At 8 a. m., July 2, 2000, almost all of the 113,000 polling places around Mexico opened on time. Returns coming into the presidential residence during the day indicated that Fox was building up a commanding lead. To head off conflicting claims as to who won, Liebano Saenz, Zedillo’s personal secretary, repeatedly informed Labastida that he was behind and that the results of the Election would be respected. After the polls closed, both TV networks broadcast results of exit polls indicating that Fox enjoyed a substantial lead. At 11 p. m., Jose Woldenberg, president of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), announced on television that Fox had won. He declared, “We are a country in which a change of government can be accomplished peacefully by means of a regulated competition, without recourse to force by the loser, without risk of retrogression.” Immediately after Woldenberg spoke, Zedillo preempted any attempt by the PRI to challenge the results. He confirmed Fox’s victory and declared, “For the good of our beloved Mexico, I sincerely hope for the success of the next government which will be led by Vicente Fox.”27
Rather than resorting to the standard litany of election losers, “We wuz robbed,” all the losing candidates accepted Fox’s victory. The PRI had little choice but to accept the results of the election since it had few of the levers of power that it had held in 1988. Given the strength of the opposition, any challenge would likely have left it even worse off.28
Polls before the election failed to project the margin of Fox’s victory since most poll takers assumed “undecided” voters would split along the same lines as those who declared a preference. However, as it turned out, most of the “undecideds” opted for Fox. Even though Fox won the presidential election, in the congressional balloting on the same day the PRI retained the largest delegations in both houses of Congress. In addition, the PRI held nineteen governorships and a majority in twenty-one state legislatures.29
Many voters split their tickets, casting a ballot for Fox and for the congressional candidate of some other party. In forty-two of Mexico’s 300 congressional districts, the representative elected to the Chamber of Deputies was from a different party than the winner of the presidential balloting. As a result of this split vote, Fox would face a divided Congress, making it much harder to deliver on his campaign promise of “change.”30
Political scientist Lorenzo Meyer reflected the consensus on the elections when he stated, “In July 2000, Mexico underwent its first orderly and relatively peaceful change of political regime in its history as an independent country.” Immediately after the elections, a majority of Mexicans, regardless of their party affiliation, considered that Mexico was a democracy. Writing later, the then-president of the IFE, Jose Woldenberg, declared the 2000 presidential election was a success in terms of: 1) massive voting, 2) alternatives presented to voters, 3) good administration, and 4) its not being marred by major incidents.31
Despite having successfully brought about regime change via elections, Mexico remained under the heavy influence of very non-democratic entities such as multinational corporations (MNCs) and drug traffickers. Notions such as “freedom” had a very different meaning to Mexicans living in poverty, as Nobel-price winning economist Amartya Sen noted, “People are only free where they can provide for their basic needs and realize their innate abilities.”32
Historian Hector Aguilar Camin observed even before the 2000 election that democratic elections alone would not solve Mexico’s pressing social problems. He stated, “Mexico could become democratic tomorrow and have clean elections, but in no way would that create the million jobs the country needs each year for its young people.”33
World History
