© St. Petersburg Times, published July 9, 2002
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/07/09/news_pf/Opinion/Fox_shouldn_t_give_up.shtml
Reformers who manage to gain political power are held to higher standards than
other politicians. Take Mexico's president, Vicente Fox. His election two years
ago ended generations of one-party rule, but the enemies he made along the way
have stalled his promised political and economic reforms. Fox now faces a critical
test. He can continue to embrace political pluralism and the rule of law, or
he can cut a deal with his opponents for short-term political gain. The ideals
that drove Fox toward the presidency -- a more just and open Mexico -- are still
worth fighting for.
Reformers who manage to gain political power are held to higher standards than
other politicians. Take Mexico's president, Vicente Fox. His election two years
ago ended generations of one-party rule, but the enemies he made along the way
have stalled his promised political and economic reforms. Fox now faces a critical
test. He can continue to embrace political pluralism and the rule of law, or
he can cut a deal with his opponents for short-term political gain. The ideals
that drove Fox toward the presidency -- a more just and open Mexico -- are still
worth fighting for.
The stakes are evident in two high-profile cases that pose serious risks to the president. One is the drive for the government to come clean on past human rights abuses against leftist dissidents. Early this month, Luis Echeverria Alvarez, who ruled Mexico in the 1970s, obeyed an order to answer charges that he fought a "dirty war" against demonstrators and suspected guerillas in the 1960s and '70s. Revisiting this ugly chapter in Mexico's history will be an important test for Fox. New open-government laws, which Fox has championed, helped to reveal that the former governing party, the PRI, had a massive domestic spying operation. A public determination of the role Echeverria and other ex-government officials might have played would herald a new era of accountability.
Fox also is vowing to pursue corruption charges in a case involving alleged money-laundering between Pemex, Mexico's state oil company, and the PRI. Mexico's comptroller general has charged that the party skimmed $170-million from Pemex to finance the PRI's 2000 election campaign. If the charges stick, the PRI will be further embarrassed internationally and the party could be weakened by legal attacks. But if the prosecution withers, Fox could look like a heavy-handed hypocrite and his popular appeal and political clout could drop.
Fox is under pressure to drop the human rights and anticorruption campaigns as the price for securing the PRI's support for his broader domestic reforms in Congress. Such a deal would put Fox forever in the debt of a party that doesn't share his agenda. Fox won because the Mexican people wanted real reform, and the agenda he rode to victory two years ago still has -- as he described it then -- democratic legitimacy and moral authority. It may be difficult for Fox to move ahead, but he'll have a harder time if he turns his back on the goal of bringing greater transparency to politics and the courts. As president-elect, Fox predicted his reforms would take more than a generation to work. He needs to keep the clock running.