Sergio Aguayo

Sergio Aguayo is a leading promoter of citizen participation in Mexico, organizing and encouraging citizens to play an active role in Mexico ´s transition towards building a better democracy.

Sergio has strengthened democratic processes and institutions in Mexico for the last 30 years by examining and addressing the corruption and lack of transparency in Mexican elections through citizen education and participation. To lay the groundwork for this movement he has dedicated a large portion of his work to investigating and understanding the problems that have originated as Mexico transitions to a democracy. He then informs citizens about the failures of their democratic system and motivates them to take action. These initiatives engage citizens to have a more participatory role in their country’s governance. One central focus of Sergio’s work has been election monitoring and reform. His organization, Alianza Cívica (Civic Alliance) designed and launched a method for citizens to monitor the efficiency and transparency of government elections at a time when the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of Mexico had been in power for nearly 60 consecutive years. This organization, which is now operating in almost all of Mexico, also promotes election reform and continually uses citizen vigilance to assure that transparency and access to information are characteristics of elections at the local, state, and federal levels. Civic Alliance’s work has expanded beyond election monitoring to encourage citizens to participate in public affairs and monitor the actions of elected officials. Moreover, Sergio has recently created two other organizations FUNDAR and Propuesta Civica (Civic Proposal) to foster applied research, public policy changes, and civic participation around issues of democratic reform. Sergio is entrenching democratic principles in various sectors of Mexican society: From ordinary citizens to government officials to the next generation of politicians.

Sergio has always been greatly concerned with Mexico’s state of democracy. One of the most notable areas where Mexico’s democracy has struggled is in establishing valid, transparent elections. During the 70-year rule of the PRI, elections were under strict government control to ensure favorable results for the ruling political party. Linking government programs to the PRI, harassment incarceration and even the murder opposition candidates, total lack of transparency mechanisms, and fraudulent practices were among common PRI tactics to ensure its “victory” during Mexican elections. For example, in 1958 the opposition party candidate Luis Álvarez was jailed for the crime of being a candidate for the opposition party. Later, in the 1988 election, PRI President Salinas won after many votes were discarded due to an alleged voter system failure. Moreover, although opposition parties such as the historical rival of PRI, the National Action Party (PAN) and much later the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) had interesting and popular political platforms, the control exercised by the PRI-government prevented them from the chance to win elections and prove themselves. Accusations of campaign finance fraud and the all too common practice of voter bribery further complicate elections in Mexico. The solution, according to Sergio and many sector leaders was to promote free and transparent elections that would lead to alternate rule by a diversity of political parties. They believed this would bring about the eventual inclusion of democratic principles in their agenda. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation’s (EZLNs) emergence onto the political scene in 1994 generated high levels of national sympathy for the indigenous movement and strong support for citizen organizations (COs) promoting free and fair elections, such as Sergio’s Civic Alliance. Civic Alliance and its 400 CO network were successful in pushing the government and representatives to create a strong and independent electoral authority, Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE), that was able to ensure much fairer elections and eventually led to the termination of the PRI’s 70-year rule in 2000. Although Mexico now enjoys free elections, to Sergio’s and many political analysts’ dismay, Mexico’s political parties have yet to incorporate democratic principles in their platforms. Instead, the prevailing system of corruption has permeated into the new political parties. Sergio sees Mexico’s democratic government as a necessary, but insufficient step to establishing a truly democratic nation—the citizens of Mexico must also be informed and engaged in making their democracy work. Authoritarian and corrupt regimes in Mexico’s history have dampened the public’s interest in taking an active role in government. Sergio cautions, “Democracy is not a panacea, but a method, and place in which spaces are open for a fight. Those who want to defend their rights have to enter into the pacifist political fight.”

Sergio created Civic Alliance in 1990 to promote free and fair elections, as well as public spending transparency in Mexico. This umbrella organization has brought together a network of COs equally committed to transforming Mexico’s political landscape. Civic Alliance has developed a series of programs from local town hall meetings, to national dialogues on the political state of the country, and programs promoting electoral transparency to begin to shine light on deficiencies within the political system. For example, through Civic Alliance, Sergio has organized Mexican citizens to observe local, state, and federal elections and to report irregularities and fraud. In 1995 Sergio began a program called Adopt a Diplomat in which citizens began monitoring the actions of public officials—from Congressmen to town mayors. The Adopt a Diplomat program helps to generate a culture in which denouncing public officials and asking public servants to be accountable for their actions and spending is accepted. Sergio thus fosters democratic processes beyond election times by increasing the transparency and legitimacy of democratic officials and institutions. In 2006 and 2007, Sergio developed the Citizen Comptroller Project for Local Government Performance to help citizens track government spending and accounting practices and to be up to date on where tax revenues are spent. Most importantly, Civic Alliance and its network played a critical role in getting the PRI-government to implement important reforms to the newly created IFE in 1993, 1994, and 1996. As a result, the IFE became an autonomous institute from the government with greater authority on all electoral decisions. For example, IFE gained the authority to limit campaign expenses, and create mechanisms for greater transparency, allowing national and international observers to monitor elections. These reforms were an important precursor to Mexico’s democratic elections in 2000. Realizing that free elections and transparency were insufficient to guarantee the inclusion of democratic principles in Mexico’s political system, Sergio co-created FUNDAR in 1999. FUNDAR is dedicated to battling government inefficiency, lack of representation, and insufficient civic participation, as well as a center for applied political research and analysis. One of its main foci is to monitor, analyze, and transform decision-making processes regarding the federal budget and public policy. In marked contrast with other organizations, FUNDAR integrates a human rights and gender perspective in its analyzes, with an emphasis on the bottom-of-the-pyramid to foster a new understanding of citizenship, promote civic participation, and formalize transparency. FUNDAR also offers workshops and activities that give citizens the opportunity to learn about election and budget monitoring and thus puts in place systems to ensure the entrenchment of democratic principles in Mexican society. Sergio was President of FUNDAR until 2008. At a new inflection point, Sergio recently founded Civic Proposal, a CO with the goal of creating a national movement to anchor Mexico’s democracy. Civic Proposal has four aims. The first is to conduct applied research on issues that foster or threaten Mexico’s democratic health. It also undertakes legal action against government and political parties to foster accountability, e.g. Civic Proposal brought the IFE to court for illegally prohibiting access to information about the elections in the year 2000. It has also pursued legal actions against the Green Ecological Party of Mexico for founding its campaign on false information and is currently challenging the Senate to incorporate mechanisms that will make the Ombudsman position more representative of Mexican society and increasingly committed to the defense of human rights throughout the country. To entrench democratic principles nationally, Civic Proposal also fosters political activism, e.g. Sergio launched a campaign to collect 1 million signatures against misspending. The signatures were then used to pressure Congress to legislate election reform and cut election spending by 50 percent. Moreover, during the 2009 midterm election, Sergio launched a national campaign encouraging citizens to nullify their vote by writing in the name Esperanza Marchita (Shriveled Hope) on their ballots. A vote for Esperanza, and therefore a null vote, was a protest against the poor quality of the election candidates and the entre political system. In one month, this energized 2 million youth to vote for the first time! Finally, Civic Proposal has created an institute to train the next generation of politicians to be more socially-minded and focused on entrenching democratic principles in their future political platforms.

Sergio grew up in an impoverished rural area and moved to Guadalajara for college, where he became involved in political activism at the time when student demonstrations were threatening the regime. This ultimately led to the famous massacre of students in Tlatelolco in 1968 before the Olympic Games. Many of Sergio’s classmates took up arms but Sergio knew that was wrong and he split from them, while continuing his involvement in nonviolent protests. Many of his classmates were killed, but death squads also targeted many of the nonviolent protesters. Sergio had to flee to Mexico City to continue his college studies and then did his M.A. and Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins. When Sergio was finally able to return to Mexico he taught and wrote a column of political commentary which quickly became popular and helped found the Mexican Human Rights movement. Sergio has positioned himself as a well-renowned journalist and author to reach the Mexican public and open dialogue about Mexico’s transition to democracy, human rights, and foreign affairs. Sergio has studied the practice of vote-buying by political parties and the misuse of public funds. He keeps in touch with the public by writing weekly columns on these subjects in La Reforma, one of Mexico’s most prominent newspapers, as well as 17 other local newspapers throughout the country. Sergio has authored over 20 books, 75 academic articles, and over 1,160 journalism pieces on the subject of Mexican democracy to inform and engage the public. In 1995 Sergio was selected as one of Time Magazine’s people of the year for his role in promoting democracy. He has a reputation for being analytical, logical, and unafraid to speak his mind or denounce fraud and abuses in the democratic process. In the early 2000s Sergio served as President of FUNDAR. While President, FUNDAR received the MacArthur “Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.” Sergio has no political ambitions. He sees Civic Proposal as his last initiative to promote the emergence of a more democratic Mexico, and one of his goals is to inspire new generations to continue his work.