PERSPECTIVE ON MEXICO : Echoes From Imperial Rome : The ruling political clique continues a demeaning process--but Colosio may find that it’s not a sure thing.

For those who believed or hoped that the Mexican presidential succession this time around would be different from years gone by, the designation and unveiling of Luis Donaldo Colosio by President Carlos Salinas de Gortari cannot but be a frustrating event. Despite the announcement just the day before that the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) candidate would not be announced until the party convention Dec. 8, Salinas introduced Colosio on Sunday without even a pretense that this had been a party decision.

The frustration that many feel over the PRI’s Imperial Roman process--the emperor chooses his successor and makes him his son--derives from deeper problems than Salinas’ failure even to keep up the appearance of formalities.

Although it is true that the outgoing president does make his choice of a successor in the light of myriad considerations, ranging from who will protect the “family name” to who might be poorly received in Washington, it remains a fundamentally individual decision. It is the president’s choice alone, and the factors that led him in one direction rather than another are known only to him.

This secretive, opaque process is anti-democratic, deeply rooted in the authoritarian soil of Mexican political culture. It is pre-modern, archaic and humiliating, however much one might marvel at its enduring vitality and efficiency.

The enriching, empowering process that, despite all its limitations and drawbacks, other nations go through in choosing those who will govern them is absent in Mexico. There is no debate, no public disagreement, no way of weighing the candidates against one another. Was Colosio really a better choice than Mexico City Mayor Manuel Camacho Solis or Finance Minister Pedro Aspe Armella? More important, was there any way of knowing, beyond the insider circles, what each one of them stood for? And how can the winner be held accountable to what he supposedly and secretly stood for?

Then there is the matter of what the losers do in such a perverse system. Because the contenders are all tapados, wrapped in one coat, the nomination of one of them has a tragicomic aspect: After more than a year of bashing each other daily and ferociously, but always under the table, once the winner is chosen, his rivals celebrate his victory and dismiss their own defeat, join his campaign and accept jobs in his administration that are suitable for also-rans.

One of the four finalists this year, Ernesto Zedillo, has been named Colosio’s campaign manager. Aspe will either remain as finance minister or become president of the central bank. Camacho, the runner-up, attempted to break with this tradition and resign his post with dignity. He actually made news by saying that he wanted to be president. But he was cajoled--or hounded--back into the fold, where he has been given--of all the jobs suitable for the former mayor of the world’s largest city--the foreign ministry.

Some say that how the PRI chooses its candidate is its own business, and those who object can vote against him. But it is not just the PRI’s affair, because the PRI is not just another political party, competing for office alongside other parties. It has ruled Mexico for more than half a century and has every intention of doing so for a long while to come. Its links with the government infrastructure, the media, business and labor are such that its candidate has always been considered a shoo-in. This has been the reaction of the U.S. and Mexican news media to Colosio. They may be wrong. Like Salinas in 1988, Colosio may get a real run for his money from the opposition.

So then it cannot be both ways: Either the PRI is just another party, in which case it should compete fairly and nothing should be taken for granted about the outcome, or it is the only show in town, in which case how it chooses its candidate and manages its affairs is every Mexican’s business.

The real question is: Should Mexico’s 85 million inhabitants have to continuously witness the demeaning spectacle of intelligent, sensitive politicians--which all the contenders no doubt are--suddenly throwing themselves into one another’s arms and putting their loyalty to a system and a political clique above their own principles and opinions? The answer is sadly apparent: As far as the PRI is concerned, this succession is not one that will witness change. Or, if change does happen, it will not come from the ranks of one of the world’s last subsisting one-party regimes.