PRI Ready for Reform, Leader Says

Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled the nation for seven decades until its ouster last year, opened a party congress Saturday promising sweeping reforms and a shake-up of its outmoded ideology.

Defeat for the PRI at the hands of Vicente Fox last year shook the party to its core and prompted widespread speculation that it would have difficulty surviving once stripped of the spoils of office.

“Everybody said that the party would shatter into 1,000 pieces,” PRI leader Dulce Maria Sauri said.

But she said the PRI was very much alive and determined to remain a major force in Mexican politics, overcoming its past image as a party synonymous with corruption.

She said one of the aims of the four-day congress, attended by about 11,700 delegates, was to draft an alternative plan for governing the country and running the party.