PERSPECTIVE ON MEXICO : A Painful Jolt for the Body Politic : Salinas put economics ahead of democratic reform; now he relies on a populist rival to set his miscalculation right.

The Chiapas rebellion could prove to be a major watershed in Mexico’s political evolution. After 10 days of upheaval and violence, the Mexican government has finally realized that pacification of Chiapas is a political problem, not a military one. The Herculean task has been assigned to the former mayor of Mexico City, Manuel Camacho Solis, who has been designated commissioner for peace and reconciliation in Chiapas. That President Carlos Salinas de Gortari chose one of the country’s most popular politicians for the job suggests the government may be ready to grapple with the imperatives of broader political reform.

During the past five years of his presidency, Salinas devoted most of his energies to economic modernization. He privatized, liberalized, slashed tariffs and hammered out a historic commercial accord with the United States. But he did not democratize Mexico. With an eye on Russia’s debacle, Salinas argued that economic reform and political reform could not take place simultaneously. In order to maintain its stability, Mexico would enact “Salinastroika” first, and “PRInost” at some point in the future. Instead of democracy, Salinas offered NAFTA, lower inflation and increased social spending.

Until now, Salinas’ popularity, the expectations created by free trade and renewed economic growth have been powerful analgesics. They kept the “other” Mexico at bay. Chiapas is a painful jolt into awareness that social peace cannot be bought at the expense of democratization.

The uprising in Chiapas on New Year’s Day was rooted in social injustice and longstanding grievances. These grievances, however, exploded into violence because they lacked institutional channels for expression. Chiapas’ Indians and peasants took up arms because they had spent years pounding on the doors of the state government, to no avail. During his weekly tours of the countryside, Salinas frequently visited Chiapas. Like a Mexican version of Gandhi, he sat under trees, chatted with peasants and listened to endless tales of repression and injustice. In response, his government did little else but pump up public spending in the state--social compensation for political problems. Now, belatedly, as he enters the last year of his presidency, Salinas must hope that he can find a political solution to the political crisis that is typified by, but not restricted to, Chiapas.

In appointing Camacho, Salinas is offering an olive branch and implicitly recognizing his political mistakes. Many expected him to choose Camacho as the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) presidential candidate. Instead, with an eye on the future of NAFTA, Salinas chose a button-down protege. He feared Camacho’s proto-populism, his ties to Mexico’s left, his tendency to bargain ad nauseam. Ironically, the characteristics that made Camacho unacceptable two months ago make him indispensable today. If he puts out the Chiapas fire, he will be declared a national savior and be a major force in politics for years to come.

Meanwhile, two questions are being asked: Why didn’t Salinas intervene before the crisis in Chiapas exploded? One answer: because it’s his style to let political problems fester until they need his last-minute resolution. What if Salinas really didn’t know how critical the problems in Chiapas had become? Then something is seriously amiss in the national security Establishment.

One lesson is already clear from Chiapas: Widespread economic modernization in Mexico cannot survive and flourish without political modernization. Mexico will not reap the benefits of free trade and renewed growth until and unless those benefits reach the dispossessed. Until and unless clean and fair elections reflect the popular will of the country’s marginalized groups. Until and unless the word accountability becomes an accepted term of the country’s political vocabulary. Some time will elapse before this comes to pass. But Chiapas will surely accelerate the pace of Mexico’s rocky transition to democracy.

Chiapas’ final lesson is that Mexico’s political future is uncertain. After Chiapas, Mexico can no longer be considered the living museum of traditional Latin American politics nor the last bastion of social peace and political stability. Whatever happens from now on must be the result of negotiation and compromise between the Mexican people and their government. Instead of imposing presidential dictates, Salinas’ successors must bargain. Instead of rigging elections, the PRI must be forced to work at winning them. This process will be open-ended, its outcome uncertain. We may not know beforehand which party will win, who will get elected and how that president will exercise power. But uncertainty is the essence of democracy, in Mexico as elsewhere.

Mexican complacency with dominant-party rule has been weakening in the past decade. If it serves to hasten the nation’s democratization, Chiapas may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.