Given that the PAN's 2000 victory required that the National Action Party (PAN) garner the most votes and that the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) allow the PANístas to count them, the precise moment when these dual transformations became inevitable is difficult to specify, even in retrospect, although several 1990s indicators emerged that courting democracy in Mexico would soon give way to democratic consolidation. Scholars of subnational politics (Chand 2001, Cornelius 2000, Mizrahi, Rionda 1995, Rodriguez and Ward 1995) noted that especially since 1989, Mexico's protracted transition was proceeding from the periphery to the center. Observers of the PRI (González Compeán 2000, Hernández 1994, Langston 2000a) tracked that party's gradual decomposition starting in 1990. Institutionalists paid increasing attention, as of the 1990s but especially after 1997, to the evolving power of PAN and Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) congressional delegations and their increasing balance against the PRI (Lujambio 1995, Ugalde 2000, Weldon 1997). Finally, public-opinion specialists documented the general public's increasing willingness to risk voting for the opposition (Buendía 1998, Domínguez and McCann 1996, Magaloni 1996) and the new importance of the independent media in framing campaigns and elections (Lawson 2002, Moreno 1999).