Mexico elects rightist reformer: international bourgeoisie celebrates 
"democracy" by MC44  

The international bourgeois press rejoiced in early July when Mexicans voted 
against the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) candidate in general and 
presidential elections. The election of Mexico's new president, former Coca 
Cola executive Vicente Fox, marks the end of more than 70 years of PRI 
hegemony in Mexican electoral politics. Liberals everywhere focused on this 
change, and the "fairness" of the process as evidence of real democracy in 
Mexico, and cheered.

Liberal democracy or not, neither the PRI nor the new party, the National 
Action Party (PAN), represents the interests of the Mexican people. The 
aspect of Fox's agenda that has generated the most enthusiasm from the press 
is his support for increased foreign investment. Speaking on ABC's 
Nightline, Fox surely won the hearts of the Amerikan ruling class and labor 
aristocracy alike when he claimed foreign investment would develop Mexico 
economically and reduce Mexican migration to the United Snakes.(1) But MIM 
understands that foreign "investment" in the Third World is what causes 
underdevelopment and increases exploitation -- and ensures the steady flow 
of "illegal" immigrants across the border. These low-paid workers are 
necessary for the United Snakes' service and agricultural economy, which 
Amerikans know, even as they raise racist and nationalistic objections that 
Mexicans are "stealing Amerikan jobs."

Under capitalism, the only people who can afford to run political campaigns 
are capitalists, or people backed by capitalists. Measuring "fairness" and 
"corruption" in an election under these circumstances is laughable. Maoists 
believe in national self-determination and open borders. And we understand 
that the only economic development that will improve the lives of most 
Mexicans is socialist development and independence from capitalism and 
imperialist exploitation. Those things were not on the ballot.  

Notes: ABC Nightline, July 3, 2000.