Mexico’s Next President: a Dark Horse Workhorse

In naming 39-year-old Carlos Salinas de Gortari to succeed him, Mexico’s President Miguel de la Madrid has made a daring choice that surprised many observers.

Less than three years ago, Salinas was widely written off as having no chance for the presidency, despite his occupancy of one of the most strategic cabinet ministries and his long service as De la Madrid’s right-hand man. Salinas’ public image was poor: He was stereotyped as the quintessential technocrat, a number-cruncher consumed by macroeconomic theories, totally lacking in charisma and inexperienced in managing political problems.

But his image wasn’t Salinas’ greatest liability in the presidential sweepstakes; it was the set of austere economic policies that he fashioned for De la Madrid in his role as the secretary of budget and planning, and the powerful enemies that he made in the government-affiliated labor movement as he implemented those policies. His efforts included a crackdown on corruption in the oil workers’ union, whose leaders repaid Salinas by doing everything possible to sabotage his candidacy.

Big Labor, especially the powerful unions of public employees, is unquestionably the Big Loser in Salinas’ selection. This will be the second consecutive transfer of power that bypassed the oficialista labor movement’s preferred candidate. Other losers include the traditional politicos who had lined up behind Energy Secretary Alfredo del Mazo Gonzalez or Government Secretary Manuel Bartlett Diaz, hoping to recover some of the influence and perks that they have lost to the ascendant technocrats during the last three administrations.

Salinas, whose election next July 6 is a foregone conclusion, will be the fourth man in a row to become the president of Mexico without having held an elective office. Since 1971 he has worked his way up within the government and ruling party bureaucracies, holding a succession of increasingly important positions in the areas of economic and social policy.

Salinas’ selection signifies that De la Madrid attached greater importance to maintaining continuity in economic policy than to placating the country’s political Establishment. Among the three strongest contenders for the presidency, Salinas was the most likely, and by far the best equipped, to continue De la Madrid’s economic restructuring project. The nomination also means that, despite his reputation as a weak president, De la Madrid was able to impose what was clearly an unpopular choice on the chieftains of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party).

Notwithstanding the hostility of many old-style politicos and the indifference of much of the public, Salinas has many things going for him--his youth (he will be the youngest Mexican president since Lazaro Cardenas in the 1930s), his superior intelligence, a prodigiously high energy level and a reputation untainted by corruption. And he has a strong team of economic and political advisers who will now move into cabinet positions.

Salinas himself is a professional economist and political scientist, with graduate degrees from Harvard and MIT and numerous serious academic publications. His research has demonstrated how difficult it is for the Mexican state to buy mass support with the usual kinds of development projects and public works. He has advocated a new style of local-level political leadership in order to build a more solid base of support for the government. His ability to survive as budget secretary in an austerity administration, and to build the alliances needed to propel him into the presidency, shows that he is a highly accomplished political tactician.

Salinas will need all his political and economic managerial skills to deal with the formidable challenges confronting him. He must campaign for the presidency burdened by an economic strategy that, whatever its long-term benefits, has seriously damaged the short-term interests of many Mexicans (inflation during the first half of 1987 ran at an annual rate of 133%; real incomes have declined by more than 40% since 1982).

De la Madrid and his economic cabinet, including Salinas, saw no alternative to their policies if the foundations for a sustainable economic recovery were to be laid. Managed less competently, they argue, the economic crisis would have been even more severe and protracted, and social peace has been maintained.

The next administration must complete the transformation of the Mexican economy while reducing the immediate social costs of restructuring. The present inflation rate is socially and politically unsustainable, and must be brought down sharply. And a long-term solution to the external debt problem must be found.

During Salinas’ presidency, Mexico will face a staggering, unprecedented employment deficit. Millions of jobs have been lost in the economic crisis of the 1980s. The labor force will continue to grow by about 3.3% each year through the turn of the century. Even if real economic growth of 5% per year can be restored (a “high-growth” scenario for Mexico in the foreseeable future), the economy would still be creating fewer jobs than will be needed to absorb the new job-seekers coming of age.

The problems awaiting Salinas in the political arena are hardly less daunting. He must bring into line the labor leaders and others who opposed his nomination. He must find a way to reduce tensions between the politicos and the tecnicos within the political elite. His administration must respond to rapidly mounting pressures for democratization, especially from the urban middle classes alienated by the economic crisis, and from a dissident movement within the PRI itself.

Salinas must also contend with demands from the business community and from opposition parties of both right and left for new limits on presidential power--a delayed reaction to the excesses of traditional Mexican presidencialismo, as practiced by Luis Echeverria (1970-76) and Jose Lopez Portillo (1976-82).

While Salinas knows the United States very well, he must deal with a U.S. political elite and a public that are increasingly critical of the deficiencies in Mexico’s political system, and with a militantly protectionist Congress, a Federal Reserve bent on pushing up interest rates, and a U.S. financial community resistant to new approaches to the international debt problem.

In his speech accepting the PRI nomination on Sunday, Salinas promised “continuity in Mexico’s principles and institutions and change in forms and methods.” Finding ways out of Mexico’s multiple conundrums during the next six years will require a high level of creativity. To succeed, the next administration must be unconventional. Salinas’ own nomination points the way to more surprises ahead.