The Demands of Transparency, Guest Blog

Time for another guest post from our friend Tim D, with more musings on the Mexican presidential elections and their aftermath.

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It didn’t surprise me when my local newspaper, The Kansas City Star, recently ran an editorial recommending that Mexico’s PRD Candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obredor, graciously concede the presidential election and accept his defeat by Filipe Calderon of the PAN for the sake of domestic order, if nothing else.

This editorial was suspiciously like the one The Star ran in 2000, except then it was addressed to Al Gore. Drop your “vote by vote” Florida recount demand, concede defeat and get on with your life for the good of the country – that sort of thing.

I was really embarrassed by this recent editorial, and those of other American newspapers and broadcast news which echoed the “concede for order’s sake” mantra. For one, our media seem to be mostly ignorant about how the Mexican electoral system works (e.g., in Mexico it is not the Electoral Commission than announces a winner) and, two, it’s obvious our media cannot objectively look at anything without skewing it through the prism of our own experience or our short-term vested interests.

Of course, these editorials are basically about our own experience – not about what’s really happening on the ground in Mexico. They all carry the same implied message: if we can live with Florida 2000 (I don’t dare mention Ohio 2004 or, in all fairness to my Republican friends and to my shame as a Democrat, Illinois 1960), then you should too.

Except in the eyes of many of the world’s democrats, living with Florida 2000, Ohio 2004 and Illinois 1960, is exactly what a true democrat shouldn’t do – surrender the integrity of the democratic election process for the sake of temporary economic or political stability.

For the past ten years the operative word in Mexican politics has been transparency. Blocked by years of one-party rule, which may have been efficient and just, but was anything but transparent, the citizens of Mexico, who are tasting the joys (and challenges) of multi-party democracy, are now demanding that every aspect of governance be viewable for public scrutiny. This most certainly includes the election process.

I suspect the first zocolo post-election protest rally, the one that brought a quarter million Mexican citizens to Mexico City’s plaza on a Sunday afternoon, was largely composed of Lopez Obredor’s PRD loyalists. The second rally, however, the one that clogged the streets of the capitol with a million and a half citizens, extended that PRD base to include many who believe a transparent recount is a just demand to make of any truly democratic institution.

Surely to such citizens all these American “concede for the sake of order” editorials and commentaries must seem hypocritical coming from a people that champion themselves as the world’s democratic paragon. But I may be overstating here: I suspect Americans are the only ones on this globe who think of themselves as the ideal democrats. The rest of the world has severe doubts about such boasts. Alas, it’s not just Putin who is smirking at us.

Right now a friend in Mexico informs me everyone assumes the Election Tribunal will require a supervised vote-by-vote recount before it certifies the election results and announces the winner. My friend tells me the votes are well guarded and she believes such a recount will begin sometime in August. (I stress here that my friend is reflecting her perception only -- though I add I have always valued her perceptions and found them usually correct).

If a formal recount is ordered, then it may be us, the complacent citizens of a multi-party democracy, who may look inferior to our democratic counterparts south of our border. At least they took to the streets to demand election integrity that can withstand the demands of transparency. We, on the other hand, quietly acquiesce to a court decision where the justices shamefully vote along purely partisan lines (so much for the myth of judicial independence) or, worse, as in Illinois 1960, merely ignore any election controversy that rocks our “go along to get along” culture.

While I can’t say for sure what our Founding Fathers would think of us now, I would bet Tom Paine would applaud the citizens of Mexico and greet these editorials from American newspapers about “conceding for order’s sake” with open disgust.

Again, my thoughts are with the people of Mexico. They, along with our Canadian neighbors, might be this continent’s best hopes for democracy. Viva Mexico!

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