Commentary : Perspectives on the Colosio Assassination : Forge a Triumph of Light Out of Dark Tragedy : Sorcerer’s Apprentices Failed to Complete the Job

Reports earlier this week had circulated in different quarters about the extension of the guerrilla movement beyond the state of Chiapas. The political uncertainty involving Luis Donaldo Colosio’s campaign prospects and those of his companion and rival Manuel Camacho; the threat, in several unpublished polls, of an opposition victory emerging; the roller-coaster ride the stock exchange was evidently on, without any particularly sensible explanation: This series of events showed that the assassination of Colosio did not occur in a vacuum. That is what makes it more worrisome.

The causes will have to be ascertained later. But what is increasingly clear is that President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his team played sorcerer’s apprentice: They tinkered with the magical, mysterious procedures of the political system built by their predecessors, had them break down, but never replaced them with new ones.

The security machinery, the succession mechanism, the loyalties and institutions that had guaranteed Mexican stability for so long were obsolete: On that count, Salinas was right. But they needed far more than tinkering under the hood: a whole new engine, chassis, suspension and wheels were required.

The modernizing and ambitious young men feared going too far. Because they refused to substitute the old ways with new, democratic ones, they are now faced with the worst of all possible worlds: the old system in place but out of sync and no new system around to keep things rolling.