En la edición más reciente de The Economist una editorial titulada Change, please; Mexico’s presidential election se analizan las dos opciones que representan Felipe Calderón y Andrés Manuel López Obrador para la economía del país. El prestigiado semanario londinense pide un cambio radical en la presidencia.

The powerful case for Mr Calderon is that he favours many of the reforms that Mexico needs. He also looks to be a politician of more substance than Mr Fox. On the other hand, he is unlikely to be a robust champion of the public interest against the businessmen who have ploughed money into his campaign. Unlike Mr Fox, he is a social conservative, with reactionary views on matters such as abortion. And although he has sensibly called for a coalition government, his negative campaign means he might be hard-pressed to find partners.

There are reasons why a switch to the left might be good for Mexico. Mr Fox and his predecessors have wrongly assumed that what is good for favoured individual capitalists is good for capitalism. It is hard to disagree when Mr Lopez Obrador rails against such privilege, or against the inequity in NAFTA that requires Mexico to allow tariff-free entry to heavily subsidised American maize.

Yet there are big doubts about Mr Lopez Obrador. Is he really a modern social democrat like those who govern Chile, Uruguay and Brazil? His political origins lie in the most populist strand of the PRI. He paints himself as a messianic saviour of the poor, but would he help them much? As mayor, he stressed social policies, but ones aimed at political impact more than effectiveness. He has almost no knowledge of, nor apparent interest in, the outside world. He has shown a certain contempt for the rule of law and for Mexico’s handful of modern democratic institutions, such as the Supreme Court, the independent central bank and the electoral authority.

These are all reasons to be concerned about Mr Lopez Obrador. But they do not make him a Mexican version of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s anti-American president. Nor is Mexico Venezuela. Its people are beginning to feel the benefits of the route the country has followed over the past quarter of a century, and its ties with the United States are too strong to be lightly cast off. The real worry, thus, is not that Mr Fox’s successor will veer too sharply off the established path. It is that he won’t. An overhaul of Congress, the federal system and the police, for starters, and reforms of competition policy, energy, the labour market and taxes would help embed democracy and get the economy moving. In that sense, Mexico needs a radical for president.

La editorial hace una durísima crítica al sexenio desaprovechado por Fox, que sí le da un crédito por el avance democrático pero le critíca en parte el fracaso de no avanzar en materia de competitivad, en el problema migratorio y en la creación de empleos. Pero también hay problemas de fondo que, según The Economist, aquejan al país. Mexico has abandoned the PRI system of an omnipotent presidency and embraced democracy, but has failed to adopt new rules to ensure that it works. The question thus facing Mexicans is who is best placed to tackle the unfinished tasks of creating more economic competition, a more effective state and a more robust democracy.

Para el semanario londinense el próximo presidente debe ser radical en el sentido de ser totalmente diferente a lo que fue Vicente Fox. Debe ser una presidencia que fomente la competencia económica, un Estado más efectivo y una democracia más robusta. Bajo esta lógica no veo cabida para un proyecto neoliberal. ¿Será que, como dice Boz, The Economist ‘endosa’ (endorse, más correcto en inglés) a López Obrador?