Profile : Mexican Politics’ Endangered Species : Carlos Hank Gonzalez represents the last of a grand line of technocrats. His impending retirement has sparked speculation.

Carlos Hank Gonzalez, friends and foes agree, is a rare and endangered species in Mexican politics. What they disagree on is exactly which species he is.

Critics call the 66-year-old agriculture minister a dinosaur, a remnant of an age when labor bosses and party hacks ruled the country, throwing bones to the faithful and punishing the disloyal.

Admirers say that in an administration of technocrats, Hank stands out as a real politician with an easy smile, ready handshake and compelling baritone.

Hank’s announcement last month--following a skirmish with the new electoral law--that he will retire from politics in December, at the end of this administration, has set off a flurry of speculation.

For decades, Hank has headed one of the country’s most cohesive and powerful political movements, the Atlacomulco Group, based in the industrial state of Mexico just outside the capital. His disciples run the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and the attorney general’s office, which is prosecuting the alleged assassin of Luis Donaldo Colosio--the ruling party’s presidential candidate until he was shot dead in Tijuana on March 23.

Hank is one of the few Mexican politicians who is also a successful businessman. Grupo Hermes, which Hank founded and which is now run by his son, Carlos, is one of the largest family businesses in Mexico, with interests in transport, manufacturing and telecommunications. His other son, Jorge, runs the family’s racetrack and off-track gambling business in Tijuana.

“Hank is one of the richest men in the country, with huge political and economic power--which is something that none of the richest businessmen have and something that none of the most powerful politicians have,” said a politician from his home state. The man insisted that his name not be used “because I don’t want to spend the next administration in exile.”

Hank inspires the same fear-tinged respect in Mexico today that the late President Lyndon B. Johnson enjoyed in Washington. Comparisons between the two arise inevitably in conversations about Hank: the same lanky frames, beginnings as country schoolteachers, famous ranches and a penchant for wheeling and dealing that turned them into wealthy and influential men.

But unlike LBJ, Hank dropped the country-boy manner in favor of cashmere suits, elegant wit and a kitchen that rivals that of the presidential residence. Another difference is that Hank will almost surely never be president: A Mexican law, effective until 2000, when he will be 72, bars children of immigrants such as him from the Mexican presidency.

Still, many Mexicans believe that the assassination of Colosio could bring Hank almost as much power as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy brought Johnson. If Colosio’s replacement, Ernesto Zedillo, is elected Aug. 21, Hank is widely expected to become the power behind the throne.

“If Zedillo were to win, he would need the connections Hank has to elements in the party that otherwise would not be enthusiastic about a Zedillo presidency,” said Roderic Camp, a political scientist at Tulane University who has studied the relationships within the Mexican elite.

Hank showed that influence a few days after Zedillo, an economist, was named to replace the slain Colosio. In full-page ads in national newspapers and magazines, Cabinet ministers from the last four administrations pledged their support to the new PRI candidate.

Hank organized the ads, in a move that caused a political scandal. The opposition National Action Party filed a complaint accusing him of violating the new federal election laws by using federal employees’ time and government property to coordinate the signatures.

The attorney general decided that there was not enough evidence to prosecute Hank, who said that he and six others had paid nearly $70,000 for the ads and that employees had volunteered their own time to help out. A few days later, Hank announced that he would retire from politics at the end of this administration.

However, it soon became clear that the retirement was hardly a defeat. Ignacio Pichardo, a longtime Hank confidant, became chairman of the PRI a few days later. Hank’s right-hand man at the Agriculture Ministry became Zedillo’s chief of staff. When a new attorney general was chosen, another Hank aide, Humberto Benitez, filled the slot.

“He is really in a strong position now,” said Raul Monje, a reporter at the independent political magazine Proceso, who covered Hank when he was the appointed mayor of Mexico City a decade ago.

Hank has a reputation for fighting his way back from political defeats that rivals that of the late President Richard Nixon. By all accounts, he learned at an early age.

He was born in 1927 in the village of Tianguistenco near the capital. Growing up as the son of a German immigrant in highly nationalistic Mexico was not easy. The stigma followed him even though his father, Jorge Hank, a teacher at the military college, died in a motorcycle accident when Hank was 3.

Hank was a PRI loyalist before he could vote, becoming secretary general of his state’s Youth Federation when he was 17. His political career really started a few years later when he was a teacher in Atlacomulco, cradle of Mexico state politicians.

There he caught the eye of Isidro Fabela, former governor and founder of the Atlacomulco Group. The group was most notable for its drive to transform the rural state into an industrial force and for its virtual stranglehold on the governor’s mansion.

From there, Hank moved up through the ranks of the state education bureaucracy. He was elected mayor of the state capital, Toluca, in 1955 and then served a term in the state legislature.

He showed his acumen for combining politics and business in the 1960s when he held positions of increasing responsibility in the government basic commodities company, known as CONASUPO. CONASUPO had problems moving grain. Hank founded what by all accounts was a highly efficient trucking company and won CONASUPO as a customer.

“It’s difficult to say that under the legal framework he has done something wrong,” a home-state politician said of Hank’s business dealings. “But it is always on the line.”

With a more secure personal economic base, in 1969 Hank became governor of Mexico state. Without forgetting his old friends from Atlacomulco, he also included members of a rival state political group in his government.

“Professor Hank succeeded in unifying the two most important political groups in local politics,” said Miguel Basanez, who coordinated a monograph on the political power structure in Mexico state.

Just as remarkable, during an era of conflict between business and government on a national level, Hank maintained excellent relations with industrialists in his state. He created industrial parks and encouraged manufacturers to locate there. During his term, manufacturing’s share of state employment rose from 35% to 40%. His own businesses prospered also.

He recruited bright, young administrators, such as Ignacio Pichardo, who had just finished a postgraduate degree at the London School of Economics when Hank was elected governor.

Unsure of himself, he often tried to seek the governor’s advice before making a decision, Pichardo recalled. The governor was never available.

“He did that on purpose, to force me to make a decision and take responsibility for it,” Pichardo said. “He always said, ‘If you are going to make a mistake, do it quickly, so that we can fix it quickly.’ ”

Hank is known as an excellent administrator, who knows how to delegate and how to spend money--lots of money. And that reputation followed him to Mexico City when he became mayor in 1976.

“He was a real spendthrift,” said journalist Monje. “The beat reporters loved him when he was mayor. He once took the whole city hall press corps to Europe.”

In his six years as mayor of Mexico City, he got the nickname Genghis Hank as he ripped up neighborhood parks, destroyed fountains and moved colonial statues to create a system of fast-moving boulevards. Hank also handed out building permits at a breakneck pace--without sufficient planning, some critics say.

Hank’s policies, along with the oil boom, created a spurt of growth for the city. But the mayor’s prodigal ways got him into constant trouble with Miguel de la Madrid, the planning and budget minister, who was charged with keeping spending under control.

Unfortunately for Hank, De la Madrid became the next president. The free-spending former mayor was thrown into political purgatory for six years.

President Carlos Salinas de Gortari revived Hank’s career, naming him tourism minister in 1989.

“One thing that helps to sustain Hank is his extensive network of contacts,” said Camp. “He is attractive as an ally when you yourself don’t have extensive networks.” Camp estimates that Hank had five to 10 times as many supporters as Salinas did when he took office.

Hank still works hard to keep building that support. He knows how to work a room, greeting everyone individually with his famous smile. But he has a reputation for being just as tough as he is gracious.

“When you start to accumulate that much power you can’t be soft,” said the home-state politician. “There is so much involved.”

Union leaders at the Agriculture Ministry last year accused him of kidnaping and torturing union member Eduardo Hernandez to halt his hunger strike over a labor dispute. The accusations were never proven.

Hank’s influence in a possible Zedillo presidential administration is expected to be pragmatic. He is most likely to advocate policies that will increase his power without much emphasis on ideological concerns, say some observers.

“Through his position, he will be able to affect the careers of the people in his political group,” Camp said. Zedillo could be expected to choose a good portion of his aides from among Hank loyalists.

Hank’s pledge to retire met with skepticism.

“He may not hold any Cabinet post or public office,” said the politician, “but the only way he will retire is if they lose the election.”

Biography

Name: Carlos Hank Gonzalez

Title: Mexico’s agriculture minister.

Age: 66

Career: Agriculture minister, 1990-present; tourism minister, 1988-1989; mayor of Mexico City, 1976-1982; governor of Mexico state, 1969-1975; CONASUPO, 1961-1969; federal deputy, 1958-1961; mayor of Toluca, 1955-1957.

Personal: Married to Guadalupe Rhon.

Quote: “I think like a torero--not like a comedian who can keep making people happy until the last day of his life: It is better to retire while handkerchiefs are still waving in the stands, rather than wait until the cushions have been thrown into the arena.”