No Need for Soul-Searching.(presidential elections in Mexico)

Byline: Jorge G. (Castañeda, a former foreign minister of Mexico, is now Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at New York University.)

That Mexico has an election too close to call is in itself news: with the exception of the previous presidential vote in 2000, this has never happened before. Perhaps this is why it seems such a strange contest, and why the real consequences of the election are difficult to ascertain. Nothing that has actually happened is truly worrisome, and yet the entire process is generating a sensation of concern, unpredictability and confusion. Last week's debate among the five candidates is a case in point. It wasn't really a debate, the moderator was not really a moderator and two of the candidates were not really candidates. Each participant delivered a succession of highly rehearsed speeches with virtually no back and forth; the master of ceremonies simply gave the floor to one speaker after another without asking any questions; and two of the contenders, who together claim approximately 3 percent support in the polls, are in fact running to legalize their parties, not to win the presidency.

No wonder the electorate remains highly volatile, and largely disenchanted with the entire process. Over the past three months, left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has led by up to 10 points, then fallen behind his chief rival, National Action Party candidate Felipe Calderon, by up to 10 points, only to fight back to an apparent tie today. Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Roberto Madrazo, while never having led at all, is shown by some surveys to be practically even with the other two, but by others to be nearly 10 points behind. Although part of this roller-coaster ride is number-massaging by pollsters, another part stems from voters' constantly changing preferences and priorities. Since issues are totally absent from the campaign, and most people have the (essentially accurate) conviction that the next president of Mexico will be as paralyzed as the previous two, electoral preferences derive from whims and states of mind, not from party loyalties, personality traits or stands on issues.

And at the same time, at least within the political, intellectual, business and professional elite and among parts of the middle class, the campaign has shown what many suspected before: Mexico today is the victim of a gaping ideological divide that most other countries in Latin America have put ...