Mexico's PAN Stumbles into 2010 Election Season

MEXICO CITY -- Ten years ago, Mexico's National Action Party (PAN) swept to power on an agenda of change, ousting the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) after 71 years of uninterrupted rule. The PAN agenda included more jobs, 7 percent economic growth and honest government -- a departure from the PRI, which had presided over a political system oiled by corruption and patronage.

A decade later, removing the PRI from power on the federal level remains the party's greatest accomplishment. Much of the center-right party's agenda has gone unfulfilled, and the PAN has largely failed to establish itself as a party of government -- despite having narrowly won the disputed 2006 presidential election. ...