THE CHALLENGER.

WAITING FOR A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TO ARRIVE at the airport in the central Mexican city of Zacatecas, Gilberto Mac[acute{i}]as and Julio Cruz review the problems facing Mexico.

Mac[acute{i}]as, a light-skinned man in a cowboy hat, is a doctor and a small farmer who grows beans--the state of Zacatecas is Mexico's leading bean producer. "Seven years ago, beans were at 5 pesos a kilo," he says. "Today they're at 2.5 [pesos] and production costs have gone through the roof."

Cruz works as a systems engineer but, to make ends meet, he runs a fruit and vegetable stand in a market. "There's no chance to work fall time as a systems engineer," he explains.

The men relate their problems to the country's political system and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled since 1929. "A few people ran this country for 70 years and now we've had enough," says Mac[acute{i}]as.

Whether a majority of Mexicans share his feelings about the PRI will become clear on July 2, when voters elect a president to a six-year term starting in December.

At the airport, Mac[acute{i}]as and Cruz are waiting for the man they believe will upset the ruling party and change Mexican politics forever. In many ways, he is a man like them.

"He's a businessman and he's a farmer," said Mac[acute{i}]as. "He's the first candidate to come from agriculture. He speaks the language of common Mexicans.

He is Vicente Fox, the 57-year-old National Action Party (PAN) presidential candidate. A former president of Coca-Cola for Mexico and Central America, he quit Coke in 1978 to run his family's boot-making concern and ranch in his home state of Guanajuato.

Fox stepped into politics in 1988 when he joined the campaign of the late Manuel Clouthier, presidential candidate of the National Action Party. Clouthier revived the old rightist party by attracting young, less ideological businessmen. Those neopanistas included Vicente Fox, who won a congressional seat that year. In 1995, he was elected governor of Guanajuato, an experience that turned into a testing ground for much of what he now proposes regarding agriculture, government reform and economic development.

As a presidential hopeful, Fox has broken all of Mexico's unwritten rules for politicians.

He is divorced, seldom wears a tie and has a blunt style, rare for Mexico, which has caused him trouble on numerous occasions. Although Catholic, he once compared the Catholic Church with the PRI because both hold monopolies in Mexico. Polls reveal that half of the population considers him "impulsive."

These same polls in February also showed Fox pulling even with PRI candidate Francisco Labastida, who held an eight-point lead a month earlier. The center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) candidate, Cuauht[acute{e}]moc C[acute{a}]rdenas, trailed far behind.

To find out what is attracting people like Mac[acute{i}]ns and Cruz to the Fox campaign, LATIN TRADE contributor Sam Quinones followed the candidate on a three-day campaign tour starting in Zacatecas and moving south to the states of Aguascalientes and Queretaro. Highlights:

DAY 1:ZACATECAS

11:45 a.m. Dressed in his trademark open-collar, light blue shirt and dark blue pants, black cowboy boots and silver FOX belt buckle, Fox steps from the large royal blue bus bearing his smiling visage. At 6-foot-5, he towers over the crowd in Zacatecas' gorgeous colonial center.

"Hola. "Qu[acute{e}] tal? Echale ganas," he says in a deep baritone as he shakes hands, kisses babies and flashes the V sign that stands for victory, or Vicente, or both. He walks over to a group of children in the plaza and tousles the hair of some, bending over to listen to them. A group of rambunctious 6-year-olds calls out: "Hey, Fox!" "Hey, president!" He smiles and flashes the V sign again.

At a press conference, two longtime Zacatecas priistas, Alberto Rodr[acute{i}]guez and Jos[acute{e}] Mar[acute{i}]a Pino, throw their support to Fox. They are former backers of Roberto Madrazo, the governor of the southeastern state of Tabasco who waged a strong but unsuccessful campaign to become the PRI's candidate. Fox aides believe the Madrazo candidacy, playing on many priistas' discontent with their party's hierarchy, created an opening for their man among these same folks. Actress Irma Dorantes, widow of the late Mexican film idol Pedro Infante, is also here to endorse Fox.

1:05 p.m. Some 500 students fill the gym at the Instituto Tecnologico de Zacatecas. On stage, Fox stands with his hands on his hips, smiling, as their applause washes over him. Javier Alatorre, the heartthrob TV Azteca anchor, is accompanying the candidate for a few hours today and his presence creates a stir among the young women in the gym. The students whistle in fun at their cohorts who speak from the podium.

Finally, things turn serious. "Only 10 out of every 100 young people can go to college today," Fox tells the students. He says education is essential to Mexico's economic and democratic development. "We don't aspire to be a country of maquiladoras [assembly plants]."

Fox disagrees with a student speaker who has called for taking money from the National University (UNAM), where a nine-month student strike just ended, and giving it to the technical schools. Instead, the candidate advocates doubling the education budget and using the additional money for the technological modernization of the universities. "Our real bottleneck is in our lack of highly trained and educated people," he says.

Above all, he says, Mexico and its young people need economic growth. "We haven't grown in 30 years," he says. "We have one of the worst income distributions in the world. We need to grow at 7% a year." According to Fox, this will create 1.35 million jobs a year. He says his administration will fuel that growth by bringing in foreign investment, making it easier for working class people to save and for "micro, small and mid-sized businesses" to form.

These notions are the core of his economic platform and he will touch on them in the afternoon at a public housing development, again at a grilled chicken lunch in a small nearby restaurant and in almost every other stump speech.

By dusk, the campaign is streaking across a hundred miles of flat Zacatecas desert, with earth the color of cayenne pepper, in a state where most towns tell a tale of economic ruin. Zacatecas state ranks fourth in the number of emigrants it sends to the United States, but is highest in emigrants per capita. Los Angeles, California, is home to more Zacatecans than any city in the world.

We are heading to Pinos, a town subsisting on agriculture and the dollars its errant families send home.

7:40 p.m. The campaign buses roll into the central plaza in Pinos for an old-fashioned small-town rally. A mariachi hand is here. So are local politicians. The crowd is made up of women in shawls, young boys in baseball caps and boots and wizened, leathery men in white straw cowboy hats.

Fox is at home with crowds like these, people to whom he can talk like ranchers. "I know your dreams, of how many hopes you sow when you plant the ground," he tells them.

His speeches are extemporaneous. They usually address the economy, education, the environment, ending Mexico's corruption and throwing out the party that has ruled the country for so long. He often details his proposals, a rarity among politicians in Mexico. Yet at times, as tonight in Pinos, he overdoes it. The crowds lose their way in his statistics, talk of municipal reform, explanations of inflation reduction and outlines of loan programs for small business.

There are other times, though, when he is succinct. "We're not just going to elect a president in this election," he says. "We're going to elect the Mexico we want for this century."

DAY 2: AGUASCALIENTES

10:15 a.m. A meeting is held with ranchers in Rincon de Romos at a convention hail. Aguascalientes is a thriving industrial state, but its large agricultural sector is suffering like elsewhere in Mexico. So today's themes echo those of Zacatecas: the economy, reviving agriculture, sustainable development.

Outside the hall, ranchers have parked a line of John Deere tractors. Farmworker Mauricio Ortega stands beside one. Ortega supports Fox because he heard what the candidate did as governor of Guanajuato. "He's a man who knows about necessities and a man who knows the hunger of farmworkers," Ortega says. 6:45 p.m. Returning to the city of Aguascalientes, a local reporter interviews Fox like a movie star.

"Do you cry?"

"When I see a father who can't buy his children an ice cream," Fox says.

"Do you have a romantic relationship?"

"No."

"Will you reunite with your ex-wife?"

"I don't know. No."

After 15 minutes of this, he orders the campaign bus stopped and transfers to the press bus for the rest of the trip to Aguascalientes. Surrounded by 20 reporters, he launches into an off-the-record political chat that takes some bizarre turns. It ends with reporters offering to take him to a strip club some day, which he politely turns down.

8 p.m. More than 4,000 people squeeze into Hermanos Carre[acute{o}]n Arena, a basketball gym in the city of Aguascalientes. In Aguascalientes state, the PAN presence is strong; its governor and capital city mayor--both panistas--warm up the crowd, which explodes as Fox enters. For several minutes, they applaud him like a rock star, lighting hundreds of candles in the arena's darkness. This speech has less policy, more inspiration. "Our country is going to change," he says. "The Fox team is 100 million Mexicans who are working to create a great country."

It is a solid end to a day that featured five events in three cities.

Fox flies on to Queretaro. At 11:30 p.m., the press bus departs for the four-hour trip south. Someone has purchased a sizable amount of tequila and beer. Before long, reporters stand in the aisle warbling the songs of Los Tigres del Norte and Jos[acute{e}] Alfredo Jim[acute{e}]nez. As the bus enters the state of Queretaro, one reporter lectures the soused assembly on the benefits of living in Mexico City's 06700 zip code.

DAY 3: QUERETARO

10:15 a.m. This campaign swing is becoming a Zen-like exercise of endurance, with each event resembling the others before it. Fox stops for another meeting with ranchers in straw cowboy hats in a region of dry grass. This gathering takes place at a winery near the town of Ezekiel Montes. It will be followed by a radio interview, a lunch with supporters and a meeting with a group of motorcyclists--the latter produces a photo of Fox, in a helmet and leather jacket, riding a Harley. Later that same day the candidate attends a "lienzo charro"--a Mexican rodeo.

On the campaign trail. Fox has many opportunities to play the populist. Yet he frequently challenges his crowd in a way uncharacteristic of a politician on the stump.

Consider what he says about bankers, a well-hated group in Mexico these days. He told the ranchers at Rincon de Romos: "Many of us have the idea that the bankers are corrupt, useless, that they have us under their thumbs. This isn't true. A country needs banks and bankers. A country needs credit, financing, a savings system. We need decent, productive and clean bankers."

He tells fruit growers in Aguascalientes that they will have to use water more efficiently, that their well pumps will need to be inspected to make sure they're not wasting electricity.

Today, before these salt-of-the-earth ranchers in Ezekiel Montes, he discusses the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which in Mexico has become a code word for increasingly unpopular free-trade policies.

6:10 p.m. The campaign swing comes to an end in the plaza of the bustling panista city of San Juan del Rio, Queretaro.

"The free-trade agreement isn't bad. It's good. We were right to sign it," he tells them. He explains his agriculture policy, which includes subsidies to farmers, decentralizing federal agriculture agencies and transferring many of their responsibilities and their budgets to the states.

Agriculture's real problem, he says, is that "the economy hasn't grown." Once the economy grows, it will provide better domestic markets for what farmers and ranchers produce, as well as stable prices for seed, fertilizer and farm equipment.

Fox arrives in the cab of one the big rigs that joined his caravan a few miles out of town. A twin-engine plane buzzes over the crowd of 3,000.

Tonight, Fox reiterates the themes and images that will likely stay with him throughout the campaign. The economy needs to grow at 7% a year to absorb all the young people entering the job market. The creation of 1.35 million jobs a year. He dwells again on the pain it causes him to see a father who can't buy his children an ice cream. To help women, the group with which he still has the most work to do, he promises laws outlawing wage and sex discrimination.

"We need to bring our country up to date," he says before ending the speech and leaving the stage. As families peel away across the plaza, a group of supporters chants: "[Upside down exclamation point]Ya llego! [Upside down exclamation point]Ya esta acqui!, [Upside down exclamation point] El que va a sacar al PRI!" ["He has arrived! He's here! The one who'll get rid of the PRI!"]

Tomorrow Fox will rest. Then, next week, another trip. Acapulco, Merida, and the state of Mexico.

Promises, promises, promises

Growth, jobs and tax cuts--too good to be true? LATIN TRADE contributor Sam Quinones talks with National Action Party presidential candidate Vicente Fox about his promises for Mexico. Excerpts:

You speak of the need to grow 7% annually in order to create 1.35 million jobs a year. President Ernesto Zedillo promised something similar and failed. How would you succeed?

We're going to work intensely to bring investment in from abroad. In Guanajuato, we brought investment from more than 30 countries. To do this you need confidence and the rule of law. Zedillo doesn't have that. There's corruption and impunity.

You have to give fiscal incentives to investors. We'll exempt all new companies investing in the southeast, the most underdeveloped part of Mexico, from paying property taxes for between five and 10 years.

We also need to stimulate our own savings. We're going to achieve a budget surplus by my fourth year as president, something that's never happened in this country. So the government itself will be a saver. Today, only 25% of the working population is in a savings or retirement plan. We're going to extend these plans to the rest of the population.

What are your proposals with regard to rehabilitating agriculture?

First decentralization of all the government agencies that have to do with agriculture. We want the states to take the responsibility and the budget to resolve agricultural problems.

Second, an intense effort to modernize and bring technology to agriculture. All countries subsidize and support their own agriculture. We have to support and subsidize agriculture by paying farmers when the prices for their produce don't reach a price that's profitable.

What reforms to local government would you make?

I'd make two. First, that a mayor could be re-elected to a second three-year term. Second, that there's the possibility of installing professional city administrators. This will help create a civil service, so that he who specializes in garbage disposal becomes an expert in garbage disposal. Meanwhile, the mayor will be dedicated to political aspects of the city, public relations and attracting investment to town.

We also need to decentralize the budget. Today, 20% of all taxes are returned to states and cities (from the federal government). We're going to raise that to 45%, in order to develop local infrastructure, local necessities for the development of rural areas and working-class neighborhoods.

You advocate doubling education spending and increasing money for the states and cities. Where will you get the funds?

Through fiscal reform. This will bring in additional income without increasing taxes.

We're going to make the economy grow. That growth will bring in more revenue, We'll save on expenses, by building a government that costs less and produces more. In Guanajuato we reduced by 30% the cost of government. We'll do this at the federal level. We'll get rid of red tape. We're going to eliminate taxes, such as the tax on new cars.

We'll make sure we comply with discipline on the economy's fundamentals so that we can bring investment to Mexico. We're going to avoid fiscal deficits. We're going to make sure that the Central Bank is absolutely independent and responsible for monetary and exchange-rate policies and committed by law to reduce inflation of 2% or 3%.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) says it guarantees stability in Mexico. Why would a change be better for Mexico?

The PRI claims stability, but what it's built in Mexico is poverty. Forty million poor people. We have guerrillas in Chiapas. The country grows for one or two years, and then we go backward for another two years. We get political crimes, like [the 1994 assassination of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo] Colosio. We have problems like the UNAM student strike. All are products of the political incapacity to resolve problems.

The governments of [Carlos] Salinas and Zedillo have always been praised from abroad for their macroeconomic results. That's totally unfair. They've deceived everybody abroad. We've been losing purchasing power for 18 years in a row. We have the same per capita income we had 30 years ago--US$4,000--and it's one of the most unevenly distributed incomes in the world.

Corruption and drug smuggling are all over the country. [The PRI] generated that problem. It is not the solution.