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Two thousand eight is the twentieth anniversary of some events that many Mexicans would prefer to forget, though some individual Mexicans who participated in them will probably never be allowed to do so. The presidential elections of 1988 were heavily rigged, and incompetently at that. The official party had stage managed election results for years, but voter discontent in 1988 was so strong that the authorities needed the help of a spurious computer breakdown to produce results that they could live with. Despite the rigging, we have a pretty good idea of what most Mexicans were thinking in that year. They were hugely disaffected with the status quo. Inflation was in three digits and had been in 1987 as well. Economic growth was stagnant. Living standards had fallen significantly over the previous half decade. Mexico had an essentially unpayable national debt. Meanwhile, Mexico's political institutions were authoritarian, torpid, and corrupt. The authorities' failure to respond adequately to the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City was scandalous, and Mexico City's urban problems in any case seemed unmanageable. Mexicanologists north of the border were openly questioning whether Mexico would undergo some...