Fox won the 2000 elections by drawing in many voters from beyond the traditional PAN base and by causing many traditional PRI supporters to remain at home as a result of his attacks on Labastida. Sixty-six percent of those voting for Fox cited “change” as the reason they voted for him. Fox could successfully wear the mantle of “change” since the PAN was associated with social transformation in Mexico going back to the PAN challenges to the PRI in the 1980s. The change most Fox voters envisioned was bringing in leaders who could competently manage the economy, fight crime, and reduce corruption.34
Fox’s macho bravura, reminiscent of a traditional Mexican strongman, or caudillo, appealed to the Mexican public. His charisma and the independence of the media enabled this image to fly. Fox realized that it was only possible to communicate with 60 million voters through the mass media and organized his campaign accordingly.35
Fox successfully attracted voters by referring to the voto util (strategic vote). After framing the election around the issue of change, he then drove home the notion that he was the most likely one to bring about this change. He directly appealed to Cardenas supporters, declaring that the PRD candidate was destined to lose, and thus anyone desiring change and voting for Cardenas was wasting a vote.
Fox portrayed his record as governor of Guanajuato as a success in terms of honesty, education, job creation, economic growth, and foreign investment. These same results, he promised, would occur at the national level during his presidency.36
Given Mexico’s rate of economic growth at the time, neoliberalism appealed to voters. It also suited the political proclivities of the 57 percent of the Mexicans who defined themselves as being on the political right.37
Fox’s 2000 victory was a resounding win for the PAN and especially for Fox. The PAN candidate received 106 percent more votes than the party had received in the 1997 mid-term elections. In 2000, Fox outpolled the PAN candidates for the Chamber of Deputies by 1.8 million votes. Key constituencies voting for Fox included: 1) people who had traditionally identified with the PAN, 2) independent voters, and 3) PRI partisans who were dissatisfied with the party and who probably voted for Madrazo in the party’s primary. In addition, some 10 percent of Fox voters identified themselves with the center-left PRD. Young people favoring economic growth and accepting U. S.—Mexican economic integration turned out heavily for Fox. A final constituency turning out for Fox was the anti-PRI vote. In the disputed 1988 election this vote went for Cardenas, in 1994 it went to the PAN, in 1997 to the PRD, and then in 2000, back to the PAN.38
One-round elections in which the candidate with the plurality wins are essentiality zero-sum games, and thus the negatives of losing candidates are as just as important as the positives of the winner. Given its recent track record, the PRI never was able to convince voters it stood for either “change” or “democracy” even though it clearly understood that voters were demanding both. Voters remembered, and blamed the PRI for, an assortment of outrages and debacles ranging from the 1968 massacre of students to the 1994—1995 economic collapse.39
Demographics ran against the PRI. Those who had parents alive during Porfiriato, those who could remember Lazaro Cardenas’s reforms of the 1930s, and those remembering the rapid economic growth from the 1930s through the 1970s were rapidly being overwhelmed by new generations. Labastida outpolled Fox among voters over sixty and those who had less than a high school education, but that was decidedly not the new Mexico. Among eighteen-to-twenty-five-year olds, Labastida ran twenty percentage points behind Fox. Among those with a college education, Labastida ran twenty-nine percentage points behind Fox. Key elements of the old PRI coalition, such as organized labor and rural voters, had become come less important in percentage terms and harder to mobilize.40
The PRI was burdened not only by unfavorable demographics and long-held grudges against it for sins past but by its failure to offer a new vision. Before the 1997 mid-term elections New York Times correspondent Julia Preston wrote of the PRI, “Since it rarely has to defend its position in elections, it no longer has a definite platform of ideas to offer.” Labastida failed to emphasize that as president he would continue Zedillo’s popular policies. Rather he unsuccessfully attempted to wear the mantle of change. Labastida was unable to shake the image of his representing the old PRI, in large part due to Madrazo having so portrayed him in the PRI primary.41
In 2000, Cardenas repeated many of the mistakes that dogged his unsuccessful 1994 presidential campaign. He had trouble articulating an economic alternative, perhaps reflecting the party’s lack of clarity on the subject. Cardenas’s traditional nationalist, anti-American themes appealed to an ever-shrinking sector of the population. To compound his problems, he continued to emphasize the campaign rally over the use of mass media.42
The PRD itself became more of a liability than an asset. Since, by its own admission, the March 1999 internal election for party president that the PRD organized was so crooked that it had to be annulled, many felt they did not want the PRD running the nation. The expelling from the party of co-founder Porfirio Munoz Ledo in January 2000 for having accepted the presidential nomination of the PARM, a small, ill-defined party, raised the question of just what the PRD leadership stood for (other than power).43
With these liabilities, not surprisingly Cardenas obtained 17 percent fewer votes than the PRD had obtained in the mid-term elections of 1997. Presidential candidate Cardenas even received 689,186 fewer votes than the PRD candidates for the Chamber of Deputies received in 2000.44
World History
