Introduction

Abstract

The presidential election scheduled for July 2, 2006, dominates Mexican political debate. In this Mexico is not alone; 2006 looms as the year of elec tions in Latin America, with presidential contests scheduled in Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. In December 2005 Bolivi ans overwhelmingly elected the indigenous leader Evo Morales from the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism?MAS) as their next president. Chileans will choose a president in a runoff scheduled for January 2006. Throughout South America, support from mass movements and indig enous groups and popular discontent have led to the election of reformers, neo-populists, and even radicals. Though not united by a common ideology, the leaders of Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil have generally pro moted regional integration, opposed unilateral U.S. action, and adopted poli cies that tend to favor the lower socioeconomic sectors of society. Initially, Mexico appeared to join this trend when in 2000 the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party?PRI) suf fered its first-ever defeat in a campaign for the presidency. In July of that year public discontent and the strategy of the voto ?til (useful vote) by which opponents of the PRI, including many prominent leftists, supported Vicente Fox of the conservative Partido de Acci?n Nacional (National Action Party? PAN) produced the election of the first non-PRI national administration in 70 years. Fox exploited the wave of mass discontent in Mexico, campaigning with a pseudo-populist rhetoric that he quickly abandoned once in office. In fact, next to Alvaro Uribe of Colombia and Tony Saca of El Salvador, Fox has been one of the most trusted U.S. allies in Latin America. With the exception of the war in Iraq, where Mexican popular sentiment overwhelmingly opposed the U.S. invasion, he has faithfully supported U.S. initiatives on trade,