July 1, 2012

Democracy in Mexico
To the Editor:
I understand and share many of the critiques Jo Tuckman raises regarding the poor quality of
Mexican democracy (Mexican Democracys Lost Years, Sunday Review, June 24). But these are
far from having been lost years. Her own text refutes that claim: Transparency laws and
aggressive news media are applying scrutiny to the powers that be.
As a surviving critic of the perfect dictatorship of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, I can
recall administrations that massacred students, managed public funds as private assets, stole
elections and upheld pacts with drug traffickers.
Today, our liberties are many, there is a clear division between different branches of government,
the central bank is autonomous, there is an independent electoral institute and citizens count the
votes. And we have embarked on the struggle, which will be long and painful, against organized
crime.
These have been 12 years of apprenticeship.
ENRIQUE KRAUZE
Mexico City, June 25, 2012
The writer is editor in chief of the cultural magazine Letras Libres and the author, most recently,
of Redeemers: Ideas and Power in Latin America.

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