Mexico president pushes smooth transfer

Will election fever give way to post-election market jitters?

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo has sought to reassure foreign investors that his country's economy will not face a crisis after next month's presidential election.

The poll could see the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) lose power for the first time in more than 70 years.

Addressing American business leaders in New York, Mr Zedillo said that whoever is elected as his successor will be committed to maintaining stability.

Mr Zedillo's enthusiastic defence of free trade was well received by the scores of industry captains who attended a US Chamber of Commerce dinner.

Freedoms will underpin a thriving democracy on which social and economic development will take root in Mexico

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo

He told them that his administration's economic achievements would help protect Mexico from the turbulence experienced during previous presidential handovers.

He praised the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Mexico joined in 1993. Nafta, he said, had led to a sharp increase in cross-border trade with benefits for the workforce and the environment.

Correspondents say every change of leadership since 1976 has been marked by an economic crash, which many Mexicans have come to view as a six-year curse.

Market jitters

Nervous markets in Mexico have already started to decline because of fears that instability could follow the most closely-fought election in the country's modern history.

Seeking to allay such fears, Mr Zedillo told his audience that thanks to new electoral rules designed to guarantee fairness the next president would bear an incontestable democratic legitimacy.

Mr Zedillo: Said Mexican democracy had taken root

"I am confident that these freedoms will underpin a thriving democracy on which social and economic development will take root in Mexico," said Mr Zedillo, who has about six months left of his six-year term.

He is paying a farewell call on his US counterpart, Bill Clinton, who is also near the end of his term of office. The two met over lunch on Friday.

The BBC's Mexico correspondent says little of substance is likely to come of the meeting, with both presidents so near the end of their tenures.

He says their relationship has thrived despite differences over drug trafficking and the shooting of illegal Mexican immigrants by US vigilantes on the southern border.

Mr Zedillo also held talks on Friday with officials of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank.