Rise of Opposition Doesn’t Spell the End of Mexico’s No. 1 Party

Carlos Salinas de Gortari has been confirmed as Mexico’s next president, and, as the dust raised by the closely contested election begins to settle, some explaining is in order.

Even as the voting ended July 6, some American news media rushed to the conclusion that it was marred by “massive fraud” and represented the last political gasp of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled the country continually for almost 60 years. To borrow the words of Mark Twain, the reports of the PRI’s death are greatly exaggerated.

Until this year PRI presidential candidates usually won with more than 70% of the popular vote. No opposition party had ever won a single seat in the Mexican Senate or breached the PRI’s two-thirds majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Did this mean that the Mexican system was unfair or failed to represent the wishes and aspirations of the Mexican people? Those steeped in the English or American system of democracy, characterized by two major parties that often alternate in power, might quickly conclude that it did.

We should have learned by now that interpreting such international events inan American context often leads to gross errors of judgment and policy. Do we really believe that a country of 80 million people, with one of the smallest military and security forces in the world in an area known for political instability, could have been governed peacefully for almost six decades by a party that did not in some way reflect the will of the people? Such an accomplishment is almost inconceivable.

To understand democracy Mexican-style, one first must set aside the notion that democracy invariably presumes the existence of two or more major parties alternating in power. This has not been the case in Japan, where the Liberal Democratic Party has been in power for almost 40 years, or in India, where the Congress Party has governed since independence. Yet we certainly consider Japan and India to be democratic. Why? Because in their own way these states have responded effectively to the will of the Japanese and Indian peoples. Since 1929 the same has essentially been true of the PRI in Mexico.

The PRI has survived and governed successfully not by coercion but by consensus. It has attracted support not with ideology but with accommodation. In the political vernacular, that means “delivering the goods” to constituents in the same old-fashioned way in which political machines in this country delivered benefits to the Irish in Boston or the Italians in New York. When the mood of Mexico’s electorate shifted, so did the PRI’s politics. Thus, when leftist guerrillas became active in Mexico in the 1960s, the government effectively doused their fire by accepting many of their leaders into the party hierarchy and Congress.

Today most of the PRI leadership accepts the need for fundamental political change. Since coming to office in 1982, Mexico’s current president, Miguel de la Madrid, has repeatedly called for the modernization of the political system, just as he has modernized the economy. In 1986 De la Madrid introduced a package of reforms, which were enacted in 1987 as the new Federal Electoral Code. Each party, regardless of size, was given an equal amount of free air time on all radio and television stations in the nation--this year, more than 51 hours per party. Each party also received federal funds in proportion to its electoral support in previous elections. A truly independent electoral tribunal was created with the power to decide electoral challenges. That tribunal was made up of seven distinguished jurists chosen unanimously by representatives of all political parties. The Chamber of Deputies was expanded to 500 seats, with a minimum of 150 permanently reserved for minority parties.

In spite of charges by the opposition that irregularities plagued the July elections, most independent observers have concluded that Salinas was indeed the winner, and that whatever irregularities there were did not materially alter the outcome of the presidential vote. On reflection, even Mexico’s critics are grudgingly acknowledging that this election was probably the fairest in Mexico’s recent history.

One prominent historian and critic of the PRI, Enrique Krauze, called the election a “watershed” in Mexican democracy. He is right. Since 1980 the country has survived numerous crises, from a 50% decline in the price of oil to the most devastating earthquake ever to strike the North American continent. Despite these trials, the political system has survived and evolved. Today we see it responding again--to the desires of a people who are maturing in their political needs and demands.

Far from being an unresponsive government of the Pinochet or Marcos variety, Mexico today may well represent a model of peaceful political modernization in the developing world--an example of how, in a relatively short period, meaningful change can take place without violence or wholesale disruption of the social order.

Of course, there are those who say that change is not occurring fast enough in Mexico. But to coerce Mexico into moving faster would be to court the very instability that U.S. policy is committed to avoiding.

Lately, the word crisis has become common in references to Mexico. If, as the Chinese adage says, a crisis contains the seeds of both danger and opportunity, then the government of Miguel de la Madrid and the team behind his successor, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, seem to have successfully avoided the first while steering the Mexican political system on a course for the latter.