Mexico's Pivotal Democratic Election. Candidates, Voters, and the Presidential Campaign of 2000

Abstract

Mexico's Pivotal Democratic Election. Candidates, Voters, and the Presidential Campaign of 2000, Jorge I. Domínguez and Chappell Lawson, eds., Stanford and La Jolla: Stanford University Press-Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 2004, pp. xxiv, 363.This book reads almost like the dissection of one single day: July 2, 2000, when Vicente Fox was elected president of Mexico. As an opposition candidate, Fox defeated the PRI, the party that had been in power for the longest period in modern world history. The title of this book is thus aptly chosen, because that day Mexican politics changed forever. It captures the uniqueness of that moment. Even if Fox's victory is understandable in retrospect, most analysts could not predict it. Indeed, as the events were unfolding, not even Fox himself was certain about the outcome. Francisco Labastida, PRI's candidate, was, until the last moment, certain he would win.