A Government That Can’t Take Criticism Is a Long Way From Democracy : Mexico: Commitment to economic reform isn’t matched in the political arena, where death threats mark a new low.

The death threats against Jorge G. Castaneda, one of Mexico’s most influential political writers, demonstrate the fragile threads from which Mexican politics hang. They show that President Carlos Salinas de Gortari cannot continue to postpone the true democratic reforms that modernization of the Mexican economy requires. And one test of all democracies is political tolerance: the ability to coexist peacefully with the opposition.

The Castaneda incident is symptomatic of the climate of harassment and persecution that has developed in Mexico’s political system. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) doesn’t want to lose the power it has held for 60 years. It perceives the left wing as both its principal political opposition and a threat to the government’s new economic and commercial policies.

Government officials this year began a campaign to discredit Castaneda, a prestigious academic whose writings critical of Salinas and the PRI have appeared in major U.S. newspapers. The officials hoped to devalue his reputation by saying that he was the mouthpiece of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, a former PRI stalwart who left the party and ran against Salinas in the 1988 presidential election. Cardenas, the son of one the party’s--and the country’s-- most venerated figures, has since created a strong political opposition movement.

The first threat against Castaneda was conveyed on Friday, June 15, by several men who stopped his secretary on a city street, interrogated her about his daily routine and told her that he would be killed if he did not stop his criticism.

The government responded immediately via an editorial published in El Nacional, a government-owned newspaper run by one of Salinas’ close associates, which has recently served as a platform for vigorous attacks on Cardenas. The editorial said that government intimidation existed “in the realm of (Castaneda’s) imagination” and blamed the incident on factional squabbles within Cardenas’ party. That same day, Salinas took quite a different tack, calling Castaneda personally and offering him protection.

Salinas also ordered an investigation, and last Monday, Castaneda’s secretary identified a police officer as one of the men who made the threat. Afterward, she was accosted by another man, who warned her to stop talking to the authorities. He said that the threat to Castaneda stood, and that those who made it would never be found. This was considered to be a message to Salinas: that he had no power over the case.

The incident illuminates the political problems in Mexico in these times, when the Salinas administration is making economic reform and modernization its priority, and at the same time, obsessed with discrediting any critics, is showing signs of authoritarianism and political hardening. Mexico’s predominant party and its government contain a number of “hawks” who are not interested in democracy--and who will not forgive Cardenas for leaving the PRI.

The “get-tough” atmosphere has encouraged some forces in the police to carry out actions on their own. The result has been continual complaints about human-rights violations for political purposes.

The Castaneda incident tells us two things: that in a climate of government intolerance, political and security functionaries can threaten a prominent critic with death; and that Mexico needs more political space than the government wants to concede.

While the country needs more democratic openings, government and PRI people, afraid of losing their power, are closing the channels of debate and discussion.

Economic modernization will be endangered if politics do not grow more democratic. Many analysts believe that the administration wants to promote its economic reforms without allowing any political openings that might endanger the PRI’s 60-year domination of national politics. Recent political and electoral violence suggests that the 1991 legislative elections and the 1994 presidential contest will cause unprecedented conflict.

The threats against Castaneda are, in effect, threats against Mexican society’s demands for democracy. The government has an obligation not only to respect those demands but also to encourage them--even if it means the government party’s loss of power. Democracy carries political risks as well as obligations.