Mexican Election Pictures and Stories

Mexican Election (2000) Pictures and Stories

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	When we arrived in Mexico, the historic 2000 election was only one day away. Signs were everywhere. They were painted on walls, hanging across the streets, plastered over windows, across the back of buses. Everywhere!
The second day we were there was the election. The national and state election were held the same day in the state of Morelos so there were two boxes to drop ballots into. After voters completed their ballots, they got two black marks on their thumbs - one for the national election and one for the state election. These were intended to keep people from voting twice, but they turned out to be a badge of honor. Some people giving election parties sent people away if they didn't have the marks.
	It's difficult to see in this picture, but after the election, some people defaced the signs of candidates from the PRI, the national party that has controlled Mexico since shortly after the Mexican Revolution. People weren't so much excited that they had elected Vicente Fox president as that they had thrown out the PRI. Several people told us that they believe after this election Mexico would truly be a democracy for the first time in over 70 years. Most people believe that Cuahtemoc Cardenas of the PRD party actually won the presidential election in 1988 but the PRI instituted "Operation Tamal" (like English "tamale," a ballot box "stuffing" operation) and there was a mysterious computer failure that resulted in the ballots and counts being conveniently lost and the PRI candidate declared the winner..
Listen to the celebration in the plaza when Vicente Fox won the presidential election. While driving downtown to see what was going on, we accidentally ended up in a Fox victory parade. This is what it sounded like. Listen for "¡Murió el PRI!" or "The PRI died!" among the shouts.	A one-minute windows media architecture (WMA) file - experience the joy of a country experiencing rebirth. (If your computer can't play the WMA, you can download the slightly larger MP3 file and try that.)