EL DIARIO EDITORIAL: "EXAMPLE OF A WISE PEOPLE"

Editor's Note: The following editorial note appeared on the front page of El Diario on July 6. It is translated here without any added comment or analysis.

Ejemplo De Un Pueblo Sabio

Without theatricalities, without fighting or upheavals, the day arrived when this town of chihuahuenses (Ciudad Juárez) demonstrated that it is the director of its history and its political destiny.

With a wisdom that without a doubt escapes the perceptions of our leaders, their parties, and the majority of the news organizations, including the mass media, the electorate voted this Sunday to carefully distribute the balance of power in the state, and with that created an alternative, the advanced model of democracy that it desires for itself.

The lessons are many, but the final conclusion is single and overwhelming: in Chihuahua, thanks to the citizens, the democracy is out of danger.

Through the abundant virtue and determined participation of hundreds of thousands of suffragists that went to the ballot boxes Sunday, the so-called "dirty war" can now be relegated to the dark and useless file of the past.

Those of us who were frustrated by it would do well in forgetting its promoters as well as its beneficiaries as fast as possible.

This Sunday was strong example of a mature people standing up to the civic fear, the loss of heart, and the climate of decay which so many and with such suspect resources worked to create.

Source: El Diario, front page, July 6, 1998