Mexico Almost a Horse Race

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After delivering a short campaign speech in the central plaza of Dolores Hidalgo (pop. 85,000), Cuauthemoc Cardenas walked to the museum honoring the local priest who in 1810 issued the call to arms that sparked Mexico's wars of independence. Adjusting his glasses and removing a pen from the pocket of his tailored white shirt, the left's candidate in next week's presidential elections hovered over the visitors' book. "I pay homage to Don Miguel Hidalgo," he wrote. "His sacrifice inspires us to take up once again the struggle for our independence and freedom."

Those words, to which Cardenas appended a signature every bit as baroque as the facade of the town's main church, embodied the new vigor of Mexico's leftist parties and the hunger for change that holds both right and left in its thrall. Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (P.R.I.) in the July 6 election that will choose the country's leader for the next six years, is certain to prevail. But the P.R.I.'s 59-year monopoly of political power is being challenged as never before, by Cardenas and also by the right-wing National Action Party (P.A.N.), led by Manuel Clouthier. Says Political Scientist Jorge Castaneda: "No matter what form the democracy of this country will take, the next government will have to take the opposition into account."

In the past, the P.R.I. has not had to worry much about opposition, and Mexico's immediate future depends on how it meets the challenge. The first test will be how fair the election is perceived to be. Salinas, 40, in an apparent attempt to dampen the energies of zealous party stalwarts accustomed to ballot rigging, has called for an accurate count. If that plea is heeded, most analysts believe, Salinas will capture about 50% of the vote; in 1982 President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado received 71%. P.A.N., which collected 16% in 1982, is expected to increase its share to more than 20%. Cardenas' leftist coalition is also expected to top 20%, in contrast to the 5% garnered six years ago. "It is not just the presidency that is at stake, but the electoral system itself," observes Juan Molinar Horcasitas, a political scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Cardenas, son of the populist Lazaro Cardenas, who nationalized Mexico's oil industry during his 1934-40 presidency, is all too aware of how entrenched that system is. A former governor of the state of Michoacan, Cardenas with other top P.R.I. officials attempted in 1986 to democratize the party's method of selecting presidential candidates. When they failed, Cardenas accepted the nomination of the leftist Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution and has since forged an alliance with four left-wing parties. "P.R.I. underestimated Cardenas immensely," says Castaneda. "Now the more they antagonize him, the stronger he gets."

Cardenas, 54, whose sagging jowls and doleful eyes give him the appearance of a bloodhound, is far from a leftist rabble-rouser. His speeches are often as dour as his looks. But his message -- declaring the need for a change of both government and policies -- is popular at a time when Mexico's economic problems slice deep into the purchasing power of its poor. By some estimates, real wages have fallen to the levels of the early 1970s. Particularly well received is his call for renegotiation of Mexico's $103 billion foreign debt.