Voices of Mexico no. 76

Our Voice

Since July 2, Mexico has been immersed in the worst post-electoral crisis in the history of its young democracy, which has been severely challenged by some of the very political actors who participated in the elections. Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect in 1994, Mexico has concentrated on carrying out a series of far-reaching reforms that have led the country through a profound transformation of its macro-economic variables. While this dynamic imposed enormous challenges on micro-economic aspects of sustainable development, such as the distribution of the positive results of growth and other fundamental factors that would lead to horizontally sharing the benefits of integration, these either were not achieved or were not pursued with appropriate strategies. After the 1988 political crisis caused by another severely questioned presidential election, the opening of the Mexican economy had been perceived by a broad spectrum of national and international analysts as the preamble for achieving the country’s political-institutional modernization. At the same time, it would create the structural basis for a solid economy, well prepared to withstand the transformation of the economic variables aimed at achieving a beneficial exchange for a country with enormous deficiencies, as well as the polarizing realities of North-South development and underdevelopment throughout its territory. Today it has been proven that the benefits of economic development have not resolved either fully or relatively the economic sufferings of the most vulnerable sectors of the population.