Vicente fox and the rise of the pan

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 11, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 31-32

  Shirk, David A ^a  

^a Center of US Mexican Studies   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0013138358     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.2000.0086     Document Type: Article

References (6)

1. Soledad Loaeza tends to agree with this assertion. She also notes a tendency to lump "the Right" together without distinction, defining it only in terms of opposition to the regime's "positive qualities." By portraying the PAN solely as a party of the church and business, "values are attributed to it that go against its parliamentary and liberal tradition." Soledad Loaeza, El partido acción nacional: La larga marcha, 1939-1994. Oposición leal y partido de protesta (Mexico City: Fondo de Cullura Economica, 1999), 229-30.
2. Contemporary critics of the PAN view this "humanistic" philosophy as a precariously thin veil for what they see as the fundamentally religious core of panismo. This latter view is not completely inconsistent with reality, since Gonzalez Luna made no secrets of his religious tendencies. Indeed, for many within the party, humanism becomes a surrogate for purely religious justifications for their positions on such issues as the "right to life" (that is, abortion and the death penalty). P. Moctezuma-Barragán, Los orígenes del pan (Mexico City: Ehecatl Ediciones, 1997);
3. E. Montalvo Ortega, México: en una transición conservadora. El caso de yucatán (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1996).
4. Certainly, the PAN has been more ready than the PRO to cooperate with the PRI on a number of issues; this cooperation, however, appears to be more a relative difference (given the PRD's frequently obstinate behavior) than a significant deviation from the PAN's historical position.
5. Fox in particular had clashed with national party leaders like Carlos Castillo and 1994 presidential candidate Diego Fernández de Cevallos over strategic issues (like electoral coalitions) and in the competition for influence within the party organization.
6. With respect to abortion, for example, Fox is likely simply to maintain Mexico's existing legal restrictions, which allow for abortion only in cases of rape or incest. In Guanajuato, however, laws were revised by PAN state legislators in August 2000 to ban abortion even in cases of rape. Since other states already have such laws on the books, the change may be more a reflection of the regional conservatism of the PAN in Fox's home state of Guanajuato than of a general PAN agenda for moral and social conservatism. Still, it creates a delicate situation for Fox, who must struggle to maintain a moderate position before a national (and international) audience.