The PRI's Labastida is challenged on two fronts, the left and the right in Mexico's July 2 presidential election. Left and right don't mean entirely the same thing in Mexico as in the U.S., but they are so commonly used they will have to do.

Representing the Right, is the PAN, the National Action Party. Their candidate, Vicente Fox, a former Coca Cola executive, is currently running dead even with Labastida in the polls. Fox is seen as a credible contender by corporate media outlets everywhere.

On the Left, Cuautemoc Cardenas, of the PRD, the Party of the Democratic Revolution, while lagging behind in the official polls, carries a certain popular force. Cuautemoc, son of Lazaro Cardenas, the founder of the PRI, when it was a revolutionary party, is in many ways the face of respectable opposition. The face of Cardenas complements the faceless voice of the Zapatistas rising from below.

Cardenas probably won the presidency in 1988, heading the then fledgling PRD. Early results showed Cardenas ahead, until a mysterious bug crashed the computers tallying the vote. After the computers were "fixed," the PRI's Carlos Salinas was declared winner. Cardenas lost the subsequent election, in 1994, to the current president, Zedillo, in a vote considered generally legitimate, at least by comparison.

Cardenas went on to become mayor of Mexico City, where the PRD is strong. He resigned from that position to run for the presidency.

Vicente Fox, governor of the state of Guanajuato, was the head of Coke's Latin American operations. Can you say "corporate globalization?" He whiled away his retirement by becoming elected governor of the state of Guanajuato.

While in Mexico last year, I met a guy from Guanajuato. One evening we were in a cafe in Oaxaca, and the TV was on. Fox appeared on the screen and began saying something I didn't catch--partly because I couldn't listen fast enough in Spanish, and partly because my friend erupted in an outburst, which I didn't need to be a quick listener to catch the gist of. He is extremely opposed to Fox. What I got was, while Fox was governor, crime virtually disappeared--from the rich neighborhood where Fox resides. Police officers were practically tripping over the private security guards. A zone where it wasn't a good idea for an ordinary, un-monied people to be caught minding their own business. Meanwhile, there were no police to mind crime in other, non-touristed and non-corporate parts of the city. Worse, of course, was the police contribution to the crime rate.

The question has been raised more than once: When it comes to corruption, how exactly is Fox different from the PRI?

Nevertheless, he is seen as a change. More inviting still, he represents a change with security. Where Cardenas, once a PRI member, represents the removal of the institutionalized corruption of the PRI while maintaining the ideals of the Revolutionary Party, Fox represents a change in the PRI's structure while maintaining the essential goals of neoliberalism.

That is enough of a promise to have brought several leading leftists into Fox's campaign. They make a compelling argument: first, break the PRI's institutionalized stranglehold on the political process, then work on change from there.

For his part, Fox has promised, if elected, to abide by the San Andreas Accords which were designed to bring peace to the state of Chiapas. These accords, signed by the Zapatistas and the PRI government, were reneged upon by the government. Not incidentally, Fransisco Labastida, then Secretary of the Interior, was responsible for instituting the PRI's calculated bad faith.

Fox perhaps deserves the benefit of the doubt in his promise. The PAN, in general, has cooperated extensively with the PRD in opposing the PRI's actions in Chiapas, including the recent "invasion" by "Mexico's FBI," and what appears to be preparations for a final military assault on the Zapatistas.

This cooperation, while cause for optimism, is not without controversy. Fox has repeatedly requested that Cardenas throw his support to Fox, in a full-on effort to unseat the PRI. Cardenas has persistently refused.

Cardenas may refuse because he desires to capture the presidency for himself--the presidency he as much as anyone deserves credit for making "capturable." He has been criticized for putting personal ambition ahead of the public good on this score. It is certainly something worth thinking about. Cardenas as "spoiler" is good for no one but the PRI.

But Cardenas has been at the game a long time. He probably has good reasons for not throwing his lot in with Fox.

Cardenas is rising in the polls. He still trails well behind the two front-runners, but his numbers went up after each of the two presidential debates. Fox gained points in the debates as well, by being a brash, take no prisoners, firebrand--with credible corporate backers. Cardenas scores by being thoughtful and dignified. It might not be enough to win Mexico's first U.S.-style election, but it counts for something.