Mexico’s Ruling Party Agrees to Seek Reform : Politics: Accord signed with three top opposition groups. Pact aims to level electoral playing field.

For the first time in 65 years of authoritarian rule, the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the three largest opposition groups agreed Tuesday to negotiate sweeping political reforms to strengthen the opposition, cede some of the ruling party’s monopoly on power and solve post-election conflicts that threatened to spread unrest in southern Mexico.

In a dramatic ceremony, President Ernesto Zedillo signed the accord and indicated that it was a cornerstone of his promised new era of democracy. He predicted that it will lead to more competitive, peaceful elections.

“Here and now, one era of history ends and another begins,” he declared. “This is the first step toward the democracy that Mexico demands. This is the first step toward building the unity that Mexico needs. Mexico here and now takes the first step toward a true democracy.”

The agreement, signed at the presidential residence, came after days of negotiations among Zedillo, PRI leaders and heads of the three main opposition groups.

The accord, aimed at defusing Mexico’s economic and political crises, came just six weeks into a six-year term that Zedillo promised would institutionalize democracy here for the first time since 1929. It marked the first time in modern Mexico that a sitting president publicly appeared with the opposition to commit to resolving crises together.

Most opposition leaders shared Zedillo’s enthusiasm for Tuesday’s signing.

“This act is inscribed in our national history, however it develops, as an irreversible force for Mexico’s transition toward democracy,” declared Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) President Porfirio Munoz Ledo, adding, “or perhaps as the last push to save it from ingovernability and abdication.”

There were few details in the two-page agreement. It was read by Zedillo’s top Cabinet aide, Interior Secretary Esteban Moctezuma Barragan, before speeches by leaders of the PRI, the PRD, the National Action Party (PAN) and the Workers Party, all of which have seats in the national legislature.

There was no specific mention of post-election conflicts threatening PRI governors in Tabasco and Chiapas.

But the accord made it clear the ruling party had agreed to negotiate to level the playing field in future state elections and restructure the totalitarian city government in the nation’s capital. It is the home to a quarter of all Mexicans, and its chief executive is appointed by the president.

Although many analysts remained skeptical, most said Tuesday’s package, backed by military concessions in Mexico’s southern state, may help end this nation’s most immediate crisis--the one in Chiapas. A renewed uprising by Mayan rebels and peasant supporters last month in Mexico’s southernmost state helped trigger Mexico’s worst economic crisis in more than a decade.

Before the signing, Moctezuma, who met with rebel leader Subcommander Marcos at his jungle hide-out Sunday, ordered Mexican army units to withdraw from two key towns in northern Chiapas.

One of these was Simojovel, where an armed rebel takeover Dec. 19 contributed to the massive capital flight from Mexico and helped force the government to devalue the peso. Mexico’s currency then lost more than a third of its value in a week, driving up interest rates, fueling inflation, plunging Zedillo’s government into a crisis of confidence and bringing Mexico’s booming economy to a standstill.

The accord indicated that PRI and opposition negotiators will attempt to reach “immediate” agreements on power-sharing in Chiapas, a key demand of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army and PRD candidate Amado Avendano; he claims that the PRI governor cheated him of victory by fraud in gubernatorial voting Aug. 21.

Tuesday’s accord suggested that negotiators will address a similar conflict in Tabasco, where the PRD and the rightist PAN have blockaded key oil installations and staged demonstrations against the inauguration of ruling party Gov. Jorge Madrazo Pintado.

Any electoral reforms must be debated by elected lawmakers, who have the final say. The PRI has a clear majority in both houses of Congress. Skeptics noted that the ruling party hard-liners could still torpedo reforms in Congress.