From darkness, dawn – The Economist 11-23-12

Tom Wainwright said that after years of under achievement and rising violence, Mexico is at last beginning to realise its potential.

• Mexico can benefit from big, irreversible trends: a falling birth rate, leaders at last tackling home-grown problems, to rising wages in China.
• Mexico outpaced Brazil in 2011 and will grow twice as fast in 2012. Net emigration is down to zero, if not negative.
• The fertility rate will soon be lower than the US.
• Poverty alleviated by services such as universal free health care.
• A falling murder rate, albeit slowly, for the first time in 5 years –  the failure of rich countries’ anti-drugs policies means organised crime will not go away.
• The opposition party shares much of the administration’s agenda and together they have a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress.

Historian Enrique Krauze says Mexico is a country where doctrine and principle matter more than practical considerations and results.