Who's the 'sick man'?
Grayson, George W.
WHO'S THE 'SICK NAN'? COMPETITION IN A ONE-PARTY STATE Mexico City LONG MALIGNED as the "sick man" of Mexico, the political left here is attempting to heal itself in time to make a vigorous...
...First, it would trigger a spirited campaign, thus challenging the charge that democracy exists year-round in Mexico with but one exception: election day...
...Economic considerations weighed heavily in the Sept...
...Besides, the Communists (110,000) and their four partners (105,000) count as adherents only a fraction of Mexico's twenty-eight million electors...
...The front-runner is Heberto Castillo Martinez, a white-maned, fifty-three-year-old civil engineer who established the Mexican Workers party...
...Cannibalism on the left complemented by the incoherence of the pro-business, Catholic-leaning National Action party on the right has enabled the Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI) to capture every presidential, gubernatorial, and senatorial contest since its founding a half-century ago...
...Such heavy-handedness by a regime that incessantly trumpets its devotion to democracy will increase cynicism, abstentions, and unrest, thereby exposing the PRI as the real "sick man" of Mexican politics...
...The decision last month by the Popular Action Movement (MAP) to cast its lot with the new left-wing party will boost its stock among workers...
...This effort has already been launched by Javier Garcia Paniagua, the party's peripatetic president who enjoys close relations with the military and one day may reach the presidential palace himself...
...Accomplishing this requires circumventing the "charros" or cowboys, as the PRI-manipulated labor bosses are contemptuously called, to reach the rank-and-file...
...It calls for "scientific socialism" as the instrument of a class struggle designed to convert the means of production into "collective property," stimulate political participation, and create a new Mexican "free of the prejudices and inequalities generated by private property...
...In a direct challenge to the PRI, the leaders of the Euro-communist-oriented Partido Comunista Mexicano and four small socialist parties have agreed to cast aside differences and combine into a United Party of the Mexican Left-a move expected to be ratified by their followers...
...GEORGE W. GRAYSONitics...
...Most observers believed that the choice of the next president would follow the up-coming North-South summit in Cancun...
...A healthy showing by competitors could endanger the ruling party's retention of the presidency in 1988 or 1994...
...PRI's grip on the unions may be slipping as Fidel Velazquez, the choleric, octogenarian head of the Mexican Workers Confederation, nears the end of his career...
...This maneuver will confront the left with the option of running under the Communist banner-a move certain to diminish its appeal and vote totals...
...Meanwhile, the rejuvenated opposition would clamor for public jobs long monopolized by PRI...
...Through books, articles, and debates, he has distinguished himself as a trenchant and relentless foe of official policy-notably in energy and agriculture...
...25 designation of Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado as the ruling party's presidential candidate...
...Political evangelism in the union halls should win converts because the living conditions of the masses have deteriorated even amid the oil boom...
...A Harvard-educated moderate who is popular within the private sector, he now serves as Planning and Budget Minister and is the architect of the nation's ambiguous and disjointed Global Development Plan...
...But the gravity of the problems afflicting the country combined with the prospect of a credible leftist opponent to hasten the selection...
...Finally, a determined opponent could spur the Institutional Revolutionary party to revitalize its creaky political machine...
...1 The five "founders" have signed a communique that excoriates the "belligerency" of President Reagan's foreign policy, Mexico's self-serving "financial bourgeoisie," and the regime's "selective repression and assassination of independent union chiefs...
...Ironically, the emergence of a sturdy, unified left could prove a blessing in disguise to the governing party...
...Second, a heated race should draw more citizens to the ballot box and-symbolically, at least-renew their ties to a system that has bred apathy, disgust, and a growing belief that violence must precede change...
...Fourth, the PRI will be forced to rethink its program-now a hash of tired ideas garnished by revolutionary cliches- to respond to the politically savvy Castillo, who would be the most issue-oriented candidate since Lazaro Cardenas successfully pursued the presidency in 1934...
...The specter of losing-or even sharing-power may prompt the government to interpret its complex, contradictory election code so as to thwart the fusion...
...COMPETITION IN A ONE-PARTY STATE Mexico City LONG MALIGNED as the "sick man" of Mexico, the political left here is attempting to heal itself in time to make a vigorous showing in next July's presidential and congressional elections...
...More than a political apparat, the PRI controls federal, state, and municipal governments, runs an escalator to power for the ambitious, flourishes as a patronage trough, and manipulates -through captive unions and pliant organizations-blue-collar workers and impoverished peasants...
...GEORGE W. GRAYSON...
...More a collection of tenets than a blueprint for government, this document also endorses "land and liberty for the peasantry," "social justice," and "defense of national sovereignty"-principles with which few would disagree...
...Skill in converting cooptation from an art form to an exact science makes it seem like "Mayor Daley writ large," according to a prominent political scientist...
...The PRI will capture next year's elections even if it means stuffing ballot boxes-a tactic it has mastered...
...PRI claims "not to fear" a fusion party for reasons cited above and because of the centrifugal forces that may yet explode a consolidated left...
...After all, there are at least three tendencies within the new organization: (1) Marxist-Leninists, (2) Cardenists who exhibit a nationalist, anti-Marxist perspective, and (3) those quasi-Marxists who favor a struggle for "national sovereignty" in association with elements of the bourgeoisie in order to resist American "imperialism," In commenting on the conflicting currents within the purportedly unified Left, one veteran observer told the Latin American Newsletters: "If you put five mice together you don't get a cat...
...Still, a confluence of factors-a thirty-percent inflation rate, massive unemployment, budget cuts, a growing chasm between "haves" and "have-nots," and ubiquitous corruption-make party bigwigs squeamish about the future...
...However, if it gets on its feet, a robust fusion party could cause a throbbing headache for this country's complacent, often arrogant, political establishment...
...Castillo realizes that the left, now composed of students, intellectuals, disgruntled bureaucrats, and a handful of hoary trade unionists, must appeal to workers if it is to present a credible alternative to the power elite...
...They realize that PRI's claim to represent a majority of Mexicans would be undermined if abstentions remained high while the left and the right each won upwards of ten percent of the vote...
...He also . boasts the reputation of remaining uncorrupted in a system suffused by peculation...
...His candidacy will draw support from other parties as well as average voters, half of whom sat out the 1979 congressional election...
...To begin with, the new organization's numbers will surely swell as many of the sixteen other "socialist" parties join up, Entities as diverse as the Popular Socialist party (75,000), a PRI satellite, and the Trotskyite Revolutionary Party of the Workers (7,000) have publicly flirted with affiliation, although the latter may be spurned owing to its "conflictful" nature...
...Elitism, personalism, and-above all-ideological dogmatism have driven leftists to savage each other verbally, trade gunfire in the streets, and purge apostates with such frequency that new parties-breakaways from old ones-pop up like mushrooms in a dank cave...
...The success of an amalgamated left hinges on whom it selects in late-October as its presidential nominee...
...The political commission embraces leaders of independent unions in the nuclear power industry and on university campuses, as well as Rafael Cord-era, a prominent leftist ideologue...
...Third, it may also keep young leftists busy passing out manifestos rather than munitions...
Vol. 108 • October 1981 • No. 19
