ: Mexicans, we unfortunately are in constant contact with corruption, and we would like to see Fox to be more forceful and more clear in what he wants to accomplish. If we are somehow suspicious and not as happy as we would like, it's because we don't see clearly what he wants to accomplish and how he's going to do it.
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| Underlying skepticism | ||||||||||||||||||||
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(PEOPLE CONVERSING IN ZAPOTEC) JEFFREY KAYE: Residents try to get by on subsistence farming, but desperation has forced half the population to flee to the united states in search of work. Farmer Marcelo Martinez, who expects his 16-year-old son will soon make the trek North, has heard similar campaign slogans in the past. MARCELLO MARTINEZ, Farmer: (speaking through interpreter) Many political parties have come through here making promises, yet they don't accomplish anything. They say they are going to help the most vulnerable, yet they don't do it. (People chanting in Spanish)
LUZ MORENO: (speaking through interpreter) The only way they will listen to us is with an action such as this. We will wait until the government gets into power, but we have little confidence.
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| Recasting an authoritarian image | ||||||||||||||||||||
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JEFFREY KAYE: PRI leaders are embarking on a program of reinvention as they embrace
reform and recast their party's authoritarian image. DIPOLA DE LOS ANGELES: Reconocemos por supuesto... (speaking through interpreter) We recognize, of course, that on our journey there have been errors made, deviations, and serious omissions, yet the PRI has always shown the capacity to rectify things.
GOV. JOSE MURAT: (speaking through interpreter) Even if Vicente Fox does not belong to our political organization, if he works on behalf of Mexico and Oaxaca, we will be allies in that work. JEFFREY KAYE: Murat is setting high standards for Fox. He says he wants generous support for Oaxaca from Mexico City. GOV. JOSE MURAT: No tenemos impresa... (speaking through interpreter) We don't have business, we don't have factories, and we don't have business development sufficient enough to help ourselves. That is why investments from the federal government are so important.
JORGE CASTAÑEDA: Much more investment in education-- better schools, better administered, reaching more people in the poor areas of the 500 townships in the state of Oaxaca; health, unifying the health-delivery systems; housing; and most important of all, employment. JEFFREY KAYE: Fox's team is setting ambitious goals. In six years, they aim to take the people of Santa Ines Yatzechi, as well as millions of Mexicans, on a journey that in U.S. terms will transport them from the 19th to the 21st century. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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JEFFREY
KAYE: The election of a new president on July 2nd was an event many Mexicans compare
to the fall of the Berlin Wall. For the first time in 71 years, an opposition
presidential candidate defeated Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party,
the PRI. Vicente Fox was the candidate of Mexico's right of center National Action
Party. In his two-and-a-half year long campaign, Fox, a rancher turned Coca Cola
executive, turned state governor, confidently promised to conquer such deep-seated
problems as corruption, poverty, and crime. "Cambio," Spanish for change, was
the campaign's rallying cry. Now, as he prepares to take office, 100 million Mexicans
-- most of whom live in poverty -- are waiting for him to deliver on his ambitious
promises. Adviser Jorge Castañeda, who will be Fox's foreign secretary,
says change will be the hallmark of Fox's six-year term. 
JORGE
CASTAÑEDA: We will no longer be seen abroad as the country of corruption,
of drugs, of violence, of sombreros, of Tequila, but rather, as a country of culture,
of hardworking people - which we are - of prosperity, of modernization, of democracy,
of respect for human rights. 
VICENTE
FOX: Our democracy will be incomplete while indigenous communities continue to
be discriminated against and excluded. 
ISMAELA
ORTEGA: (speaking through interpreter) The majority of people who live in my village,
who are fighting here, they live in a house like this. They want to have a home
that is a little bit more dignified than this. 
CARLOS
GUZMAN: (speaking through interpreter) We think that Fox has good ideas. As a
businessman we know him. He also knows what we are going through on the other
side of the desk. He knows the problems of business. We have the hope, the businesspeople
of Mexico, we have hope in Fox. 
JEFFREY
KAYE: One of Fox's grandest promises, ending widespread corruption, is likely
to be his most daunting task. Examples of official corruption are legion -- ranging
from traffic cops on the take, to officials who have been tied to narcotics violence
and trafficking, to a military accused by human rights groups of abuse of power
in southern states where guerrilla groups have taken up arms. Reform of the police
and justice system is such a tall order that many Mexicans are wondering aloud
how much of a change the new president can actually make. 
RAFAEL
RUIZ: No, I would not expect dramatic changes. Hopefully I expect some changes.
But that's about all. Please do remember that in Mexico, corruption is institutionalized
and it's systemic. 
JEFFREY
KAYE: That same kind of skepticism can be heard in some of Mexico's poorest areas.
In the indigenous farming community of Santa Ines Yatzechi in the southern state
of Oaxaca, Spanish is a foreign language to most people, who speak Zapotec, an
Indian dialect.
JEFFREY
KAYE: Fox will not only have to combat skepticism, there are several entrenched
forces in Mexico likely to fight him if they feel their livelihood or clout is
threatened. For the last several weeks, public employee unions demanding salary
increases have staged demonstrations and put up roadblocks throughout the country.
They promise similar actions if Fox makes cutbacks in his quest to streamline
government. 
JEFFREY
KAYE: Another potential obstacle, if not the largest, will come from competing
political parties, particularly the PRI. Although the PRI's current fortunes are
reflected in the stacked furniture in its headquarters lobby, from 1929 until
the election of Fox, the PRI and the government were virtually indistinguishable.
The PRI remains a formidable political presence. PRI governors rule in 18 of the
nation's 31 states, and help determine how federal legislators vote in Mexico's
congress. The PRI controls the largest bloc of votes, but falls short of a majority.
If Fox is to turn much of his agenda into reality, he'll need to cut deals and
broker alliances with opposition parties. Old-guard PRI legislators such as Gustavo
Carvajal are staking out positions to the left of Fox.
GUSTAVO
CARVAJAL: (speaking through interpreter) We are not going to allow the workers
to lose the rights they possess -- and then the sale of state companies? We are
in agreement that there should be greater domestic and foreign investment in state
companies, yet we don't want them sold. 
JEFFREY
KAYE: A rising star within the PRI is Jose Murat, governor of Oaxaca. For now
and for public consumption, Murat is charitable towards the incoming president.
JEFFREY
KAYE: Murat expects a honeymoon period after Fox's inauguration, but as his gestures
make clear, unless Fox delivers quickly, the current climate of political harmony
is likely to pull apart. Poor areas of Mexico like Oaxaca will see change in the
long term, promises Fox cabinet member Jorge Castañeda.