He call this calls this "coercion." The opposition complained that the PRI used government transportation and funds to provide transportation and babysitters to help mothers with small children get to the polls. The PRI began separating itself from the government, not a trivial task. Now the opposition complains when the PRI uses its own resources to help its voters get to the polls.

When leftist Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD) candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas lost the presidency to Carlos Salinas de Gortari in 1988, he claimed that the election was obviously a fraud because he got votes where his party had observers and didn't get any where it didn't have observers. Maybe it was a fraud and maybe it wasn't, but any ward-level politician would wonder how the PRD could expect to get votes in districts where they couldn't even produce a single pollwatcher.

The left does have votes. It just doesn't have enough to overcome its lack of cohesion. The entire opposition spectrum is split by feuds and individual cults of personality. Democracy isn't going to change that. It's just going to make the PRI's internal discipline (admittedly weakened these days) all the more effective.

Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Losa wrote in Proceso that a PRI victory would be a disaster for democracy. He assumes they would win by fraud, I guess. But what if they win fairly? What makes him think that an opposition victory would be good for Mexico, anyway? The right-wing Partido de Accion Nacional's Vincente Fox portrays himself as a reformer, when he's really a reactionary who wants to turn back the clock on women's rights.

If Fox loses, he'll scream fraud and the world press will agree because the current polls show that he's so close. Yet the Mexican Federal Election Institute, the government authority trying to impose fair elections, ruled that not one poll fits normal statistical standards.

Why apply Anglo-European standards of democracy to a country in which an elegant lie is always favored over an awkward truth? You can buy editorial space in Mexican newspapers. Yes, your paid editorial coverage will say exactly what you want it to say and it will not be labelled "Advertising." You can't trust the polls. You can't trust the news. It's considered socially gross to say anything you know the other person doesn't want to hear, so you can't trust your friends. .

No one knows how the election will turn out, but I think that the automatic assumption that the PRI can win only by fraud is yet another example of cultural imperialism. It's equally likely that the PRI will win because there are no other choices that make sense to the Mexican voter.

Neither the left or the right seem to come up with any plan except being against the PRI, which transformed Mexico into a major industrial power, replacing Japan as America's second largest trading partner. All major candidates agree that the resulting unfair income distribution has to be fixed, but Mexican political history amply supports the view that the PRI wins elections by a lot of very effective social activism and some fraud (to which the other parties also resort when they can).