That is why it is so remarkable to follow the coverage of the march in defense of the INE last weekend. For once, the image on the cover of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or countless other internet sites of similar influence highlighted the union of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans to protect something that works in the country.
The defense of democracy is always laudable and necessary. Not all countries understand it. Some do not appreciate the importance of the free and effective vote. It will be, perhaps, because they have never been left without that essential right that is to choose who governs and to be able to fire those who govern badly.
In the United States, for example, there is a part of society that still ignores what it is like to live under a government that truly sabotages free voting. They complain without foundation about the supposed defects of a democracy that works, but that is more fragile than they believe. In Mexico, on the other hand, we do know what it means to seriously lose democracy. Although there are already generations of Mexicans who neither remember nor lived through the times of the PRI, a huge number of us are clear about what that was. That clarity engenders the fear of losing the freedom we have won, and that is the voice that was heard in the Zócalo. It is what portrays the image that went around the world.
