CIAO DATE: 07/02

Observing the 2002 Mexico Elections

Foreward

Since 1988, Mexico has undergone a slow but steady democratization process, which culminated in the July 2, 2000, presidential elections won by opposition candidate Vicente Fox. Those elections brought about the first turnover in power to an opposition party since the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) first came to power 71 years ago. They mark Mexico as a democratic nation that is a valued partner for the United States and a leading force in the Western Hemisphere.

It came as no surprise that The Carter Center was present at this turning point in Mexican political history. The Center's Latin American and Caribbean Program (LACP) had tracked Mexican elections informally since 1986 and sent five election monitoring missions to Mexico since 1992. On each of these visits, The Carter Center monitored election preparations and the implementation of the law, making suggestions to electoral authorities for improvements. Mexico's openness to The Carter Center's comments signaled it was making a good faith effort to overcome past problems and fundamentally transform Mexican politics. In 1998, The Carter Center published Todd Eisenstadt's excellent analysis of the evolution of the electoral justice system in Mexico.

With these years of experience in hand and at the urging of Mexican opposition and government representatives, The Carter Center formed a team of "international visitors" to observe the July 2000 national elections. Dr. Robert Pastor, former director of the Center's LACP, now a faculty member at Emory University, agreed to advise the mission. Together with Dr. Shelley McConnell, LACP associate director, Dr. Pastor led a small delegation to Mexico in June to consult with the Federal Electoral Institute about electoral preparations and negotiate access for Carter Center observers within each of the political party headquarters. Returning in July, the Center assembled an expert team of observers from the United States, Chile, Peru, Austria, and India, some of whom had studied the Mexican political system for decades. Former Bolivia President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada joined me in leading the observation mission, which used a new model of election observation to maintain a dialogue with the parties concerning developments on election day and help confirm that problems were handled appropriately. After the polls closed and the results were tallied, President Ernesto Zedillo handled his party's electoral loss with grace, lending his support to the electoral authorities and ushering in a new era of Mexican politics.

In just a dozen years, Mexico's leaders, encouraged by citizens and civil society organizations, deliberately transformed the country's electoral politics to secure a democratic future for their people. With the publication of this report, I salute that historic endeavor.

President Jimmy Carter
Chairman
The Carter Center

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