A New Mexico?

It could happen. According to the Reuters report, Felipe Calderon, the right of center candidate in Sunday's elections for president of Mexico, appears to have won. Mexico had long been in the grip of a left-wing party, the PRI, which used dubious methods to retain power and kept market reforms at bay. Vicente Fox was a great improvement but not one to make fundamental changes. The rise to power of Calderon, of the National Action Party, would make possible reforms that were beyond contemplation when the PRI and its successors remained in power. Reuters writes:

Mexico's conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon declared victory on Monday in a bitterly contested election result as official returns showed him ahead of his left-wing rival.

Calderon said his lead was now "irreversible" because he had an advantage of more than 400,000 votes over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist former mayor of Mexico City, with almost 95 percent of votes counted.

There are still a lof of ifs in the scenario. If Calderon's opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrado of the Democratic Revolution Party, doesn't encourage his supporters to riot in the streets and hold the government by force (as is the current worry, according to the Reuters story and other reports), Calderon can take office. Then, if Calderon can mobilize legislative action on economic reforms, if the government can enforce the rule of law in local areas—something current President Vicente Fox had a good deal of trouble doing—and if Calderon's party can stick to their guns, then there is truly a chance finally for a long-needed liberalization of the Mexican economy and society.

Liberalizing reform in Mexico is a development all should welcome, excepting only those who wish to exploit people through the powers of a corrupt and oppressive government. NAFTA may well have laid the groundwork for this tidal change, but real reform cannot come until Mexicans decide to take that frightful step from being wards of the state toward being independent actors who can make their own way in the world. This election could be the first step toward Mexico becoming a truly prosperous nation of self-reliant people.

I believe that it will happen, though in fits and starts and against furious opposition.