Mexico: Breakthrough or Political Breakdown?

‘Who will win?’ is undoubtedly the question most frequently asked about elections. Fortunately, in the case of Mexico 2006, no one is in a position to answer with certainty. This is fortunate because it confirms the new reality of meaningful electoral competition – and marks a dramatic break with the country’s post-revolutionary authoritarian past, when the near-monopoly on political power held by the ‘official’, state-subsidised Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) left little doubt about electoral outcomes.