Political Quotes

“It's hard for most Americans to grasp the momentous nature of Mexico's election last Sunday. Imagine if the same political party controlled Congress and the White House for almost 70 years. Imagine if the party won successive elections through fraud and ruled in a manner as imperious as a dictatorship. Then imagine that the party, in spite of its tremendous power, lost an election. That's what happened in Mexico. Ever since its founding in 1929, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as PRI, has run the government as a fiefdom. The party's long rule was unnatural. In a healthy democracy, voters usually prefer periodic change if only to remind officeholders who is in charge. Until recent years, Mexicans lived under a quasi-democracy. Although people voted for president, Congress and municipal officers, the outcome was pre-ordained. As democracy swept through Latin America and the rest of the world--even Russia--Mexicans became convinced that their system stood out as a democracy in name only.”