Mapping Mexico
Calderon, the more conservative candidate, officially prevailed by fewer than 240,000 votes out of more than 41 million cast. His left-leaning opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, claims Calderon and the PAN stole the election through illicit government spending and outright fraud. Since the polls closed, he and his supporters have been staging protests and filing claims contesting the vote count.
The Federal Electoral Tribunal is the body legally empowered to rule on such claims, but the protesters are poised to ignore its judgment. Lopez Obrador now speaks of forming a “legitimate government” and ruling from the streets. His supporters have even run ads urging Mexicans to send federal revenues to this parallel power.
Clearly, it’s time for a look at Mexico. We’ll fly high over the land today for a big-picture view of the world’s 11th most populous nation. Then we’ll swoop in for a closer look at the history of Mexico over the next few days.
Old Mexico
Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821. But then it slipped into a half-century of revolts, rebellions, insurgencies, and coups – some of them supported by foreign powers. After all that, a strongman emerged: Porfirio Diaz, who ruled Mexico for more than 30 years, from 1876 to 1911. The leaders of the Mexican Revolution, including Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, eventually brought Diaz down, but then they fell to fighting among themselves.
The political violence finally ended with the rise of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (“Institutional Revolutionary Party”), or PRI. After its birth in 1929, the PRI held the presidency for 71 years. The PRI brought a measure of stability but hardly true democracy. Opponents wryly called it the “Ministry for Elections.” The people of old Chicago or New York would have called it a “political machine.”
Modern Mexico
After World War II, Mexico enjoyed three decades of economic expansion, fueled in part by nationalizing the country’s oil reserves. The population boomed, and women won the right to vote. Unfortunately, the fruits of economic expansion never reached many Mexicans. As frustration with the frequently corrupt government grew, so did political repression. In 1968, hundreds of student demonstrators were killed when government forces opened fire on them.
The discovery of new oil reserves brought a renewed economic boom in the 1970s, followed by a debilitating bust when oil prices fell in the 1980s. Complaints about the PRI increased. In 1988, an opposition candidate nearly captured the presidency, only to see the PRI candidate proclaimed the winner amid widespread allegations of fraud.
Public pressure soon pushed the PRI to implement electoral reforms, moving vote-counting responsibilities from the interior ministry to an independent Federal Electoral Institute and moving the certification of election results from the PRI-controlled Chamber of Deputies to a Federal Electoral Tribunal within the judiciary.
In 1997, opposition candidates actually won the majority of seats in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies. In 2000, Vicente Fox, of the PAN, won what many consider the first free and fair presidential election in Mexican history. The PRI is still an important player in Mexican politics, but its candidate in the 2006 presidential election finished a distant third, behind Calderon and Lopez Obrador.
Mexico by the Numbers
761,606 – Mexico’s total area, in square miles (1,972,550 sq km). That’s a bit larger than Indonesia or Saudi Arabia, and roughly three times the size of Texas.
107,449,525 – Mexico’s total population. That makes it the world’s 11th most populous nation, right behind Japan. Mexico has more people than any country in Europe except Russia.
18,000,000 – Population of the Mexico City metropolitan area, one of the world’s largest. More people live there than in all of the Netherlands, Cuba, or Greece.
3,759,000 – Barrels of oil produced per day in Mexico in 2005. That makes Mexico the world’s fifth largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States, and Iran.
89 – Percentage of the population that’s Roman Catholic.
17 – Percentage of the population living in extreme poverty, according to government figures.
