Word: pries
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...there much indication that the PRI is a reformed or even chastened entity. In fact, as democracy has engendered federalism in Mexico, critics say many PRI state governors have gotten even more brazen than their 20th-century forerunners. In the impoverished southern state of Oaxaca, PRI Governor Ulises Ruiz is widely accused by opposition parties, media and labor unions of winning his 2004 election through vote fraud, of muzzling the media and violently harassing indigenous groups. Ruiz denies the charges and rejects calls by the opposition for his resignation. But he's a reminder that if the PRI were...
...PRI leading voter polls? Because democracy raises expectations that the PAN and PRD have yet to meet. Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, was the Lech Walesa of Mexico, a democratic hero who turned out to be a mediocre President. Calderon has pushed through some much needed economic changes like tax reform; but the drug war, which has produced more than 7,000 murders since the start of last year, has consumed much of his agenda. Almost half the population still lives in poverty, and that won't improve any time soon thanks to the U.S. economic calamity across the border...
Calderon's response to the flu epidemic has been assiduous compared to the PRI's indifference to the 1985 earthquake. Dr. Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday thanked Mexico for "being very open and transparent" with its flu case data and for providing the "kind of political support" that she said helps the WHO "get to the bottom" of the pandemic. But questions have already arisen about whether Calderon's government jumped on the crisis as rapidly and adeptly as it should have. Has the PAN, for example, done enough since...
Then again, that's democracy, hombre. If Mexican voters were right to oust the PRI nine years ago, who's to say they're wrong if they resuscitate the party this summer? We've seen this phenomenon before - like Walesa's Poland, where democracy's early disappointments brought former communists back to power in the 1990s. But democracy survived there, and the communist-era holdovers were forced to govern more from the center. They were defeated in the 2005 presidential election, and today the country has a center-right President, much like Calderon...
Democracy will survive in Mexico, too, even if the PRI moves back into power in three years. But the Obama Administration should do as much as it can to help keep that from happening - starting with epidemiological aid to Calderon's government. From trade to immigration to the drug war, the U.S. has much more at stake in Mexico than it has in Poland. All the more reason for Washington to make sure swine flu doesn't become Calderon's earthquake...