MEXICO : Progress and Promise : Salinas’ Pork-Barrel Politics Revives PRI Primacy at Polls

The local bosses of Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party were humiliated in the 1988 presidential election when this long-ignored farming center voted 2 to 1 in favor of the leftist opposition.

President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, elected in the nationwide vote by a narrow, fraud-tainted margin, got the message and made Zitacuaro a prime beneficiary of his new National Program of Solidarity. Visiting in August, 1990, he renewed the decade-old promise of previous administrations to build a technological university for this mountain region of Michoacan state.

This time the promise was not forgotten. Solidarity funds flowed and townspeople joined in construction work. As the project neared completion, Zitacuaro’s voters helped give the governing party, known as the PRI, a commanding victory in mid-term congressional elections two months ago.

Solidarity explains more than anything else the turnabout of the party’s electoral fortunes here and in the rest of the country. In a grand revival of pork-barrel politics after nearly a decade of austerity, the program has spent $3.3 billion to pave streets, plant trees, build parks, extend power lines, lay sewer pipes and irrigate farms across Mexico.

“People here once again believe in the PRI and see that it really does help them,” said Irma Rogelio Mendoza, 34, one of 1,000 townspeople who welcomed Salinas on a visit here last month.

Carlos Rojas, the program’s coordinator, calls Solidarity “an octopus” that has sponsored 110,000 community projects. Officials say it has electrified the homes of 11 million Mexicans and financed the planting of 5 million acres of farmland. Nearly a third of all Mexicans surveyed in a recent Los Angeles Times poll said they or their families had benefited from Solidarity.

Solidarity funds came from the sale of more than 900 state-owned companies. They are channeled through Solidarity delegates who travel with Salinas and jot down popular demands for local improvements. The delegates then work with specially elected local committees to manage the projects.

Benefits are targeted to provide “more political bang for the buck,” said Mexican economist Denise Dresser. In its first year, 1989, most funds went to three of the four states Salinas had lost in the ’88 election. Some grass-roots groups that had backed his leftist rival signed on with Solidarity projects.

Some critics contend that Solidarity’s national budget is not subject to public accounting, that too much is spent on slick TV spots to enhance the program’s image, and that some rural beneficiaries are forced to join the PRI farmers union. Others call the program an “aspirin” for the pain of an economic liberalization that is widening the gap between rich and poor--”a means for greasing the wheels of the neo-liberal train,” Dresser said.

Salinas counters that the program’s real value is the empowerment of people to control the development of their own communities. “You are witnessing a very important democratic reform coming from below,” he said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

As a result, Salinas is rebuilding grass-roots support for his party while making it more dependent on him. Shackled by the PRI’s corrupt image as he took office, he has bypassed discredited party leaders and recruited his own Solidarity delegates to channel patronage.

And so when the president arrived in Zitacuaro by helicopter to inaugurate the university last month, he was greeted by a sea of banners with the Solidarity logo, along with slogans reading “Thank you, Mr. President” and “The Future of Mexicans Depends on Salinas de Gortari.”

Not a single sign mentioned the PRI.

Miller reported from Zitacuaro and Boudreaux from Mexico City.

* ABOUT THIS SECTION

The principal writers for this special report on Mexico were Marjorie Miller and Juanita Darling of The Times’ Mexico City Bureau, and Richard Boudreaux of The Times’ Managua Bureau. Don Bartletti, of The Times’ San Diego Edition, took the photographs.

The Times Poll: Views on the Government

MEXICO Why do you think President Salinas is doing a good job?

(Reasons mentioned most often by his backers)

Solidarity program / land grants/ public works: 51%

He’s improved the economy: 21

Free-trade agreement: 13%

He’s improved Mexico’s image: 13%

He’s honest / fair: 7%

Why do you think President Salinas is doing a bad job?

(Reasons mentioned most often by his detractors)

Bad economy / no jobs / low wages: 52%

Inflation: 32%

Not fighting corruption: 13%

Free-trade agreement: 11%

Not promoting democracy: 8%

What is your opinion of the PRI?

Good: 53%

Bad: 22%

Very Bad: 8%

Don’t Know : 10%

Very Good: 7%