table situation where candidates may be intimidated out of running for office for fear of their lives. Next even when there has been a stable government the governments have been weak and often fail to accomplish any real progress. Finally the biggest obstacle to true democracy in Mexico is that the average person has had very little representation in the government. This is due to the fact that this current Mexican governmental structure, in place since the 30’s has been dominated by one party, the PRI, and has been essentially a one party system. For the common people this means they can either not vote or vote for the party they may or may not support. To remedy this situation is not an easy task. The current Mexican system is a federal-presidential system, using first past the post elections. The mostly FPP system is what has allowed the PRI to stay in power because it is very hard for new parties to win significant numbers of seats. The first amendment to the Mexican system would be the electoral system. To gain entrance to the political sphere in the current system a party may win some seats with the small PR but still must win a majority of votes in a given district or districts. This is very difficult for a new party who people would be afraid to support due to the fact that they don’t know it or that they may not vote for because they know it will not win. My recommendation would be to change to a 50/50 mix of first past the post and proportional representation in the Mexican legislature. Going to a 50/50 mix is better than a total PR switch because total PR often leads to political instability with coalition and minority governments. In a country such as Mexico that has a history of instability any new elements of conflict would be bad. With the new electoral system smaller parties that already exist such as local parties or current fringe parties could gain power in the legislature and force the PRI to change and ...
