A Reliable Bastion of PRI Power

As 10 male strippers pranced down the runway, dropping articles of clothing as they went, a crowd of 15,000 women shrieked. It was the finale of the Mother’s Day festival, a huge party billed as a gift to the women of the city of Chimalhuacan, a trash-strewn shantytown of 1.2 million people east of Mexico City.

But the party was also an illustration of the political ingenuity that has allowed Mexico’s ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), to remain in power for 71 years despite a record of corruption and economic calamity.

Next Sunday, the PRI will face its greatest challenge ever: a free and competitive presidential election. Consequently, it must call on its local cadres, especially in poor and working-class areas where its apparatus remains strong. And that means women, especially working-class housewives.

Among Mexico’s working classes, politics, like church-going, is largely a woman’s job. While husbands work, wives daily face the lack of paved streets, drinking water, storm drainage and garbage pickup. In their fight for these municipal services, they come into contact with the local PRI. But before the streets can be paved, the party must have the wives’ political support--the more, the better. The PRI has thus turned an ostensible political liability--the scarcity of city services in poor neighborhoods--into a tool to maintain party loyalty.

Working-class housewives are indispensable to PRI power. They can be found at PRI political rallies in aprons or T-shirts, aggressively leading cheers for PRI politicians.

One place the PRI is counting on to support its presidential candidate is Chimalhuacan. Here, Guadalupe Buendia is political boss. A stout woman known as La Loba (the Wolf), Buendia is a first-rank political operator in the Mexico City area. Her walls at home are adorned with pictures of her with presidents and governors.

Chimalhuacan formed on the dry bed of Lake Texcoco, a place where poor people, looking for cheap land, could build a home. Vast neighborhoods--seven of which are named after La Loba--have no paved streets.

La Loba knows how the PRI system operates. She controls the water district and occasionally cuts service to neighborhoods where opposition parties are a threat. The Mexican press portrays her as a little dictator. But many Chimalhuacan women love her.

Above all, La Loba lets it be known that she sells food at low cost, can legalize land titles and pressure state bureaucrats to pave streets. The housewives know that belonging to La Loba’s Organizacion de Pueblos y Colonias is the best way to get the services their families need. “On one hand, she likes helping people,” says a member of her group. “On the other, you know it gives her power.”

Another important component of her visible largess is the annual party for mothers.

This year’s could prove crucial not only because the PRI is facing a real challenge. La Loba’s son, Salomon, is running for the state legislature, and her cousin, Carlos Cornejo, is running for Congress.

The Mother’s Day party was thrown on an enormous vacant lot under a yellow tent. “This party is for you, the mothers,” the announcer kept repeating. But the real reason for the festivities was evident wherever one looked.

Signs urging a vote for the PRI and its candidates were everywhere. “Who are you going to vote for?” first the announcer, then La Loba asked incessantly throughout the party. “The Priii!” the crowd would respond.

In poor and working-class Mexico, anything free is worth grabbing; Mexico is, after all, a country where many people read their junk mail. Knowing this, the PRI would never think of holding a rally without giving away lots of stuff.

Each mother was given a plastic bucket emblazoned with the PRI logo and the faces of Salomon and Carlos. It contained comic books detailing the exemplary life of PRI presidential candidate Francisco Labastida. Next came PRI T-shirts and caps. All were avidly snapped up.

“Those who don’t get a T-shirt,” said Salomon, “will get a cap. There’ll be more gifts.”

Indeed, La Loba raffled off six refrigerators, two televisions, two dozen irons, four stoves and a clothes washer. In the past, she has raffled off parcels of land.

The party’s first hours were filled with comedians and an appearance by Senate candidate and former Gov. Cesar Camacho, who helped raffle merchandise. Then Paquita la del Barrio arrived.

Paquita is Mexico’s most popular female singer, a cross between Tammy Wynette and Katie Webster. Her songs are about unfaithful men and women who make them suffer for their transgressions. To many women in her audience, for whom part of life’s struggle is abusive and faithless husbands, Paquita was sweet, vicarious revenge.

After Paquita, political promotion took center stage, with more cheers for the PRI, more exhortations to vote PRI on July 2.

Then came the thumping disco music announcing the arrival of “the best Chippendales in the Mexican Republic.” Out gyrated a cop, followed by a soldier, a college student, a Ricky Martin look-alike, Batman and, bringing up the rear, a pirate. The mothers’ screams were deafening.

Finally, five of the strippers formed a line, four with underwear sporting a letter from the word vota (vote). Last in line was a fellow with the PRI logo on his G-string. Together, they wiggled and left the stage.

Quickly, La Loba went to the microphone. As the sea of perspiring mothers swayed before her, she yelled: “So, companeras, who are you going to vote for?”

The election in Chimalhuacan is, for all intents and purposes, over.

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INTERVIEW: Jose Woldenberg, keeping watch over Mexico’s election. PAGE 3