New Era of Opposition Power Opens in Mexico

President Ernesto Zedillo inaugurated a new, more democratic era in Mexican politics Monday with a passionate appeal to ascendant opposition parties not to derail the country’s free-market economic revolution.

“For the first time in our history, we can achieve healthy, durable economic growth, along with a full, pluralistic and harmonious democracy,” the president declared in his State of the Union address. “This is the opportunity of our generation.”

The president’s appeal reflected the unprecedented challenges to his power as Mexico moves from an authoritarian, one-party system to greater democracy.

In midterm elections in July, the ruling party lost its control of Congress for the first time in seven decades. While the president’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, still maintains a commanding presence in the legislature, the Mexican leader suddenly must fight to preserve his policies.

Perhaps as much as his words, the ceremony surrounding the president’s most important speech of the year reflected the historic change in Mexico.

For the first time, an opposition politician, leftist firebrand Porfirio Munoz Ledo, responded to the address.

“From today, we hope that forevermore in Mexico no power will be subordinated to another,” he declared.

A ceremony that in the past featured all the pomp of a U.S. presidential inauguration became a simple event, without the parades and adoring crowds of business and political leaders so common before.

“This is like seeing one of the most momentous presidential symbols we had for a century just deflate,” said Lorenzo Meyer, a Mexican historian.

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The new Congress’ independent spirit was so strong there almost wasn’t a State of the Union speech. The PRI balked last week at demands by opposition parties for important posts in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress. When the opposition went ahead and installed the lower house Saturday, the PRI boycotted--and threatened a walkout Monday that would have forced the president to postpone his speech. The party backed off Sunday night.

Before and after Zedillo’s speech Monday, the opposition warned him that the days of a pliant Congress that rubber-stamped presidential decisions were over.

“We will have parliamentary battle,” declared a gleeful Pablo Gomez, a deputy from the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, in a speech before the president arrived for his address.

Later, Munoz Ledo warned Zedillo in strong terms that he would have to share power.

“Knowing how to govern is also knowing how to listen, and knowing how to correct mistakes,” Munoz Ledo, who was elected president of the lower house Saturday, infuriating the PRI, said in his response to the president.

“Certainly, the democratic exercise of power means ruling while at the same time obeying,” Munoz Ledo said.

He was greeted with more applause than the president received. Zedillo sat stone-faced during the speech.

Before Monday, a PRI member had always held the presidency of the lower house and had responded to the president’s speech in a virtual paean to the leader. In the wake of the July elections, the four opposition parties together hold a 261-seat majority in the 500-seat Chamber of Deputies.

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Still, Zedillo and his party aren’t about to be steamrollered. Deeply divided on ideology--the coalition ranges across the political spectrum--members of the opposition alliance could split. In addition, most legislation must be approved by the Senate, the upper house--where the PRI continues to hold a majority, 77 to 51.

But the opposition has said it will work together to challenge certain aspects of economic policy, vowing to cut the 15% sales tax that is a key source of government revenue and to oppose the bailout of troubled banks and construction companies.

Even in his own party, the president could run into trouble maintaining unpopular economic policies. The country’s recession was believed to be a major factor in the PRI’s poor showing at the polls in July.

In his speech Monday night, Zedillo pledged to cooperate with the new Congress, which was opening a three-year term.

But he appealed to legislators not to return to populist economic policies of the past. He maintained the country had to focus on generating economic growth of at least 5% a year to create badly needed jobs.

“Any new mirages, any new decisions that affect conditions for [economic] growth . . . will cause a great reverse,” warned the president, a Yale-educated economist.

“If we reached agreements to establish democracy, we must reach accords about the foundation of our economic policy,” declared Zedillo, a driving force behind reforms that have produced Mexico’s most democratic elections ever.

Zedillo noted that while Mexico’s economy began to rebound last year from the recession, many citizens complain that they still don’t feel improvement. He appealed to them to keep supporting tight-money, balanced-budget policies that have reduced inflation and encouraged a renewed flood of foreign investment.

One of Zedillo’s principal goals is to end the cyclical economic crises that have plagued Mexico for the last 20 years. Most have coincided with the political uncertainty surrounding the end of a president’s term. The next presidential election is in 2000.

Zedillo kept with his low-key approach to the presidency on Monday by delivering a relatively brief speech--1 1/2 hours, a sharp contrast to the five- or six-hour addresses common in the past.

Times staff writer Chris Kraul contributed to this report.