International Election Monitoring, Sovereignty, and the Western Hemisphere: The Emergence of an International Norm by Arturo Santa-Cruz

Author:Arturo Santa-Cruz [Santa-Cruz, Arturo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Diplomacy, Campaigns & Elections, Political Science, Political Process, General
ISBN: 9781135483968
Google: oedTAQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 18703725
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

MEXICO DURING THE SALINAS ADMINISTRATION

Mexico's foreign policy tradition began to change with the advent of the Salinas administration. Allegedly convinced by a 1990 trip to Europe that the end of the Cold War dictated that Mexico should pursue closer integration with the remaining super power, lest financial resources started to flow massively to Central and Eastern Europe, Salinas embarked on one of the most adventurous foreign policy decisions of a Mexican president ever: the establishment of a trade agreement with the United States.37 Thus, in June 1990 George Bush and Carlos Salinas announced their intention to pursue closer economic integration through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which also came to include Canada. The protracted NAFTA negotiations (which formally started in June 1991, and ended in the Summer of 1993, under the Clinton presidency) signaled an unprecedented shift in Mexico's foreign policy.

Thus, during the Salinas administration the intent of Mexico's foreign policy was to establish ever-closer links with the United States.38 Gone were the country's aims of the early 1980 to act as an independent middle-sized power. As Humberto Garza Elizondo has noted, “Few things changed more during Salinas' sexenio [six-year term] than foreign policy.”39 Economic issues came to occupy center stage in Mexico's relation with its northern neighbor, as made clear by the replacement of the Foreign Relations Ministry by the Commerce Ministry in the conduct of bilateral relations.40 Establishing closer links to the United States was part of the two-fold domestic strategy Salinas had for Mexico: accelerated economic restructuring and restrained political opening. The former reform had precedence for Salinas. As he put it: “They are linked, but we ought to consider the priority that economic reform has, without excluding political reform.”41 Mexico seemed to be undergoing a perestroika without glasnost.42

But before Salinas was inaugurated, in the five-month hiatus between the July elections and his swearing in on 1 December, the volatile political environment did not stabilize. Thus, he acted swiftly upon taking office: at his inaugural speech, Salinas proposed a National Accord for the Enhancement of our Democratic Life. Its stated objectives were “to improve the electoral processes, bring up to date the party system, and modernize the practices of the political actors, beginning with the government itself.” Another electoral reform was thus negotiated. Significantly, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the party formed by Cardenas, played a marginal role in the 1990 electoral reform. This was due largely to the open animosity between the PRI and the PRD. The PAN had become the privileged interlocutor with the government and its party. Hence, in an unprecedented political gesture, in 1989 the government recognized the PAN's victory in the gubernatorial elections in the northern state of Baja California—while allowing, the same day, wholesale fraud in the PRD's stronghold, Michoácan.

As a result of the new legislation approved by the PRI and the PAN in 1990, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) was born as a formally autonomous entity in charge of organizing the elections. Six magistrate counselors, proposed

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