Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 23, 1994 TAG: 9408230102
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By TOD ROBBERSON THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: MEXICO CITY LENGTH: Medium
In selecting ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party presidential candidate Ernesto Zedillo, Mexico's electorate appears to have voted its preference for stability and continuity after a year that rattled the nation to its core.
For Americans, the results of the election offer a telling glimpse of how their southern neighbors - and newest major trading partners - think of themselves as a nation. It is clearly a more confident and hopeful nation that has overcome its fear of the United States and of the advantage many Mexicans thought U.S. companies would enjoy through the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mexicans did not, as many analysts had predicted, vote to reverse NAFTA by ousting the regime that ratified it.
While survey results show that Mexicans are looking toward a brighter future, with hopes of greater job opportunities and higher incomes, the country's citizens continue to feel the aftershocks of an armed peasant revolt in southern Chiapas state, the March 23 assassination of Zedillo's predecessor on the PRI ticket, stock market upheaval and the ever-present threat of a major currency devaluation.
The most telling statistic of Sunday's results comes from a single exit poll question asked of voters across the nation: Did you make your candidate choice because you expect it to improve your personal and family situation, or because it will improve Mexico's situation?
Seventy percent said they were setting aside personal concerns and voting for Mexico.
A stranger to Mexico can tell from a quick drive around any town, where high-walled streets and shuttered windows keep the outside world at bay, that the Mexican people are deeply family-oriented and concerned about their personal welfare. But Sunday, they put their country's interests first.
At the same time, however, Mexicans sent a clear message that they are dissatisfied with the ruling party and the machine-style power it has wielded in the presidency for the past 65 years. Analysts said Sunday's vote was less a mandate for the PRI than for the candidate and his chief sponsor, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
Although Mexicans remain skeptical of Salinas' economic reforms and his opening to the United States through NAFTA, they stated with their vote a strong faith in the future. Even the conservative runner-up presidential candidate, Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, declared in a speech late Sunday that while ``Mexico continues searching for its destiny ... we Mexicans must be confident in the change we have started. Today, Mexico is different. Today, Mexico is better.''
Zedillo, a Salinas protege, promised Mexicans a greater focus on the domestic economy while assuring Washington he would not veer from the free-market requirements stipulated in NAFTA.
His greatest challenge after he takes office in December will be to honor his foreign trade commitment while grappling with growing income disparities at home, where nearly half the people live at or near the poverty level. Because NAFTA requires Mexico to phase out its heavily subsidized economic system and increasingly rely on free-market forces, Zedillo will have to find innovative ways to elevate living standards.
The sector of the population from which Zedillo drew the vast majority of his support consists of farmers, blue-collar workers and housewives whose incomes average less than $400 per month, according to an exit survey conducted by U.S. pollster Warren Mitofsky. The poll, which included respondents from all 32 Mexican states, was sponsored by The Washington Post and other U.S. news organizations.
More than half of those questioned said their voting choice was based on habit and party loyalty. But their answers indicated that, while they were voting to keep the PRI in power, they were not happy with the status quo. Sixty-five percent said they want Salinas' successor to ``make changes'' in economic policies. While most said they believed the nation's economy is now on a better footing, more than half said their personal economic situation was worse or the same as when Salinas took office.
Despite a widespread sense of dissatisfaction, Mexicans turned out in record numbers to vote, with some states reporting turnout rates of 70 to 80 percent.
Salinas spent more than $1 billion over the past two years to register more than 95 percent of all voting-age Mexicans, put tamper-proof photo voting credentials in their hands and keep Sunday's vote free of the massive fraud that has tainted most previous elections, including his own.
by CNB