The Mexican presidential election held Sunday was a tough fight between the ruling right-wing National Action Party candidate Felipe Calderon and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution. Calderon appears to have come out the winner, but the tight race demonstrates how the "leftist domino" that has been sweeping the South American continent over the past few years has arrived in Mexico. The results will have considerable effects beyond Mexico's borders.
Obrador was the main focus of attention during the campaign. He concentrated on the issues of poverty and inequality and essentially turned the election into a vote for or against him. While mayor of Mexico City over the past five years he built for himself an image as a "politician for the common people." This time as well, he made welfare policy for workers and the common people central to his campaign. Calderon kept ahead in the polls by addressing the middle class’ hope for economic security.
What makes this election look so important is that reconsideration of the whole North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) became a major campaign issue. Obrador pledged to have portions of the agreement disadvantageous to Mexico renegotiated because "during the past 12 years with the United States" there has been increasing socioeconomic disparity and suffering for the common people. Trade between the U.S. and Mexico has increased threefold since NAFTA took effect in 1994, but during that time Mexico's GDP growth has been less than 2 percent yearly. Regional and urban-rural disparities have become more serious and around half the population is suffering from poverty and unemployment. Farmers are feeling increasingly threatened, as the date for opening the importation of white corn begins in 2008. Hastily signing NAFTA exacerbated the contradictions within Mexican society. There are 20 million Mexican immigrants in the U.S., another problem related to the trade pact.
Mexico's presidential election provides a fine example for Korea, which is currently pursuing a similar agreement with the U.S. It is likely that an FTA with the U.S., the home of neoliberalist globalization, will lead to socioeconomic disparity instead of economic growth, as has been the case in Mexico. It is highly possible it could intensify class and regional divisions and lead to national disunity and social and political unrest. The way the Korean government is pushing ahead with the negotiations, having skipped the process of forming a national consensus while accommodating all of America's preconditions, is all too similar to what Mexico did 10 years ago.
Mexico's new president has difficult work ahead of him, as he will have to heal the discord that has resulted from the heated election and vote counting process and then achieve national unity and economic development. We hope to see him respond to the will of the people and not become arrogant with victory.
[Editorial] Mexican elections expose problems with NAFTA |
