The Times Poll : Mexico Likes Salinas but Is Split Over PRI

Very few Mexicans believe that President Carlos Salinas de Gortari honestly won Mexico’s presidential election last year, yet they overwhelmingly approve of the job he has done during his first eight months in office, according to a Los Angeles Times poll.

The vast majority of Mexicans interviewed for the poll--79%--said they have a favorable impression of Salinas. They applaud his handling of the nation’s economic crisis and believe he is battling official corruption.

By contrast, however, the country is divided in its view of Salinas’ party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has ruled Mexico with a unique political system for 60 years.

Although the PRI, as the party is called, claims to represent most Mexicans, less than a third of those polled said they sympathize with the official party. Only 24% said they belong to a PRI labor or peasant organization, historically the party’s primary base of support.

“There is a clear gap between the institution of the presidency and the prestige of the party,” said political analyst Adolfo Aguilar Zinser.

“Elections have never been a key element in our culture for determining the credibility of our president,” he explained. “This is a caudillo culture in which you believe in the caudillo , the strongman who exercises power, even though you don’t believe he came to power through a legal process. . . . I think people feel confident with a president who exercises power, but they don’t feel confident with the system in which all this operates.”

The poll of 1,835 Mexicans nationwide suggests a widespread expectation of imminent change for a political system that has been based on stability and continuity, although Mexicans seem uncertain about how that change will come about.

More than half of those polled said opposition parties are likely to have a greater share of political power in the future. In response to another question, 40% said the PRI will change the way it runs the country, and 34% said that another party could take power.

But nearly half of all Mexicans surveyed believe there is a possibility of armed revolution in their country in the next five years. That view, startling because there is no armed guerrilla movement in Mexico, seems to reflect an awareness of Mexico’s violent history and discomfort with the electoral process.

“People have a sense that the process by which power is transferred is in dispute and could be the source of violence,” said Aguilar Zinser.

The survey, conducted by Times Poll director I. A. Lewis from Aug. 5-13, also found that:

-- Fraud and corruption remain major national issues, with two-thirds of the respondents saying they distrust the police and 28% charging they have been victims of corruption within the last year. Only 12% said they believe in the honesty of the Michoacan state elections last month, in which the PRI officially won a majority of the state assembly.

-- A total of 74% believe that Salinas should not make any changes that would allow the Roman Catholic Church a voice in national politics, as it has in other Latin American countries. The strong anti-clerical sentiment has historic roots in the church’s conservative opposition to the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

-- Leftist leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who ran against Salinas in the presidential race last year, has a 50% approval rating.

Nearly Absolute Power

Mexican presidents hold nearly absolute power for a single six-year term and traditionally enjoy broad popularity during their first year in office. But the high level of support for Salinas is remarkable given that the 43-year-old president won the July, 1988, election with the lowest vote ever for a PRI presidential candidate.

Salinas was budget and planning secretary in the previous administration of President Miguel de la Madrid, and he was blamed by voters for the policies that led to six years of economic stagnation and a 50% drop in real salaries. The official results gave Salinas 50.4% of the vote, an unprecedented 31% for Cardenas--a PRI dissident--and 17% for Manuel J. Clouthier of the rightist National Action Party.

After the vote, however, both Cardenas and Clouthier charged that the PRI had rigged the results. Cardenas, the son of national hero and former president Gen. Lazaro Cardenas, claimed that he had won the presidency.

Today, less than a quarter of Mexicans interviewed believe that Salinas won the election, whereas 73% said they are doubtful or certain he did not. In Mexico City, the country’s heartland where the PRI conceded defeat, only 12% believe in Salinas’ victory.

Only 42% Would Vote for Him

Despite Salinas’ favorable job rating, only 42% of those interviewed said they would vote for him if the election were held today. That is far more than for any other candidate--22% for Cardenas, 13% for Clouthier--and would mean victory in an election, but it is still less than the official election tally for Salinas last year.

Support for Salinas is greatest among the upper classes and in northern Mexico, the wealthiest area of the country.

Mexicans generally expressed skepticism about Salinas’ much-touted “modernization” of the aging PRI. The president repeatedly has vowed to undertake democratic reforms within the ruling party and to hold honest elections.

For the first time last month, his party conceded defeat in a gubernatorial election, acknowledging the victory of National Action Party candidate Ernesto Ruffo Appel in Baja California.

But Cardenas and National Action leaders charge that, at the same time, the PRI stole a state assembly election held in Michoacan, Cardenas’ home state. Cardenas says his Democratic Revolutionary Party won in Michoacan, where PRI and pro-Cardenas demonstrators clashed last week in a battle of sticks and bottles that left at least 18 and possibly as many as 40 injured. Riot police using tear gas put an end to the confrontation.

Elections Labeled Fraudulent

Most of those polled said they believe that the Michoacan elections were fraudulent, and 43% said they feel Salinas is doing little to reform the PRI, compared to 42% who feel he is trying to change the ruling party. Mexicans were evenly split on the question of whether it is even possible to reform the PRI.

Most said there is nothing they personally can do to guarantee honest elections, although half of those interviewed held out hope that there would be more fair elections in the future. Fifty-eight percent said they expect opposition parties to hold more power in the future.

The Salinas administration has taken a number of bold steps to fight corruption and drug trafficking, including the arrests of the powerful chief of the oil workers union, Joaquin Hernandez Galicia; stock market tycoon Eduardo Legorreta, a PRI fund-raiser, and reputed drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo.

And yet, many Mexicans suspect that the president would not move against his true political friends. Forty-four percent said Salinas moves against his enemies but protects his friends, compared to 41% who believe the president pursues corruption wherever he finds it.

Mexicans said unemployment and the foreign debt of nearly $100 billion are the top problems facing Salinas, and they identified corruption as the primary cause of the nation’s economic ills. But they believe Salinas will do something about them.

Impression of the President and His Party Favorable: Salinas: 79 Pri: 47 Unfavorable: Salinas: 14 Pri: 43 Don’t know: Salinas: 7 Pri: 10 Did Salinas Win? Yes, he did: 24 He may not have: 33 No, he did not: 35 Not sure: 5 Armed Revolution Within Five Years? Likely: 47 Unlikely: 46 Don’t know: 7 Corruption: By Whom Have You Been Victimized During The Last Year? Police: 18 City Official: 4 State Official: 1 Federal Officer: 1 Soldier: 1 Someone else: 3 Source: The Times Poll