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After a Cold Start, Mexico’s President Blazes Ahead on Promised Reforms

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<i> Wayne A. Cornelius is director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UC San Diego, and co-author of the book, "Mexico's Alternative Political Futures," recently published by the center</i>

The pace of change since Mexico’s President Carlos Salinas de Gortari took office has surprised most observers. After his anemic 50.7% showing in the election last year, most had written him off as a political cripple, destined to be a weak, ineffective president. Instead, in five short months, Salinas has taken a series of bold, politically risky steps that have quickly established his credibility as a strong, politically adept leader. Among other things, he has ousted the two most powerful and corrupt labor union chiefs in the country; launched a major crackdown on corporate tax evasion and corruption in the business community; demolished the country’s largest surviving drug traffic ring; and publicly recognized--for the first time ever--the existence of political prisoners in Mexico and laid the legal groundwork for pardoning most of them.

In the area of electoral politics, Salinas initiated a thorough overhaul of the election laws and got all major opposition parties to participate in the process. He has begun naming unconventional candidates from the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) to run for key state-level offices. Beginning with the politically sensitive state of Chihuahua, Salinas is introducing a system of competitive primaries for nominating PRI candidates for municipal-level offices.

Most recently, Salinas approved the arrest of the mayor of the capital of Sonora state, on charges that he had rigged his own election last July. This is the first time in modern Mexican history that such an action has been taken against any official representing the ruling party, and it responds to the opposition’s argument that vote fraud can be reduced only if the government starts prosecuting those who commit it.

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These actions have been enormously popular among the Mexican public. Salinas would be the first to admit, however, that spectacular gestures won’t suffice to solve Mexico’s fundamental economic and political problems. He has been masterly thus far in outmaneuvering his political enemies and gathering the reins of power into his hands, something that normally takes a new Mexican president anywhere between one and three years to accomplish. But, like Mikhail S. Gorbachev in his first years of party reform, Salinas is saddled with an old guard that is fighting every step of the way to maintain the status quo, and with a network of state and local apparatchiks who resist central control.

Salinas’ grand design for overhauling the official party would eventually make it much less dependent on the ossified government-affiliated labor unions and peasant organizations. Salinas envisions a party of individual citizens devoted to solving the problems they encounter in their homes and neighborhoods. But a tremendous amount of party reconstruction, from the grass roots up, must occur before the PRI can appeal successfully to voters on that kind of basis.

Meanwhile, in 1989 and each subsequent year of Salinas’ administration, there will be a steady drumbeat of gubernatorial and local elections, in which his credibility as a political reformer will be severely tested. The key test this year will come on July 2, in Baja California, which may become the first state to be governed by an opposition party (probably the conservative National Action Party, or PAN). A strong case could be made that Salinas, and the larger cause of political liberalization in Mexico, would benefit most from an opposition victory in Baja, one that is recognized by the PRI government. That would instantly deflate the widespread skepticism that Salinas seeks only to create the appearance of change.

All of this highlights Salinas’ single greatest challenge in the area of political reform. He probably can cut an acceptable deal with the opposition parties--at least with the rightist PAN, and perhaps even with some segments of the leftist opposition. His biggest problem is to gain sufficient control over his own house: the ruling party, the government bureaucracy and the government-affiliated unions.

Salinas clearly wants to modernize the PRI without tearing it apart--and without losing control over the political opening process. So, for example, he is eager to remove corrupt union bosses who have become major irritants in the relationship between the state and the working classes; but he does not seem ready to allow thorough-going democratization of the unions that these men used to run, because that might result in a new loss of presidential control over these key public-employee unions.

In Mexico, just as in the Soviet Union and China today, controlling the decontrol--preventing a runaway dissidence--will be very difficult, now that the process has begun. Salinas can be expected to use all of his very considerable presidential powers to the hilt, but he does not have the totalitarian tools still available to the Soviet and Chinese leadership. If he were to try to force the resignations of more than 100 senior members of the official party hierarchy--as Gorbachev did, successfully, last month, Salinas would have a full-scale revolt on his hands. Such a move could split the PRI wide open. But the dilemma persists: How do you start winning elections cleanly and convincingly without destroying the vertical, highly centralized power structure that has ensured political stability in Mexico for 60 years?

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The difficulty is compounded because Salinas is trying to open Mexico politically in the midst of continuing economic stagnation, following a six-year period in which living standards have plummeted and the accumulated “social deficit” reached truly alarming proportions.

If a deal for major debt relief can be struck and relatively vigorous economic growth resumed, would this put Mexico irrevocably on the road to a competitive two-party or multi-party system? Probably not. That might happen if the PRI were successfully modernized, and if the opposition parties consolidated themselves as viable alternative governing parties. But the opposition is far from being consolidated. Despite its impressive 31% showing in last year’s elections, the leftist opposition led by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas has had great difficulty transforming what is still a highly personalized mass movement into a viable political party. The conservative opposition, while relatively united, continues to have difficulty expanding its social base beyond its core middle-class constituency. If the opposition--particularly on the left--self-destructs, a major stimulus for reforming the PRI will be eliminated.

Assuming that the opposition continues to exert significant pressure on the PRI, the most likely scenario is a continuation of controlled liberalization from above--what some would call a modernization of authoritarianism. This would entail significantly greater competition within the PRI itself (presumably resulting in better candidates), more glasnost in the mass media, greater latitude for working-class organizations and grass-roots movements that are independent of the government, and more frequent--though still selective--recognition of opposition party electoral victories at the local and state levels.

While the outcome of the political transition in Mexico can’t be foreseen, it is safe to bet that the movement toward a more competitive system is irreversible. The gap between Mexico’s traditional authoritarian political structures and an increasingly complex, better-educated, urbanized, politically aware society has grown too large. Salinas-style political modernization will only magnify that gap while increasing the pressure to close it.

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