PRI Protests in Tabasco Pose Test of Zedillo Reforms

President Ernesto Zedillo faced a critical test of his promised new era of federalism and reform Thursday after ruling party leaders in Mexico’s troubled southern state of Tabasco overran an international airport, seized a major radio station and blocked most roads leading to the state’s capital.

The open rebellion against federal authority was spurred by rumors that Zedillo and national party leaders were negotiating the resignation of the state’s recently inaugurated governor to defuse a post-election conflict in the oil-rich state.

Thousands of Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, loyalists, many armed with torches and wooden clubs, swarmed the capital, Villahermosa, to resist a dismissal of Gov. Roberto Madrazo Pintado. The protests began Wednesday, when the crowds paralyzed the state’s government, shuttered more than half the state’s businesses and blocked the airport, forcing passengers to walk the eight miles toward the city center in sweltering heat.

In defiant radio broadcasts, state PRI leaders also threatened to resign en masse from the party that has ruled Mexico for the last 65 years if its national leadership gives in to opposition demands that Madrazo step down in exchange for peace. There was no official word of an impending resignation, but the rumors were strong enough to spark the rebellion.

Compounding the chaos were continuing protests by the state’s opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, which contends that Madrazo won gubernatorial elections last November through ruling party fraud. Opposition supporters have blockaded key oil installations and the governor’s office since Madrazo’s inauguration Dec. 31.

Thursday’s rival demonstrations resulted in at least one injury when an opposition legislator was beaten by ruling party protesters.

Since its creation, the monolithic PRI has been ruled with strict authoritarian control by the nation’s president. Thursday’s uprising fueled speculation that Zedillo’s bold policy to separate the party and government was already weakening the PRI from within, and it added to Zedillo’s image problems amid a continuing economic emergency fueled in part by unrest in the south.

Speaking Thursday to opposition leaders from the rightist National Action Party at his official residence in Mexico City, Zedillo made it clear he will stand by that policy.

“Under no circumstances,” he said, “will I give in to the pressures that counsel authoritarianism.”

But when news of the rebellion reached the nation’s capital Thursday morning, Mexico’s financial markets--battered after a month of crises--tumbled anew.

The Mexican peso, which has now lost 37% of its value in four weeks, closed down once again, trading at 5.52 to the dollar at the close of trading from an opening of 5.45. And the nation’s stock market fell 104.24 points, or 4.83%.

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But the PRI’s national president made it clear that the separation of party and government has already begun. After three hours of closed-door meetings with Zedillo’s top Cabinet aide Wednesday night, Maria de los Angeles Moreno said she is not taking orders from the president or his Cabinet.

Under pressure from Tabasco state party leaders, Moreno told Zedillo’s interior secretary, who has been trying to negotiate a compromise in the state, that Madrazo was elected legitimately and that he will stay.

While the PRI’s first woman president warned federal authorities not to interfere in Tabasco, she also called on state party leaders to remain peaceful in their protest.

Moreno’s moves left Zedillo with the dilemma of keeping peace after severing the government’s traditional control of the ruling party.

On several occasions, Zedillo’s predecessor, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, ordered ruling party governors who had been elected amid opposition protests to resign their posts, giving way to interim appointees and new elections.

But, under a policy to democratize and federalize Mexico, Zedillo has vowed not to interfere in such state affairs or in internal party disputes. This leaves him with fewer options and less power to resolve local crises like those in Tabasco and the neighboring state of Chiapas, where a similar opposition protest against an elected ruling party governor has been compounded by the presence of an armed Indian guerrilla force.

The party rebellion came just 48 hours after Zedillo, the ruling party and the nation’s three largest opposition groups signed a historic document, agreeing for the first time in modern Mexico to negotiate sweeping electoral reforms and to resolve together the political conflicts in Tabasco and Chiapas.

One PRI state legislator in Tabasco, Pedro Jimenez Leon, said those who signed the power-sharing accord were trying to “surrender” the state.

“They signed a pact pretending to negotiate the will of the Tabasquenos,” he said.

Accusing the state’s opposition leaders of trying to win the governorship through “blackmail,” PRI leaders in the state legislature passed a resolution declaring that Madrazo would not resign under any circumstances--even on direct orders from the national party leadership.

“If they do not have the courage to defend the governorship of Roberto Madrazo, who won in a fair fight, then they won’t find any PRIistas in Tabasco,” Jimenez said.

The rebellion began Wednesday when several hundred party faithful seized the radio station XEVA and broadcast that the party and federal government in Mexico City were negotiating Madrazo’s removal.