Fox Rode the Gusting Winds of Change, Says Times/Reforma Survey

MEXICO CITY — In their vote Sunday to end 71 years of rule by a single party, Mexicans were driven by one overwhelming desire: change.

In an exit poll of more than 3,000 voters conducted jointly by The Times and Mexico’s Reforma newspaper group, nearly 70% of those who cited “change” as the main reason for their decision voted for opposition candidate Vicente Fox.

By contrast, those who voted for Francisco Labastida, candidate for the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, were bound more by tradition. About 80% of those surveyed who said they cast their vote out of habit or loyalty selected Labastida.

That result suggested that Labastida’s attempt to hijack the change theme from Fox failed, as did his effort to label Fox a dangerous option who would embrace radical and risky steps. Labastida repeatedly promised voters an ill-defined “change with direction.”

Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus said the apparently heavy turnout favored Fox of the National Action Party, or PAN. She attributed the exit poll’s indication that Fox had won by a wider margin than predicted by surveys during the campaign to a possible earlier unwillingness of voters to disclose their preferences.

Fox’s victory was earned in every part of the country and among every age group except those older than 50. The 6-foot, 5-inch Fox even appeared to have broken the ruling party’s traditional stranglehold over rural Mexico, where PRI support fell below 50% for the first time, the Times/Reforma poll showed. To Labastida’s 48%, Fox managed to win 34% of the rural vote, according to the exit poll--more than the percentage he consistently predicted during the campaign.

Equally startling was Fox’s performance in the eight southernmost states, where the PRI always has dominated. Fox’s 41% in those states was 4 percentage points above Labastida’s showing there, signaling a dramatic break from the traditional “solid south” for the PRI.

By contrast, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the center-left Democratic Revolution Party, who finished a distant third in his third run for the presidency, took just 17% of the rural vote and about a fifth of the southern vote, according to the poll. Cardenas was hoping for a strong performance in those areas to help give life to his listless campaign.

The poll interviewed 3,056 voters Sunday in 150 precincts chosen as representative of the electorate throughout Mexico, including urban and rural districts. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The dramatic growth of independent media reporting in Mexico during the campaign, and in particular far more balanced television coverage, appeared to have been critical to the success of the telegenic Fox. Half of those surveyed who said television was the source of most of their information about the campaign said they voted for Fox, as opposed to one-third for Labastida.

Most analysts and opinion polls had declared Fox the winner of the two televised debates, which were seen in even the most remote villages.

The PRI suffered a serious degree of defections since the last presidential election in 1994, easily won by Ernesto Zedillo. Just more than 25% of those polled who voted for Zedillo in 1994 said they voted for Fox on Sunday.

Voters’ frustration with the repeated economic crises that have plagued the end of the PRI’s four six-year terms in office since 1976 clearly took a toll on Labastida’s support.

Of those who voted for Fox, about one-fifth said their personal economic situation had improved and a quarter said it had worsened. Among Labastida supporters, nearly half said their situation had improved and just 10% said it had worsened.

Mexico’s economy has stabilized since 1996, after the devastating recession that followed the December 1994 peso devaluation. But as the poll figures showed, that improvement hasn’t translated into perceived improvement in individuals’ well-being, for which Labastida paid a heavy price.

One of the few sectors in which Labastida bested Fox was among women, who narrowly favored the PRI candidate. Labastida had sought to woo female voters with promises of better school lunch programs and computer classes in all schools.

The exit poll showed that most voters had made up their minds more than three months ago and that about 6% had made their decision on election day.

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