Mexico Takes Another Small Step for Democracy

Last Sunday’s first-ever presidential primary in Mexico further demonstrates that the country’s democratization, if not exactly stalled, remains firmly in the grip of the governing elite. The primary was conducted entirely by and for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and the world’s longest-ruling party managed to extend history’s slowest democratic transition into the next century. So what has really changed in Mexican politics?

Most analyses of the primary have focused on what did not change: President Ernesto Zedillo’s choice to be his successor won the PRI nomination. Francisco Labastida, a former Cabinet minister, crushed his main opponent, Roberto Madrazo, governor of Tabasco. Labastida is now widely seen as the prohibitive favorite to win the presidential election next July.

But it would be too simple and sweeping to assume that an opponent or enemy of Zedillo had to win to mark genuine or significant democratic progress. It bears recalling that before this year, no priista had even dared to openly campaign for the presidential nomination.

Acceptance of open competition within the PRI itself signifies epochal change, perhaps ultimately more important than greater interparty rivalry and one that will prove impossible to control as it percolates throughout the system. Opposition and competition have been developing steadily since the 1980s. It’s critical that opposition parties have won chunks of governmental power, which was no small feat in a traditionally authoritarian one-party system. The National Action Party (PAN) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) collectively govern nine of 31 states and Mexico City. It is this piecemeal diffusion of centralized power that has been the essence of the democratic transition in Mexico, as well as the key to its prolongation.

That Madrazo, a political maverick in the PRI, lost just as polls predicted is not especially important. What is critical, and was not widely expected, is that he chose to remain in the ruling PRI and to continue to work for the party’s further democratization.

Bolting the PRI is a modern tradition in Mexican politics, one that has helped create an opposition. Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, mayor of Mexico City and the PRD’s standard bearer in 1994 and for next year’s presidential election, began the trend in 1987, when Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and not him, was handpicked as the PRI’s presidential candidate. Since then, the PRD, which Cardenas founded in 1989, has mainly been staffed by frustrated priistas, a number of whom are now PRD governors. Less consequential, a former mayor of Mexico City, Manuel Camacho Solis, similarly exited the PRI when Salinas passed him over as his designated heir in 1993. Camacho is still trying to form an opposition party.

Yet, Madrazo’s loyalty to the PRI has a practical side. If he had quit the PRI, he would have effectively forfeited the governorship of Tabasco. Politically, his departure would have lessened future intraparty competition, and a continued Madrazo presidential bid would have further divided the opposition vote as much or more than it would have hurt the PRI.

By staying in the PRI, however, Madrazo can lead the effort to institutionalize what so far have been ad hoc candidate-selection primaries for PRI gubernatorial candidates. True, his sole motive may be to pave the way for another bid six years hence. But Madrazo stands to gain politically if is able to establish an official primary system, one of the most important pending reforms, not only for the ruling party, but for the opposition and the full democratization of Mexico. Currently, no Mexican political leader has taken up this cause.

Mexico’s political parties have had to organize and run their primaries on their own, essentially without public resources and independent oversight. Their dates and rules have been arbitrarily set by party leaders. Opposition parties, which control the lower house of Congress, have not sought to create an official primary system, preferring instead to dabble in sideshow reforms like extending the vote to Mexicans living abroad. One consequence of this lapse is that opposition parties wound up picking their presidential candidates in noncompetitive internal rituals and now find themselves at a tremendous disadvantage facing a PRI nominee elected by millions of voters in an election open to all.

Not long ago, when the Mexican president picked his successor, there were virtually no meaningful distinctions separating government, party and campaign. Military planes transported the PRI candidate, his entourage and campaign media. Officials throughout the country rolled out the red carpet and bused in the crowds. The party, such as it was, went into high gear promoting the one and only candidate, plastering and painting slogans on every available wall and boulder in the land. The Interior Ministry, in charge of the election, reliably came up with the mandated results every time.

This year, however, the PRI had to organize more than 64,000 polling places, or roughly 200 in each of the 300 congressional districts. That required the mobilization of more than 400,000 poll workers and alternates, as well as delivering hundreds of tons of electoral materials throughout the country. Separately, the candidates’ campaigns had to recruit hundreds of thousands of poll watchers and workers for their get-out-the-vote efforts. All the while, government officials were prohibited from endorsing or supporting any candidate.

While the primary’s announced rules were probably violated in some instances, this election presented the PRI and its four presidential campaigns with unprecedented organizational, financial and logistical challenges without any prospect of government help. The PRI’s and the candidates’ success in rising to this challenge incalculably advanced the democratic idea that the best place for Mexican government to be in an election is on the sidelines. The PRI, by being able to stand on its own, will now be more inclined to accept full democratization.

Mexicans and Mexico-watchers realize there are always other major reforms to be made. For example, Mexico’s historic ban on consecutive terms in office limits the development of legislative expertise, independence and clout, a decided disadvantage when dealing with the executive juggernaut. Repealing this revolution-era reform will require the kind of political courage so far not seen in Mexico.

At the outset of his administration, Zedillo spoke grandly and naively about embarking upon a final, definitive round of electoral reform, which he took to calling “reform of the state.” He only needed to glance north for a reality check, where he could have seen interminable debates and battles on matters such as campaign-finance reform, term limits, the adequacy of a two-party system and so on. Democracy is not an ideal place that a country ever arrives at and calls it a day. *