1 President Ernesto Zedillo seems to be pushing Mexico toward greater democracy and freer elections while wielding a club to help him keep his political balance.
2 But how this will improve the lives of most Mexicans remains to be seen.
3 On Thursday, the president ended a yearlong truce with the leftist Indian rebels in southern Chiapas state, sending thousands of troops to occupy former rebel villages. Federal police fanned out across the state and country to arrest suspected rebels and question sympathizers.
4 The nation's most famed leftist politician, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, told tens of thousands of protesters in Mexico City on Saturday that Zedillo had started 'a prolonged war that will last many years, causing many deaths.'
5 Yet a day after the angry protest, members of the conservative opposition National Action Party were dancing in the streets of Guadalajara to celebrate what party leaders called a 'victory for democracy.'
6 Zedillo's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, peacefully accepted the worst defeat in its 66-year history in the race for governor of Jalisco state and for mayor of Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city.
7 While the PAN landslide in Jalisco may broaden faith in electoral results, cleaner elections are likely to have little effect on the large gap between the rich and poor and the lack of a significant middle class.
8 In the hills of Chiapas, too, people are reacting to government intervention the way they traditionally have -- with fear. Villages have been abandoned by peasants who may not belong to the Zapatista rebels, but who don't want to be mistaken for one.
9 The government made another effort to appease critics on Tuesday when the PRI governor of Chiapas, Eduardo Robledo, resigned in hopes of ending a bitter election dispute and helping to pacify a state roiled by rebellion.
10 'I view the Robledo resignation as a sign of reassurance that political solutions are available and that hard-liners have not taken over the government,' said Delal Baer, a Mexico specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
11 Zedillo took office in December promising a final cleanup of Mexico's long-notorious elections.
12 But almost immediately, some regional PRI dinosaurs took advantage of Zedillo's promise to stay out of state affairs by using riots to block a federal solution of an election dispute that they feared could cost them control of Tabasco state.
13 Challenged by hard-liners in his own party and blocked in efforts to negotiate peace in Chiapas, Zedillo was accused of weakness. He quickly took a club to the Zapatistas, thrilling hard-liners who had been frustrated by a year of inconclusive negotiations with the lightly armed rebels.
14 'He's got a real contradiction,' Baer said. 'He has to try to appease those dinosaurs and hard-liners in the party that are manageable while keeping the reform path on track.'
15 'He's trying to be all things to all people,' she said.
16 Critics from Cardenas' Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, called Zedillo's policy 'incoherent.'
17 'We are facing a regime that doesn't know what it wants,' said Ricardo Pascoe, a member of the PRD's central committee. 'One day it has one policy and the next day it has another policy.'
18 With most Mexicans suffering from a sharp economic downturn, National Action has a strong chance in all three remaining governor's races this year.
19 Some analysts believe National Action could lead a congressional majority in 1997 and make it to the presidency in 2000.
20 'This triumph shows it is possible to change the government . . through the force of votes and not through the force of bullets,' said National Action's secretary-general, Felipe Calderon. ------
21 EDITOR'S NOTE -- John Rice has covered Mexico for The Associated Press for nearly five years.

The nation ' s most famed leftist politician , Cuauhtemoc Cardenas , told tens of thousands of protesters in Mexico City on Saturday that Zedillo had started " a prolonged war that will last many years , causing many deaths . "
protesters
What was the purpose or goal of the protest in Mexico City?