Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Vicente Fox pleads with the Mexican Congress to help him ease the burdens of poverty and struggle faced by a majority of his country's people. He pleads for the Mexican Congress to do this by supporting his agenda for solutions to these difficult problems. He links the Mexican Congress's obstinacy to a failure of democracy. In doing so, he is feeding the fires of autocracy. Attention Mr. Fox: A Congress that doesn't just approve an executive's blueprint for change is not anti-democratic. Gridlock, though frustrating to many, is part of democracy. It is the strengthening of an effective balance of power, which is something Mexico has lacked for many, many years. His challenge is to convince the Congress to buy into his plans, not to call them anti-democratic for refusing to do so. He is welcome to play politics all he wants, and to call Congess obstinate and partisan and mistaken and wrong -- but to call them anti-democratic (and to imply that democracy is not working because of them) is to undermine one of the main pillars of a strong and vibrant democracy. Fox should be speaking of democracy in Mexico as a working reality, not as a failing expectation.