Mexico’s Madrazo Remains Party Boss, Risking Angry Split

A year before the presidential election, this nation’s oldest, most powerful party headed toward a destructive split resulting from the bitter enmity between its top leaders -- probable presidential nominee Roberto Madrazo and teachers union head Elba Esther Gordillo.

Madrazo was to have resigned Tuesday as the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s chief to campaign full time for next year’s election. He would have been replaced by Gordillo under party rules. But he delayed his move after the PRI leadership council voted unanimously Tuesday to ask him to stay on until early August.

That step by the council, which he controls, will keep Gordillo -- who, as general secretary, is the party’s No. 2 leader -- from taking Madrazo’s place. Gordillo warned Madrazo over the weekend that any attempt to keep her from assuming the PRI presidency could cause a “rupture” in the party, according to published reports.

But there was no immediate reaction by Gordillo, leader of the million-member Mexican teachers union, the largest, most disciplined voter and activist group in the PRI. In a radio interview Tuesday, Madrazo said that Gordillo would be free to assume the post and that the delay was in deference to her health problems.

Gordillo had anticipated such a rift for months. On Thursday, her backers are expected to register a new political grouping, the New Alliance Party, which she apparently will lead if she leaves or is ousted from the PRI.

Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, doubts that a rupture will occur because it would break the PRI’s tradition of resolving its differences. Also, the loss of the teachers’ vote to another candidate or party would be devastating to the party’s chances next year.

But Alfonso Zarate of the GCI political consultancy in Mexico City said the distrust and enmity between the two key figures might mean a split is inevitable. “Madrazo has tried to destroy Elba Esther politically, and she has not forgotten,” he said.

The crisis hit even as a group of PRI governors and a senator who are opposed to Madrazo’s candidacy prepared to meet in Hermosillo, Sonora state, on Friday. They hope to select a candidate from among themselves to oppose Madrazo in the primary, which the PRI decided Tuesday would take place in November and be open to voters of all parties.

Tuesday’s vote to extend Madrazo’s role, while threatening to bring to a boil disputes that have roiled the PRI for two years, also may weaken public trust in Madrazo, who scores low in that area in polls.

Madrazo’s “adversaries and even some potential allies say he doesn’t keep his promises,” columnist Jorge Fernandez Menendez wrote Monday in the Milenio newspaper. “And nothing for someone who is seeking the presidency is more costly.”

Madrazo revived the moribund PRI after its loss to President Vicente Fox and the National Action Party in 2000. Under his leadership, it has kept its dominance of Mexico’s governorships and made gains in the lower house of Congress.

But he could not have become PRI chief without Gordillo. She and her union joined with Madrazo’s followers in 2002 to help him win the party leadership in a close contest with former Tlaxcala Gov. Beatriz Paredes. Madrazo, in turn, named Gordillo general secretary.

But they had a bitter falling-out in 2003 over the party’s legislative agenda. Gordillo had sought to compromise with Fox on his reform legislation. She said Madrazo supported her at first, then undercut her when PRI traditionalists objected to working with Fox.

“Madrazo accused Elba Esther of being at the service of Fox, which is absurd,” Zarate said. “Madrazo’s logic was the PRI should not do Fox’s work for him, because it wouldn’t help [Madrazo] in 2006.”

In any case, Gordillo was fired as leader of the PRI congressional delegation and claimed afterward that Madrazo had betrayed her.

Since early 2004, Gordillo has rarely been seen in Mexico, reportedly staying in San Diego to undergo treatment for an undisclosed illness. But she has made it plain that she expects to move from general secretary to PRI leader if the party president quits.