itical institution of any significance in Mexico: the presidency.
Now, amidst the recent defeat of the PRI by the PAN, a new phase of Mexican politics is here, one that may be characterized by genuine party competition, fair and honest elections, and ultimately, true democracy. In the July 2 elections, after a protracted struggle to forge institutions that could assure a relatively clean vote, Mexicans finally had a chance to "kick the bums out"; Vicente Fox received 16 million votes against the PRI's Francisco Labastida's 13 million. The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) candidate took 6 million votes. The significance of Fox's victory (as well as the PRD's impressive stand) is immense; the PRI maintained it's tried-and-true habit of bribing and intimidating and ballot-box stuffing throughout these most recent elections (The Nation, 2000, p. 3).
The lion's share of Mexico's success can be attributed to Vicente Fox and the Mexican people. Fox, using political savvy and positive campaigning, managed to instill in poor Mexican peasants the courage to defy intimidation and reject bribes in favor of voting for democracy and social progress(Morris, 2000, p. 7). The importance of the new "Mexican Revolution" cannot be understated; independent Senator Adolfo Aguilar Zinser explains that in Mexico, the victory of the PAN over the PRI is "comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid, and the vote to oust Pinochet all
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