The Date 2 July 2000 Represented A True Watershed In Mexican politics. For the first time in post-revolutionary Mexico an opposition candidate won the presidential elections. Since 1988, opposition parties on the left and right have slowly eroded the stranglehold on electoral politics of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (the PRI), which has been in power since 1929. Vicente Fox Quesada's victory heralds the end of an era; or does it? A dominant theme in analyses of Mexican politics over the past twenty years has been the tension between continuity and change. In this article I argue that Fox's victory is an important, indeed essential, component of Mexico's slow democratization process; but it does not represent democracy in itself. There are three areas where the longer-term outcome of these elections will be measured: first there is the willingness of Fox to carry out further necessary reforms, particularly in the areas of judicial and fiscal reform. To date he has signalled that these will be important policies of his administration but we must wait for the results. Secondly, even where he is willing to deepen democratic reforms, one must ask to what extent will he be able to do so, both in terms of generating enough support within his own party and in overcoming resistance from the PRI, which still controls significant resources and retains a majority in the senate. And thirdly, it must be noted that Fox displayed some worrying tendencies towards populism in his presidential campaign which serve as a sobering reminder that his own democratic practices may be questionable.
