World

By MIGUEL FIGUEROA
and JUDY ANDROSOFF

EXICO CITY, Mex-
ico — Outstripping
virtually all predic-
tions, the Democratic
National Front
(FDN), led by its
presidential candi-
date Cuauhtemoc

— Cardenas, scored
substantial gains in Mexico’s July 6 national
elections. More significantly, the unity and
strength achieved by the left and democratic
forces, combined with the collapse of mass
support for the ruling Institutional Revolu-
tionary Party (PRI), are destined to change
the face of Mexican politics for decades to
come.

PRI, the populist party which has main-
tained a stranglehold over Mexican domes-
tic politics for almost six decades, suffered a
humiliating moral and political defeat. Only
electoral fraud and last-minute “‘alchemy”
of the election results appear to have sal-
vaged a narrow victory for presidential can-
didate Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the
ruling PRI.

The final “official” tally from the Federal
Electoral Commission, released after sev-
eral unexplained delays one week later, gave
Gortari 50.3 per cent of the vote, Cardenas
and the FDN 31 per cent, and Manuel
Clouthier of the pro-business National
Action Party (PAN) 18 per cent. These
results ran contrary to preliminary vote
counts, mostly from urban centres, which
showed Cardenas clearly in the lead. Judg-
ing from all available evidence, the “cook-
ing” of election returns occurred primarily
in rural precincts where the opposition par-
ties had difficulty monitoring the vote.

The election results and the accompany-
ing commission report were immediately
repudiated and formally protested by all
Opposition parties. Cardenas told a protest
rally of 250,000 supporters in Mexico City
July 16 that the FEC election results were a
crude attempt to overturn the real outcome
of the election and constituted “‘a technical
equivalent of a coup d’£tat.”

Electoral fraud is hardly new to Mexican
politics: it has been regularly practiced for
decades and had until recently been an
accepted, if unsavoury, norm. Public opin-
ion has now dramatically changed, how-
ever, as reflected in a poll taken just days
before the election in which 87 per cent of
urban residents anticipated vote-rigging,
but stated that it could or should no longer
be tolerated.

Salinas de Gortari had initiallypromised
a fair election but, confronted with a serious
challenge to its continued rule, the PRI-
controlled state apparatus reverted to old
patterns. Printing houses were ransacked,
ballots stolen, and opposition workers and
offices attacked.

In the most serious provocation, Carde-
nas’ election co-ordinator, Francisco Xav-
ier Ovando and his secretary were brutally
assassinated just days before the election.
With the campaign nearing an end, Ovan-
do’s final project was organizing the FDN’s
country-wide efforts to monitor the elec-
tions and prevent fraud. The attackers took
all pertinent election documents but left
money and personal belongings behind.

While the “alchemists” may have tem-
porarily salvaged the situation, PRI has
nonetheless suffered its most humiliating
setback in its 59 years of power and major
cracks are appearing in the base of the rul-
ing coalition. PRI has historically main-
tained its monolithic rule by controlling
such key mass organizations as the National
Confederation of Campesinos (peasants
and agricultural workers) and the Mexican
Workers Confederation (CTM).

This time however, in spite of repeated
appeals from campesino and labour offi-
cials, rank-and-file workers and peasants
deserted PRI in droves, the vast majority
shifting allegiance to the left opposition par-
ties. On election night, De Gortari was

6 e Pacific Tribune, August 17, 1988

‘Mexico will never
be the same’ as

left gains ground

TOP: PRI presidential candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari who narrowly won elec-

ed

tion. ABOVE: Cuauhtemoc Cardenas (r) at the funeral for his election co-ordinator,

assassinated during the campaign.

forced to admit “the days of effective one-
party rule (by PRI) are gone forever.”

The populist “consensus” which has
maintained PRI in power for decades,
crumbled under the weight of the continu-
ing economic crisis in the country.

Slow economic growth, combined with
depressed world prices for Mexico’s oil and
other natural resources, has _ sharply
reduced government income. As a result,
Mexico’s foreign debt has more than
doubled in recent years, and the increased
cost of debt servicing has largely been met at
the expense of domestic economic and
social programs, further aggravating already
high levels of unemployment and poverty.
It has also placed tremendous downward
pressure on the national currency — the
peso — which today retains only ‘200th of
its 1975 value on world exchange markets.

Economic disproportions have deepened
the gulf between classes and heightened
social tensions. Outgoing President Miguel
de la Madrid recently conceded that the
disparities “have translated into disturbing
social imbalances, the result of which has
been an unequal and unjust society”.

PRI’s answer to the crisis has been to shift
its economic strategy sharply to the right,
opening up Mexico to greater penetration
by foreign goods and multinational invest-
ment, rationalizing public services and pri-
vatizing government concerns.

The government also initiated a “‘solidar-
ity pact” between labour, business and
government to keep rampant inflation in
check by controlling wages and prices. The
“pact” has come under increasing criticism,
however, because while all wages in the
country have been frozen since April, only a
limited number of “essential” goods have
been controlled. The price of most other
“non-designated” goods has skyrocketed,
drastically undercutting the purchasing
power of the people.

Salinas de Gortari, Minister of Budget
and Planning under the previous adminis-
tration and architect of this market-oriented
economic strategy, is the main representa-
tive of the right-wing tendency within PRI,
but faces stiff opposition from other, more
nationalist groupings within the ruling coa-
lition.

Last year, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas led
many followers out of PRI to establish the
“Democratic Current” and joined with
other left and democratic parties in
demanding alternative policies of social and
political reform. Over the period leading up
to the July 6 elections, discussions were held
with other progressive opposition forces
and the National Democratic Front was
formed.

The key development which ensured a
co-ordinated and unified campaign of the
left forces however came just one month
prior to the elections. The Mexican Socialist

Party (PMS), the largest and best organized _

left party in the country, made an historic
decision to withdraw its own presidential
candidate, Heberto Castillo, from the race
and throw its full support behind the Car-
denas campaign based upon an agreed-
upon 12-point program.

The program called for the elimination of
the corporatism-dominated system, full
civil liberties, a ban on all forms of discrimi-
nation, proportional representation and an
independent, non-aligned foreign policy.
Most important, it called for the suspension
of all foreign debt service until more favou-
rable terms can be negotiated with credi-
tors.

The-emergence of a broad unity among
the major left and democratic forces in the
country may well be the most significant
outcome of the 1988 elections. While the
individual parties fielded their own candi-
dates for elections to the all-important
Chamber of Deputies and for state and

: left forces began co-operation in earnest

local offices, they united behind a single
dramatic campaign for the presidency:
Furthermore, they have agreed to maintal?
close co-operation after the elections, at
the PMS and the Democratic Current have
undertaken serious talks aimed at a possible
merger.

The road to unity was outlined by Gel
ardo Unzueta Lorenzana, editor-in-chief 0
the PMS’ weekly organ, La Unidad, in a?
interview with the Tribune. Lorenzana said:
“While the left and patriotic forces have |
been sizable for many years, they have bee?
plagued by division and sectarianism whi¢
weakened their impact on domestic polit
ics.” He pointed out, for instance, that in
1968, there were over 70 left-wing political
organizations in the country, with little oF
no co-operation among them. |

Realizing the need to overcome disunity:
the Mexican Communist Party and othe!

and succeeded in jointly electing 17 deputies
in the 1979 elections. “This experience,
Lorenzana said, “created the conditions for
a larger unification of the left.”

In 1982, The United Socialist Party of
Mexico (PSUM) was formed, uniting th¢
MCP with three other left parties. While th
unification process was far from smooth, it
nonetheless took hold and paved the way
for further unitary actions.

In the 1985 elections, a broader allian@
of left parties was initiated by PSUM, a?
included the Mexican Workers Party, thé
Party of Revolutionary Patriotism, the
Union of Left Communists and the Revol”
tionary Movement of the People. +
alliance subsequently led to the formatio?
of the PMS in 1987.

Current efforts to unite the PMS with th°
Democratic Current “reflect a move '—
reconstruct political alignments, buildif?
unity with the leftist, anti-imperialist for
within the PRI.”

Lorenzana stated that in the wake of the
elections, the situation in Mexico is com
pletely different from previous times. “It is4
new stage, with big changes .. . the chang®
will of necessity also be reflected within the
trade union movement and the peasa?
organizations.”

These shifts are already in evidence. The
CTM recently announced plans to call @
nation-wide general strike on August 15 10 |
protest the electoral fraud and the declining |
living standards of the workers. |

“For us,” Lorenzana concluded, “th?
road to socialism must pass through the
stage of democratization of the politic#, |
regime. These changes are necessary 4! |
inevitable”.

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