Another hazard for Washington: Mexico on a knife-edge

by Kumar David

On the first count the conservative National Action Party candidate Felipe Calderon won by a slender majority of just over 1% in the critically important July 2 Presidential Elections in Mexico. This sparked a demand from the populist left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for a recount and rechecking of aggregate tallies slashed the margin by half to a mere 220,000 of the 41 million votes cast. Obrador has refused to accept the result and is demanding a vote-by-vote recount of the whole ballot (the two leading candidates polled about 36% each and the remaining 28% was shared between several other contestants). His supporters are on the streets alleging mass fraud at counting centres.

"Computer crash"

The 1988 elections, when a substantial lead by the leftist candidate, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, disappeared during what was described as a "computer crash" by election authorities has not been forgotten. The well to do class and the business community who breathed an initial sigh of relief are now worried about the prospect of civil strife.

What next? Whatever the eventual outcome of the tallying process - the Federal Election Tribunal has till September 6 to make a final ruling or order a new poll - these events have brought to the fore the deep divisions in Mexican society.

Mexico's impoverished classes and workers are mobilised, nay galvanised, around Obrador dubbed the 'candidate of the poor', while his opponents see in him a Chavez style threat to the Mexican establishment.

Caldron is called the candidate of the 'economy and employment' because of his commitment to free trade, pro-business policies and foreign investment. Washington, which has with growing dismay watched the South American continent, with the exception of Columbia and Peru, tango, samba and quickstep away to the left is besieged as though by barbarians at the gate.

If now the Mexican domino were to fall it would be decisive; it will be final curtains for an epoch of domination that began when the Monroe Doctrine proclaimed in 1823 that the whole South American continent belonged to the US sphere of influence.

On second thoughts this statement requires revision because even if Calderon is declared elected the genie that has escaped from the bottle cannot be put back; the street will not have it as more than 100,000 people packed into a protest rally in Mexico City's vast main square on Saturday 8th July; protests are escalating and huge marches converging on the city are planned for today (16th). Trying to use force to stabilise a right-wing presidency will escalate the conflict and a worst-case scenario is that it is a 'heads or tails' impasse and more confrontation may be on the way.

There is little that Washington can do - and if the tanks roll down from the Rio Grande it will probably be the end of the hegemon - already mired in Iraq and Afghanistan and impotent in Iran and North Korea - not the Mexicans.

This is a country of 107 million people and Latin America's second largest economy after Brazil, no push over.

This is not Nicaragua or some banana republic and it seems unthinkable that the US will dare intervene directly even in the wake of worsening unrest and instability.

What is at stake? On the other hand even in the less likely event of Obrador being eventually declared the victor it is an exaggeration to say that he can, or will attempt to do anything similar to Chavez in Venezuela.

The power balances and economic and constitutional circumstances in Mexico simply do not support such an option.

This is not say that it will be an insignificant shift; policies on health and education, pensions, infrastructure development and tax evasion will change.

There also be a period of uncertainty for Washington because Obrador has promised to review the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and renegotiate provisions that open the Mexican market to US corn and beans in 2008.

Mexico is the US's third largest trading partner and cross-border investment and economic activity has swelled in recent years. Obrador will take a tougher line on "walls across the border", the treatment of Mexican illegal immigrants in the US and proposed new US immigration legislation that is generating heat all over America.

The putative relationship with Obrador will be more confrontational than that with current President Vincente Fox and the Bush Administration is looking forward to a smooth transition to Calderon.

Hence the real problem for America is that whichever candidate is declared the eventual winner the razor thin majority has sealed the fate of neo-liberal economics in Mexico.

The problem of a Calderon Administration will be that presidents who scrape into power by such slim majorities are impotent in the face of confrontational mass mobilisation.

This disquieting event comes in the succession of a decisive rejection of neo-liberalism (the so-called Washington Accord) across Latin America.

Handsome victory

Here is how America's litany of recent woes across the region reads: 2000 Venezuela-Chavez, 2002 Brazil-Lula, 2003 Argentina-Nestor Kirchner (re-election), 2004 Uruguay-Tabare Vasquez, 2005 Bolivia-Morales and January 2006 Chile-Ms Michelle Bachelet.

A respite was provided by the handsome victory of Ubre in Colombia and Alan Gracia's success by a small margin in Peru, in May and June this year. But in Mexico the socio-economic genie has come right out of the bottle irrespective of the Federal Election Tribunal's final determination.

A unipolar world dominated by a single hegemonic superpower was born with the demise of the Soviet Union.

The process of global economic integration on a capitalist basis, what I call Globalisation-I, which had spread in previous decades, gained added strength in the 1990s.

This system of global geopolitics and global economics is now drawing to a close. What I term Globalisation-II is a new multidimensional process in the economic domain and a new multi-polar balance of political and strategic balance that has emerged.

The appearance of the new order is palpable in both the economic and geopolitical domains. The shift of global manufacturing industry to Asia, the reliance of US consumers and the dependence of the dollar due to balance of payments concerns, directly on its creditors, the indirect link to the budget deficit and the trillion-dollar debt burden, all illustrate the emergence of a new global economy. Globalisation-II is multidimensional and technologically more evenly spread. It opens up greater spaces for developing countries like ours to participate fairly in the world economy.

In Latin America the political transition exemplified by the Mexican elections is driving new economic groupings that are replacing the dying Washington Accord. And in the global political domain it seems that the US is fatally mired in Iraq and Afghanistan and can do little about the strategic assertiveness of Teheran and North Korea, not to mention the real strategic rebalance - China and Russia, the near-superpower kids coming on the block.