Mexico Under Spell of Own Political Heritage

Dr. Josue Estrada cut short his visiting hours. Elodia Villegas hired a bus to bring all her excited students. Ismael Castrejon drove three hours, all the way from San Jose del Cabo. “The show will be worth it,” he predicted, entering the packed auditorium in downtown La Paz one recent night.

The “show” that drew the crowd was the unlikeliest hit imaginable: two middle-aged professors presenting a 558-page tome of inside-politics chat.

Yet the book, “La Herencia” (The Inheritance), has filled theaters and bookstores around Mexico for months. It has become the country’s best-selling political work by pulling back the curtain on something Mexicans have been denied--their own political history.

“ ‘La Herencia’ is a watershed,” said Federico Reyes Heroles, who spoke at the recent discussion of the book, written by another leading political scientist, Jorge Castaneda.

“La Herencia” is one of an unusual spate of books that have become bestsellers lately by trying to expose the inner workings of the Mexican government. For decades, such works were discouraged by the authoritarian system and the secretive, tribal nature of Mexican politics.

Writers still face considerable obstacles in chronicling what goes on in Mexico’s halls of power. But with democratization and the decline of the one-party system, the secrets are beginning to emerge.

“La Herencia,” for example, features four former presidents explaining how they chose their successors--a process long shrouded in mystery. Another of the new books, “Parte de Guerra” (War Dispatch), presents revelations from a former defense minister about the still-unresolved 1968 government massacre of students in Mexico City. And “La Suerte de la Consorte” (The Spouse’s Lot) tackles a previously untouchable subject: Mexican first ladies.

To an American, accustomed to tell-all memoirs and presidential libraries the size of Delaware, it might seem odd that such themes were never explored. But in Mexico, such revelations were taboo.

“The publishing industry has opened up because political life has opened up,” said Consuelo Saizer, director of a Mexican publisher of political books, Raya en el Agua. “This reflects the willingness of the political class to air a series of things they didn’t before.”

The most successful and far-reaching of the new books is “La Herencia.” Never before had Mexico’s ex-presidents described in such detail how they performed the dedazo, or fingering, of a successor. The mechanism has been a central feature of Mexico’s system of government, controlled for nearly 70 years by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Only now is it being abandoned, as the PRI heads into its first presidential primary Nov. 7.

Disclosures Reflect Democratization

Castaneda, who persuaded the ex-presidents to sit for long interviews, said their disclosures reflected the country’s increasing democratization. “Politicians are hedging themselves for the future,” he said. “There’s a perception in people that the old system is finished. And that it was a terrible thing. So these guys want to try and justify themselves.”

In the past, Mexico’s political system was as closed as a cloister. Those on the inside generally didn’t leave memoirs or documents. In part, that was because the political class was small; any revelations could hurt allies--or antagonize enemies--still in the government.

But the lack of records also reflected the sense that the all-powerful presidents didn’t have to answer for their actions, Castaneda said.

Meanwhile, those outside the system had no way of finding out what was going on within it. With the president’s party always controlling the legislature, there was never a congressional inquiry--much less a Mexican Kenneth Starr.

“The only people with access to the truth were those in the privileged circles, in which there was knowledge of the labyrinth of power in Mexico,” Reyes Heroles said. History was reduced to oral tradition among the elite.

Anyone who tried to write an independent book about the powerful faced an uphill battle. Just consider what happened to sociologist Sara Sefchovich: In 1982, she wrote a history of Mexico’s first ladies. But even such a tame theme was deemed beyond bounds. Education Ministry officials seized the book, preventing its distribution.

They said Mexicans weren’t ready to find out about the intimate lives of their heroes, said Sefchovich, referring to the presidents. Her new book, “La Suerte de la Consorte,” is a vastly expanded version of the previous one.

Official censorship wasn’t the only problem. In the past, Mexican journalists and academics often censored themselves. Many were co-opted by economic support and favors from the powerful government; others were simply frightened.

“What distinguishes this moment is that there are no mental barriers,” said Carlos Monsivais, a prominent writer and co-author of “Parte de Guerra” with journalist Julio Scherer. “When I began in journalism, we were made of mental barriers.”

As writers and publishers have become more bold and critical, so have Mexican readers. The soap-opera-like scandals surrounding the family of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari have outraged and intrigued Mexicans.

With the country gearing up for the July presidential election, perhaps the most competitive ever, the public is increasingly hungry for information on Mexico’s political history.

That explains the success of works such as “La Herencia,” which has sold more than 150,000 copies. In a country where few people spend their time reading, and sales of 20,000 establish a bestseller, it is a runaway hit.

“It’s important to know ourselves. These are things that haven’t been revealed before,” said Dr. Estrada, who had skipped his evening hours at the local hospital to attend the talk on “La Herencia.”

“Before, you weren’t allowed to know these things. Because of the changes, though, now they can be published.”

Villegas, a university dean, said the interest in the book stemmed from Mexicans’ bewilderment at the political and economic turbulence of recent years. “I think Mexicans’ minds are opening a lot more,” said the dean, who brought 30 students and professors to the presentation. “People want to know what’s been happening with their president and their country.”

Many Still Hew to Culture of Silence

While “La Herencia” and the other books have broken new ground, there is still a long way to go. Even today, writers are routinely denied access to government archives. Many key political figures still hew to the culture of silence.

Castaneda, the son of a former foreign minister, acknowledged to the La Paz audience that “it would have been impossible to write the book without my contacts and family history, which opened the doors to the ex-presidents.”

But he added, “Even with the contacts, it would have been impossible to write this book 20 years ago.”

Even when authors have gotten beyond official secrecy, some of them are disappointed with the impact of their revelations.

Monsivais notes that the government barely reacted to his book, which quotes documents from Marcelino Garcia Barragan, defense minister in 1968, pinning the blame for the student massacre on the presidential guard.

“People read these books, talk about them . . . but nothing happens,” he said. In the United States, in contrast, revelations such as the Watergate scandal inflame public opinion and force the government to act, he noted.

“The secret of power in Mexico is retaining impunity,” Monsivais added. “While the impunity persists, there will be no transition to democracy.”