"LAWS AND INSTITUTIONS HAVE BECOME OBSOLETE"

Buoyed by news of an economic upturn as he finishes his second year in office, President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon defended his reforms to TIME's James Graff at his office in Mexico City.

TIME: How can you credibly talk of "the rule of law" in Mexico when this week another top drug-enforcement officer from Tijuana was murdered?

Zedillo: Mexico is facing severe problems of security and crime, as are most countries. Unfortunately, our laws and institutions have become obsolete relative to the size of the country and the characteristics of urbanized crime. Yet I am optimistic that the reforms we're pursuing will soon yield results that show we're reversing this worrisome trend.

TIME: To what extent is the Federal Judicial Police undermined by narco-traffickers?

Zedillo: It is a fact that for many years some elements of that institution have been either corrupted or killed. That unfortunately happens anywhere. We are working very intensely to clean up the institution, to improve training, to raise standards and hire new people. Though corruption has touched the operative levels of the police, I'm very confident that the high-level officials are fully committed, indeed risking their lives, to do a better job.

TIME: Despite encouraging macroeconomic data, most Mexicans still feel their economic situation is deteriorating. How do you answer your critics who say your reforms are doing nothing for the average Mexican?

Zedillo: Our problems are not new. Our poverty was not generated only over the last one or two years; it has very deep historical roots. Our challenge is to transform this recovery into a sustained process of dynamic economic growth. Only through such a process, over many years, will we be able to deliver better well-being to the people. We can achieve that only if we keep discipline as we deepen structural reforms in our economy. I'd also say that the critics of my strategy have not yet produced an alternative.

TIME: With the Zapatistas in Chiapas and the E.P.R. emerging in several other states, many people say Mexico is facing the worst insurgency since the Revolution.

Zedillo: That's ridiculous. It is not correct to say this is a widespread phenomenon. What we have here is a clandestine organization that very violently attacked a few police and military stations. To do that you don't need to have an overwhelming, extended, powerful organization. You just need a few people.

TIME: When the newspaper Reforma polled urban Mexicans recently on whether they found the E.P.R.'s use of violence justified, 30% said yes.

Zedillo: I don't know about that poll; I have my own polls. [But] to me it's very hard to understand, for example, why there are so many people, perhaps a majority in your country, who defend the right to have weapons. That in a way is a justification of violence too. In the same way, there might be opinions in Mexican society that consider that people should use violence to advance their rights. That is totally wrong, and that means we have to continue building a new culture of attachment to the rule of law.

TIME: The core of the P.R.I.'s traditional support has been poorer, uneducated Mexicans. Has Mexico's ruling elite taken that support for granted for too long?

Zedillo: The P.R.I. has to take nothing for granted. That would be a fatal mistake. There will be no more easy elections for the P.R.I., as the experience of recent years has clearly shown. The P.R.I. has suffered important defeats at the state level. I think there is a very solid belief that only legal, clean elections will lead the party to power.

TIME: There is a deep cynicism in Mexico about politics.

Zedillo: Unfortunately that's a worldwide phenomenon. In fact I'd say our relative position is better. In the 1994 elections we had a participation rate of 78%. Only two countries in Europe and none in America, including yours, can match that. But you are right, there is a certain disillusionment about politicians and political parties, and this has to do certainly with the performance of governments vis-a-vis the people's expectations.

TIME: Even if 78% of Mexicans voted, the fact that the same party has been in control for 67 years suggests that voting has been more a ritual than a meaningful act.

Zedillo: I'm not part of that past. I can speak of my election, which was a clean one as judged by almost everyone, Mexican and foreign. My responsibility is to improve the institutions for more democratic participation. We are achieving that. Indeed, we have completed a major constitutional reform by full consensus with other political parties.

TIME: Your term will end in 2000. How would you like to be remembered?

Zedillo: I have a program to make Mexico a more democratic country, to achieve sustained high economic growth, and to promote social justice: a more equitable society with less poverty. But I'm not thinking about my image and position after I leave the presidency. I have too many things to do now to spend any time and effort on that.