PERSPECTIVE ON MEXICO : Limping Along, Shackled to the U.S.

As Mexico turns the page on the worst year in its modern economic history, attempts to explain its travails persist. Endlessly, the country ponders what went wrong once again and throws its hands up under the constant scrutiny of foreigners who ask how much more Mexicans can take before the nation explodes.

Two New Year’s reflections might help to clarify the experience of the past year and prospects for improvement--or continued deterioration. The first involves what we could call the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight; the second concerns the paradoxically pernicious role the United States has played in Mexico’s debacle, which began not with the December 1994 devaluation of the peso but in fact dates back to 1982.

It is one more misfortune for the nation that at one of its most critical junctures in years, the team assembled to guide it through the crisis is one of the most mediocre in memory. There are individual exceptions: The minister of education, Miguel Limon, is one of the most competent officials the country has had in this post in a long time; the new secretary of energy, Jesus Reyes Heroles, is both technically expert and politically and ethically praiseworthy; and Mexico’s ambassador to Washington, Jesus Silva Herzog, has done a commendable job under terribly adverse circumstances. Some of the other cabinet members, such as Atty. Gen. Antonio Lozano, also are honest but their competence leaves much to be desired; and some are smart but not terribly well-suited to the tasks to which they have been assigned.

Individuals aside, President Ernesto Zedillo’s administration has gotten just about everything wrong. Starting with the bungling of the devaluation, not one of its economic forecasts has been on the mark. Despite its promises of a “definitive electoral reform,” its political operatives have not been able to broker an agreement among the three main political parties. And the parties, though they have concluded most of the technical work on a new electoral law, are far from reaching the political agreement necessary to make it work. A much heralded judicial reform has stalled, and the law enforcement authorities seem no closer to solving the high-profile, politically sensitive murder cases of 1994 than were their predecessors.

Most significant is the bind Zedillo has put himself in in relation to the Salinas regime. His administration has encouraged public opinion to blame former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari for every one of Mexico’s recent disasters and has contributed greatly to the widespread impression of generalized corruption under the Salinas regime, while at the same time cutting back-room deals with Salinas and backing off from confrontation with him every time the opportunity surfaces. There is a good case to be made, at least in terms of maintaining tradition, for leaving the ex-president alone, and there is an excellent argument for going after him; but there is no justification for procrastinating indefinitely while simultaneously fanning the fires of public outrage against him.

The Zedillo administration also has botched four extradition hearings before two U.S. federal judges in its misbegotten efforts to bring former Deputy Atty. Gen. Mario Ruiz Massieu to justice in Mexico. So inept have the Mexican authorities proved in this endeavor that the U.S. State and Justice departments are considering a form of back-door extradition, hoping to deport Ruiz Massieu to Mexico on immigration grounds, despite the obvious fact that he is being politically persecuted in his country and that the criminal case against him was deemed unsustainable by U.S. courts. This is going well beyond the call of duty to help the Zedillo gang shoot straight. Which brings us to the role of the United States in Mexico’s affairs in recent years.

Since 1982, the Mexican economy, which grew at more than 6% yearly since 1940, has been unable to get its bearings. Per capita income in 1995 (in constant dollars) was lower than in 1980; the number of automobiles sold last year was well below the level of 1981, when there were 25 million fewer Mexicans around to purchase them. But instead of acknowledging that something was deeply wrong in Mexico, that the political system, the economic reforms and the inequality of Mexican society were not allowing the country to move forward, the leadership always had a crutch to lean on when things turned sour: the United States.

In 1982 as the debt crisis erupted, in 1986 when oil prices plummeted, then in 1987-88 as the Mexican stock exchange imploded and the presidential elections were massively tampered with, and most recently in the winter of 1995 as the First World dreams of Carlos Salinas collapsed on the ruins of the Mexican economy, the U.S. has always been around with the appropriate metaphor: rescue, safety net, bail out, prop up. Thus Mexico’s elites were spared the thankless task of judging the wisdom of the course they had chosen-- cold-turkey free- market economic reforms, an updated but unchanged authoritarian political system and indefinite postponement of addressing Mexico’s social ills. The merits and drawbacks of the course taken mattered less than whether the U.S.-- Wall Street as well as Washington-- approved. Equally irrelevant was the question of whether it would work. It hasn’t, and there are very few signs, if any, that warrant optimism for the near future. Whatever the discomfort, dissent or disaster that the course taken since 1985 entails for Mexican society, it is immediately neutralized by the overwhelming support from Washington. The rationale for exploring different paths withers in the face of American benevolence.

Will the new year bring an improvement? The Clinton administration is not likely to take on a reassessment of U.S. policy toward Mexico, and Zedillo shows no inclination to replace his team. The Mexican people could force the issue but seem strangely indisposed to do so. Then again, their disposition has rarely been the focus of accurate forecasting. 1996 could fool us all.