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His friend ushered in new era of democracy for Mexico

BY HÉCTOR CALDERÓN

As Mexico goes to the polls to elect a president July 2, following an acrimonious campaign, I am reminded of a past president who quietly presided over the transformation of Mexican politics, ushering in a new age of democracy. An academic who served his country in time of need from 1994 to 2000, he is now director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and professor of international economics and politics.

I first met Ernesto Zedillo at Yale in the fall of 1975. We lived near each other in Yale’s married students’ housing complex — but it was our common background that endeared us to each other. I was born and raised in Calexico. Ernesto grew up in Mexicali. We had both endured economic hardships as children but, through discipline and study, had been rewarded with fellowships upon gaining admission to Ph.D. programs at Yale.

The friendly, jovial, long-haired Ernesto that I knew was a far cry from the cold-technocrat image that the news media painted of him during the 1994 presidential campaign. In fact, the president that Mexico elected was generations removed from the corrupt, violent and repressive legacy of his predecessors.

Thanks to his character, molded by post-’60s cultural and historical circumstances, a more pluralistic and democratic Mexico was born. He was the first president to name an opposition member to his cabinet, and the first to deal and meet with the federal Congress in an open and honest manner. He pushed for judicial reform, equality before the law, peaceful solutions to political problems and less governmental interference in the electoral process. He established new rights for Mexico’s indigenous communities. Breaking with tradition, he did not select his own successor.

During his tumultuous first year as president, when Mexico faced economic uncertainty, I tried in vain to contact him. He eventually returned my phone calls. “What should I call you?” I asked him in Spanish. “Ernesto,” he instantly replied. We chatted as if we were still back at Yale.

In 1996, Ernesto and his wife, Nilda, hosted me for lunch at the Los Pinos presidential residence. Remarkably, they were still the unassuming couple I had known 20 years earlier. They spoke of the challenges of governing: “As soon as one problem is solved, another surfaces.” But both were surprisingly positive in their outlook, expressing their love for Mexico City, and the Mexican nation and its people.

As I waved farewell from the steps of Los Pinos, I was saddened to realize how my friendship with Ernesto and Nilda had been eroded by the harsh realities of Mexican politics. President Zedillo has been called the least political of Mexico’s presidents. His presidency was free of the posturing, machismo and demagoguery that had long plagued Mexican politics. Mexicans on both sides of the border should acknowledge that it was Ernesto Zedillo who introduced substantive political and economic change.

Calderón is professor of Spanish and Portuguese and director of the Education Abroad Program in Mexico.