Candidates in Mexico Hoping Voters’ Fingers Point at Them

Mexicans could be forgiven for thinking that their presidential election is this July instead of 14 months away, in July 2000.

Never before has the presidency been contested this fiercely so far ahead of the ballot--not only by the three major parties but also within them, as each grapples to pick its nominee.

At stake: whether the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, extends its unbroken 70-year domination of the presidency. Parties to the left and right of the PRI believe they have the best chance ever to dethrone the PRI, thanks to electoral reforms over the past decade that have limited the ruling party’s storied ability to manipulate the results.

The PRI, an amalgam of interest groups embracing labor, peasants and the power elite, appears to have abandoned its traditional process, known as the dedazo, of picking a candidate. Through that “big finger” procedure, the outgoing president handpicked his successor, and no presidential aspirant would dare express interest in the nomination publicly.

This time, no fewer than six PRI leaders have declared their desire for the nomination. Two of them, former Puebla state Gov. Manuel Bartlett and Tabasco Gov. Roberto Madrazo, are filling the airwaves and billboards with advertising to drum up interest in their bids.

President Ernesto Zedillo says his only interest is to ensure a smooth and crisis-free transition, unlike the catastrophic ends of every six-year presidential term since 1982. But some commentators suggest that Zedillo may opt for a “little finger,” quietly influencing the nomination process in favor of Interior Minister Francisco Labastida Ochoa, an economist and lifelong bureaucrat who is the front-runner.

The PRI race is essentially a contest between technocrats such as Labastida who favor Zedillo’s harsh free-market policies and those such as Bartlett who want the state to play a more interventionist role, as the PRI once did.

The PRI has struggled to agree on a nomination process in the absence of the dedazo. Old-style candidates such as Bartlett and Madrazo want an open primary election that would be harder for the party leadership to manipulate.

The PRI’s newly chosen president, Jose Antonio Gonzalez Fernandez, is traveling across the country, collecting opinions from party brass. He will announce May 17 the party’s decision on whether it will hold a primary later this year or opt for a nominating convention.

The PRI campaign grew even more complex last month when moderate Veracruz Gov. Miguel Aleman, a former television executive and son of a former president of the same name, said he would be interested in the nomination. Aleman is seen by some as a compromise candidate who could help the PRI avoid another disastrous split like the one it endured in 1987 when Cuauhtemoc Cardenas broke from the PRI and formed the left-of-center Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.

History buffs like the idea of a race between Aleman, whose father served from 1946 to 1952, and Cardenas, the Mexico City mayor whose own father, Lazaro Cardenas, was a famed PRI president from 1934 to 1940.

“What is the strength of the governor of Veracruz? His name,” wrote Federico Arreola, director of Milenio magazine. “Every Mexican has walked down a Miguel Aleman Avenue, studied at a Miguel Aleman school or read something about President Aleman. . . . But none of this worries Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, because name for name, the [mayor] of Mexico City is more famous.”

Cardenas is the favorite to get the nod from the PRD, which has grown in strength and helped cost the PRI its congressional majority for the first time in July 1997. But Cardenas is not unopposed. Porfirio Munoz Ledo, a blunt legislative leader who co-founded the PRD with Cardenas, is challenging him.

The third major party, the right-of-center National Action Party, or PAN, had appeared to be headed toward the uneventful anointing of Guanajuato state Gov. Vicente Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive known for his brash style and cowboy boots.

But traditional backers of the pro-business party have long worried about Fox’s populist tendencies. Recently, he squabbled publicly with Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, the PAN’s dignified but unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1994. Last week, a movement emerged in the PAN for Fernandez to return to politics and challenge Fox.

Beyond the bitter internal contests, the PRD and PAN are still considering a proposal by Cardenas to form an alliance against the PRI. Few political analysts believe that is likely, but informal talks are going forward.