EU monitors that oversaw the elections in Mexico this past July called the elections fair and transparent, but too expensive (more, in spanish). Elections in Mexico are notoriously expensive, in part a result of the PRI’s extensive use of state resources during campaigns pre-1997 (during their long single-party control of the state) and the gradual increase in state subsidies given to (opposition) parties prior to the PRI defeats in 1997 and 2000 as the PRI sought to placate demands for greater democratization.