Salinas, Acting the President, Charts a Stormy Course

Carlos Salinas de Gortari will not take office as the president of Mexico until Dec. 1, but he is already actively participating in the daily governing of the country. Only a fortnight ago he presided as “honorary witness” to an agreement with labor and the private sector to maintain the outgoing administration’s anti-inflationary program through the month of December. Though it may be unprecedented that a president-elect is so actively involved in the duties of government, Salinas’ participation confirms that he will pursue the basic policy goals that have characterized Miguel de la Madrid’s administration over the last three years.

But the recent public appearances by Salinas also show that the post-election milieu is still in a state of confusion. With the announcement of the continuation of the economic program, time has been bought--time for the government and the parties to come to terms with the new political landscape, which was radically altered in the July 6 election.

The Salinas government is likely to be the first in memory that will not enjoy a honeymoon period as incoming governments usually do. His confirmation in September as president-elect has given him badly needed time to organize his administration, design an economic strategy and form an effective governing coalition in his own party and with a fractious Congress. But he probably will not have much breathing space until the economy starts a recovery--something that is unlikely to take place before mid-1990 at the earliest. The conditions for recovery are far from ripe, and are subject to unforeseeable influences.

One of the paradoxes of the July 6 election is that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) did poorly, largely because the economy has shrunk under the current PRI administration, yet the people expect Salinas, the PRI candidate, to deliver economic growth as a matter of course.

It is quite obvious why there has been no economic growth in Mexico: The structure of the country’s economy has not made it possible. Salinas appears to be convinced that his only chance for success lies in concluding the process of reform and restructuring that the De la Madrid administration began during the last few years. Those policies are already showing extraordinary results (for instance, on the inflationary front), but the majority of the Mexicans have yet to experience the benefits. Hence, one of the toughest tasks ahead for Salinas is to accelerate and deepen the reforms so that he can shortly have something to show for the hardship of the last few years.

The De la Madrid administration attempted to carry out a reform program gradually, and, while that had an effect on the structure of the economy, the long slide into deep recession persisted. The next stage of the economic reform will entail essentially political actions and negotiations. These will be not with the opposition parties as much as with the many political strongholds within the government party itself--with leaders of the unions and the private sector, with bureaucrats and regulatory agencies, for example--that have ultimately been the net beneficiaries of the status quo.

But there are three types of risks that loom in the current transition. One is that PRI politicians will go back to doing business as usual, as if the events of the past election season were a bad dream--unreal and forgettable. This would not only cancel out the economic reform; it would further deepen political conflict as well.

The abrupt termination of the opposition’s demand for new elections entails another obvious risk. As happened with the Girondins in the French Revolution and Kerensky in the Russian, there is a slight chance that the left wing of the opposition may have triggered a popular revolt that it is incapable of stopping. The next few months will tell.

In the meantime, the opposition has to cope with post-election disarray. Whilethe National Action Party, on the right, is doing fairly well, the left is beginning to find out how deep are the differences among the many parties and factions that backed Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. The left’s first major difficulty is that of organizing a party or a federation of parties that could have enough credibility to claim a right to govern; those parties now have to prove that they can go beyond organizing demonstrations in Mexico City. They are beginning to realize that it is easier to attack and undermine the PRI than to develop their own political standing and credibility.

The foremost risk is that the various parties continue behaving as if the others are neither credible nor significant, and thus persevere in undermining the country’s political institutions. It would be much better if all parties began working on a new set of rules that everybody could live by.

It takes time for democratic processes to mature; it may take much longer in the middle of a severe economic downturn, particularly when so few seem to really want it.