Cynics could be in for a surprise. If elected, Colosio, the 43-year-old social-development secretary and former PRI chief, will undoubtedly continue the Salinas economic revolution and safeguard NAFTA. But he is no clone of the technocrats who surround Salinas. Colosio, who rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, grew up far from the Mexican elite in the middle-class town of Magdalena de Kino, near the Arizona border. He may try to take on Mexico’s corrupt and autocratic political system. Recently he proposed the unprecedented idea of campaign debates. His more ambitious goal is to decentralize the all-powerful federal government. “I do want to take our reforms farther,” Colosio told NEWSWEEK. of course, that would mean changing the way he got to power in the first place.
