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The End of Mexico's One-Party Regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2002

Joseph L. Klesner
Joseph L. Klesner
Affiliation:
Professor of political science and director of the International Studies Program at Kenyon College. His research has focused on Mexican electoral politics and has appeared in several edited volumes as well as Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Comparative Politics, PS, and Latin American Research Review. He has been supported by Fulbright grants, Kenyon College faculty development grants, and a research grant from the American Political Science Association.
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Extract

Vicente Fox's unexpected victory in Mexico's July 2, 2000 presidential elections put a definitive end to Mexico's one-party regime. Until now the longest ruling party in the world, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) failed to turn out those who have traditionally voted for PRI in numbers adequate to match the millions of Mexicans who voted for change by supporting Fox. The Fox win means that Mexico has accomplished the rare feat of ending an authoritarian regime by voting it out of office, an event that comes at the end of a process of building an electoral opposition to the former ruling party that stretches back nearly a quarter century. However, while Fox defeated his PRI rival, Francisco Labastida, by a healthy six-point margin—42.5 to 36.1% of votes cast—he failed to sweep in a majority of legislators from his Alliance for Change (a coalition of Fox's National Action Party [PAN] and the Mexican Green Party [PVEM]). Thus, Fox faces a congress in which he will need constantly to build majorities to support his legislative program and in which the threat of a deadlock will loom continually.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 2001 , pp. 107 - 114
Copyright
© 2001 by the American Political Science Association

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