Furthering Democracy in Mexico

Enrique Krauze

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006

Summary:  As it approaches its first presidential election in the post-PRI era, Mexico is at a crossroads: it could either consolidate democracy and proceed with needed reforms or fall back into a familiar state of crisis. Which way it goes will depend above all on the candidates of the three major political parties, who must rise above their short-term interests to further the nation's progress toward democratic stability.

ENRIQUE KRAUZE is Editor in Chief of Letras Libres and the author of Mexico: Biography of Power.

When Zedillo became president in 1994 -- after the chosen PRI candidate that year, Luis Donaldo Colosio, was assassinated -- he recognized that the party's hold on power was starting to slip, and he opened the gates to electoral democracy. Many PRI hard-liners wanted to expel Zedillo from the party for accepting the results of the vote that brought Fox to power, but the party's leaders eventually recognized their defeat -- in part because they understood that by peacefully accepting their fall from power, they could begin to sanitize their long record of authoritarianism and corruption. In typical fashion, the PRI reoriented itself and, treading very carefully, set about reviving its political fortunes.

Losing the presidency again in 2006 could be a terminal blow for the PRI. A major loss could even lead to the breakup of the party, with some of its factions defecting to the PRD (this process could even start to happen before the election itself, if the advance of the PRD candidate and current presidential front-runner, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, appears to be unstoppable). If the PRD ends up winning the presidency, the PRI could perhaps avoid dissolution by allying itself with the PAN, thus forming a barrier against the emergence of a new single-party political monopoly. This alliance would also force López Obrador -- who as mayor of Mexico City has enjoyed complete dominance of all branches of municipal government -- to avoid pushing dangerously radical policies.

A presidential victory for the PRI is not, however, beyond the bounds of possibility. Should voters come to fear that a PRD government would prove too radical and a PAN government too inexperienced, the PRI may become an attractive lesser evil. If the PRI wins, in addition to the presidency, enough seats in Congress, it could offer some positions in government to the PAN. Together, the PRI and the PAN could secure a workable legislative majority, one that would be able to enact needed structural reforms. To ward off the dangers of crippling dissension and even violence, the PRI would also have to extend the same offer of "cohabitation" to the PRD, although the PRD would be unlikely to accept it.

The PRI is no longer synonymous with "the Mexican political system," but its 71 years of power continue to weigh heavily on its reputation and possible future. Although its ranks include many experienced political professionals, a number of them honest men and women, the party has no prestige or credibility among younger Mexicans. It has, however, put forward some strong, qualified candidates for municipal and state offices, along with the usual stable of corrupt local chieftains. Its current candidate for the important office of mayor of Mexico City, for example, is Beatriz Paredes, an intelligent woman with considerable experience.

The PRI would have been wise to choose a presidential candidate with a fresh face and a reputation for honesty -- someone like Paredes, who has a moderate, pragmatic left-wing ideology that could have proved very attractive to Mexican voters. Unfortunately, it has instead picked a highly problematic figure: the current party president, Roberto Madrazo, who is closely linked to the PRI's dark past of manipulation, corruption, and disinformation. Although the party no longer seems as united behind Madrazo as it once did, and a struggle has lately broken out between Madrazo and the powerful head of the teachers' union, Elba Esther Gordillo, Madrazo will represent the PRI in 2006. By selecting him, the PRI has shown disdain for the moderate Mexicans from whom it could have drawn support, and it has succumbed to its traditional predilection for authoritarianism and manipulation. As a result, it would be only fair if the PRI's political purgatory continued for at least another six years.

CHILE OR VENEZUELA?

Throughout the twentieth century, the Mexican left veered between periods of being proscribed and persecuted and periods of proximity to power (although always within the overall structure of PRI control). For more than half a century, much of the left turned its back on liberal democracy, which it castigated, not entirely unfairly, as not concerned enough with the social problems of the vast majority of Mexicans. Instead of putting their faith in democracy and reform, Mexican leftists preached socialist revolution. (However, at times -- especially under left-wing President Lázaro Cárdenas, who served from 1934 and 1940 and became one of the PRI's most important historical figures -- the left did enjoy considerable political influence within the PRI's ideologically ambiguous power structure.)

By the 1970s and 1980s, some members of Mexico's left had resorted to outright guerrilla war (among them the man who would go on to become the Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos), holding on to their particular version of Marxist orthodoxy and remaining disdainful of "formal" or "bourgeois" democracy. But many others, in response to a gradual political opening by the PRI, began to consider the possibility of entering the parliamentary process as a legitimate opposition. In 1989, this camp came together to help form the PRD. A year earlier, former President Lázaro Cárdenas' son, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, had run for president as the head of an impromptu left-wing coalition and been the victim of what was very probably a stolen election. Just as Cárdenas was piling up a huge majority in Mexico City, where one-fifth of the Mexican population lives, there was a mysterious "computer breakdown"; when the computers, controlled by PRI vote counters, came back online in the morning, they showed a slim victory for the PRI candidate, Carlos Salinas. Cárdenas resisted the entreaties to violence made by many of his supporters -- doing a great, and too little recognized, service to his country and its movement toward democracy -- and instead called for active, united, left-wing participation in parliamentary politics. The result was the PRD.

When it was formed, the PRD consisted of disenchanted members of the PRI, former communists and socialists, and members of a newer left-wing camp brought together by nongovernmental "community action" organizations. The PRD has had an impressive run since, winning governorships, mayoralties, and legislative seats, especially in central and southern Mexico. In 1997, Cárdenas was elected mayor of Mexico City, the second most important position in the country. As the PRD candidate in the 2000 presidential elections, he lost to Fox (a man more skilled in modern U.S.-style electoral politics), but he accepted defeat and returned to party activism to ensure that the PRD did not fracture in the wake of the loss. The results have been positive. In Michoacán, the state once governed by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas' father, Lázaro Cárdenas, and by Cuauhtémoc himself in the early 1980s, the governorship was won by Cuauhtémoc's son -- a man gifted with practical intelligence, much good luck, and a name, Lázaro Cárdenas, with almost mythological resonance in Mexico. In Mexico City, the mayor's office was won by Cuauhtémoc's political heir, López Obrador, a formidable social activist from the southern state of Tabasco -- and now the PRD candidate and the front-runner in the presidential race.

The PAN's political fortunes in 2006 will depend on how voters judge the Fox administration, and the PRI's fortunes will depend on how much voters associate the party with stability and continuity; the PRD's prospects, in contrast, will depend almost entirely on the charisma of López Obrador. To be sure, López Obrador is not certain to win. For one thing, he and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas have grown apart, and Cárdenas -- concerned with what he sees as López Obrador's intolerance and convinced that his own program for Mexico is more inclusive and open than the one López Obrador has proposed -- might conceivably still contend for the presidency, from outside the PRD if necessary. Calderón, the PAN candidate, has also been doing better in recent polls, in part because he is not directly associated with the Fox administration. In the event of a near loss, the PRD would hopefully prove prudent enough to refrain from any mass civil disobedience, which could lead to upheaval and even violence. And fortunately, the election authorities now have enough credibility and independence, and help from outside observers, to guarantee honest elections and prevent a reversion to fraud.