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The National Interest
Working Out
by George W. Grayson
With less than four years left in his term, Mexico’s President Vicente Fox looks increasingly like a lame duck. To his credit, he has brought honest people into government, cracked down on narco-trafficking, backed a freedom of information act, and quieted the Zapatista guerrillas in southern Chiapas state. Still, a medley of factors--poor relations with Congress, an inability to set priorities, a quixotic management style, intramural cabinet fights and spillover effects from a sluggish American economy--have contributed to the deadlock and drift that beset his administration.
But even as Fox slogs through a political quagmire, a basketball-playing labor leader, a law-and-order impresario and a Rocky-like swat team commander have shown that change can be accomplished at the state level. This unlikely trio has transformed the state of Sinaloa from a narco-dealer’s paradise to a magnet for entrepreneurs. As a result, this carrot-shaped province hugging the Gulf of California in northwest Mexico has attracted, as of November 2002, 227 new businesses, totaling more than $700 million in investment since 1999. While much of the country has remained bogged down in a protracted recession, sun-baked Sinaloa has led the nation in job creation during the first quarter of this year and attained the number-one ranking among 31 states for slashing red tape. Who are the men responsible for this turnabout? How have they achieved so much despite a disquietingly high murder rate and an abundance of corruption and narco-clans? Does Sinaloa’s experience hold any lessons for the rest of Mexico or for the developing world in general? . . .