All in the name of votes; election year: farmers, president show they are well aware what time it is. (Politics).

Over the past two months, there have been two topics dominating political talk in the media. On the one hand, there are the protests by campesino groups, which are demanding the government provide more support and better conditions to the nation's farmers. And on the other, President Fox's involvement in the campaign for this summer's congressional elections has further polarized the nation's political players and drawn nasty accusations from the opposition.

FARMERS SEE A WINDOW

After a lot of give and take, federal officials finally admitted the countryside is indeed suffering a crisis and charged a special commission to negotiate, along with campesino leaders, a plan of action. Though the government maintains the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) is non-negotiable and the problems currently facing the countryside don't stem from the agreement, it is significant to note that the government and farm groups reached a starting point for dialogue.

However, the combination of complex rural problems, the demands of campesino organizations and the approaching elections make it unlikely an accord supported by all sides will be signed in the short term.

The government's immediate challenge will be to discover what are farm groups' exact demands and how to focus investment and support to meet them and at the same time stay within legal boundaries. Campesinos will be looking to take advantage of the upcoming elections to force the government to concede to far-reaching demands by threatening to break off dialogue.

In the meantime, Interior Secretary Santiago Creel continues to publicly appeal to farm groups not to use their protests to exploit the beginning of the campaign season.

A STUMPING FOX

In mid-January, Fox said that if the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) wins a congressional majority in July's election, it would prove a setback for the country. That statement practically kicked off the fight for a majority in the Chamber of Deputies.

From that moment, the president's activism in defending his proposal for change was obvious. Fox's involvement generated controversy. Some believed that as in any democratic system, it is valid that the president, during election campaigns, defends his projects and looks to widen his public support, as long as he remains within the law. Others criticized Fox's activism, arguing he was repeating past heavy-handed practices by the PRI.

But beyond the controversy, the fact is the president's team has clearly shown its decision to stump for the National Action Party (PAN) in an effort to give the president--and his policies--the congressional support that he has conspicuously lacked throughout his administration. A majority would not only mean support for the government's calls for change, but also the opportunity to approve pending structural changes the country needs for its development.

The risk of this strategy, though, is if the PAN doesn't win a majority, Fox would lose the political capital he currently has, as demonstrated by his relatively high approval rating in recent polls. In this vein and looking ahead to an extremely tight race--the outcome of which we doubt will radically change the composition of the lower house--two issues emerge that could determine how voters cast their collective ballots.

GET READY FOR MUD

The Pemex scandal, involving the theft of money that was allegedly later funneled to the PRI's 2000 presidential campaign, continues to simmer. The Amigos de Fox case, in which critics claim the president illegally accepted money from abroad to finance his run for office, is under scrutiny as well.

For the time being, these two themes are present in the national scene and until they are definitively resolved, they will surely be used by both the PRI and PAN to attack each other. Therefore, we can expect the campaign to be marked by insults and profuse mudslinging between opponents.

Joel Estudillo Rendon is a member of the board of the Mexican Institute for Political Studies.