Report from Mexico
Grayson, George W.
search for truth does not end here. It must return from where it was born and it must support the role of memory as an instrument for social reconstruction .... " If those behind the murder of...
...Who knows...
...Before the open primary in Chihuahua, the PRI acted like a condemned prisoner waiting for the hangman...
...Why, they wondered, was celibacy still required when married Episcopalian clergy are being ordained as Catholic priests and, right here in Chicago, we already have married Ukrainian Catholic priests...
...And even if the primaries are conducted fairly, the now-popular Zedillo and now-unpopular PRI could still lose ground if oil revenues--responsible for 39 percent of the federal budget---continue to plummet...
...In a fiery funeral homily, Bishop Gerardo Flores of Verapaz repeated the Guatemalan Episcopal Conference's assertion that the murder was directly related to the role that Bishop Gerardi played in coordinating the REHMI project, publicizing its findings, and endorsing its recommendations: "for this reason they killed him, crushing his skull and destroying his face...
...William F. Jabusch CELIBACY AT ALL COSTS...
...Thus, Jestis Manuel P6rez Piton, a savvy PRI strategist with electoral experience in a half-dozen states, suggested a revolutionary nominating mechanism: an open consulta or primary in which all Chihuahuans could participate...
...Although no panacea for the party's fortunes either this year or in the 2000 presidential race, unfettered primaries offer the last best chance for the PRI to recover--in part, at least--from the defections and defeats endured in recent years...
...Dedazo (naming of candidates by party bigshots), alquimistas (election fixers), carrusel (multiple voting by one person), mordida (bribe)--these words glisten in the lexicon of this nation's cynical citizens...
...Outraged, Monreal bolted the PRI to accept the gubernatorial nomination of the left-nationalist PRD...
...George W. Grayson teaches government at the College of William and Mary...
...Faced with Monreal's defection and evident popularity, PRI operatives began having second thoughts about the party's top-down nomination process...
...His first choice, however, would be to stay here at the University of Chicago...
...Nonetheless, the PRI managed to maintain a 76-52 grip on the stodgy upper house because only one-fourth of the Senate stood for election...
...After forty years in the priesthood I am not unaware of the advantages of celibacy...
...George W. Grayson REPORT FROM MEXICO Open primaries for the PRI olitical murders, drug trafficking, police corrupp tion, and the ongoing civil strife in Chiapas continue to dominate the headlines about Mexico in United States newspapers...
...But the hard-living, unsavory Iglesias seemed destined for defeat, particularly if nominated by dedazo...
...Failure to curb the escalating crime rate could also cost the PRI dearly at the polls...
...Thus, in one fell swoop, the PRI (1) selected a probable winner, (2) involved a quarter-million people from across the political spectrum in its selection process, and (3) conveyed a message both to the country at large and to its own militants that their Tammany Hall-style party could embrace more democratic procedures and still come out on top...
...He has had straight A's, even when he took physics, chemistry, and Latin in the same quarter...
...Commonweal II 0 May 22, 1998 In view of the potent impact that primaries could have on the party, it remains to be seen whether current PRI governors-accustomed to treating their states as fiefdoms--will work under the new rules...
...Recent electoral reforms advocated by Mexico's President Ernesto Zedillo have enabled voters to punish the PRI, his own party, for its history of graft, nepotism, and venality...
...Deputy Patricio Martinez Garcia, a moderate, well-liked accountant and rancher from Chihuahua city, had garnered 54 percent of the vote, to defeat Iglesias (35 percent) and a third contender...
...Artemio Iglesias Miramontes emerged as the candidate of the PRI's old guard...
...But even if the party suffers a setback or two, allowing the sun to blaze in on its nominating process will affect its future in several positive ways: _9 Give greater substance to President Zedillo's insistence that a local version of glasnost complement the economic liberalization that he has championed...
...At the same time, the right-leaning PAN, which already claims six governorships, savors the possibility of obtaining several more...
...Frankly, I don't think he has anything to worry about...
...That would dampen Mexico's impressive economic recovery, forcing additional cutbacks in popular social programs...
...Both had reluctantly put aside that calling since it would mean not having a wife or children...
...If the world's longest continuously ruling party actually implements intramural democracy, the use of words, long dormant--for example---legitimidad (legitimacy), esperanza (hope), and credibilidad (credibility)--may reappear in the political vocabulary of Mexicans...
...There are difficult assignments which Commonweal II | May 22, 1998...
...Amid this soul-searching came the need to select a PRI nominee in Chihuahua, a huge, PANcontrolled state which shares a border with Texas...
...He has just published Mexico: From Corporatism to Pluralism (Harcourt-Brace) as well as A Guide to the 1998 Mexican Elections (Center for Strategic & International Studies...
...The nomadic Somalis have forty-five names for the camel because of the dromedary's crucial role in their lives...
...If these findings hold up, the PRD will boast its first state executive...
...And I suspect that many other university chaplains have talked with generous, devout, and highly intelligent young men who had seriously considered becoming priests but turned away for one major reason...
...he reasoned...
...Although the contest doesn't take place until August 2, recent polls show Monreal as the odds-on favorite...
...Similarly, Mexicans have a caravan of words to condemn corrupt practices perfected by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) during its sixty-nine-year reign...
...I came upon the two of them discussing not law or medicine but what had been their original interest, the Catholic priesthood...
...I am sorry to say that I did not have a good answer...
...The Chihuahua results gave the deeply riven PRI a mission--namely, holding open primaries in four PRI-governed states where the party had yet to select its standard-bearers: Sinaloa, Tlaxcala, Tamaulipas, and Puebla...
...They responded by opting for PRI defector Cuauht6moc C~rdenas (47 percent), nominee of the leftist-nationalist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) over the standard-bearers of the PRI (25 percent) and the center-right National Action Party or PAN (15 percent...
...9 Weaken further PRI oldtimers or "dinosaurs"---concentrated in the party's labor and peasant sectors--who prefer finagling vote tallies to winning the hearts and minds of the electorate...
...This year voters in fourteen of Mexico's 31 states will elect governors and/or mayors...
...What was there to lose...
...Encouraged by the remarkable openness of the 1997 contests, Ricardo Monreal Avila--the PRI's number-two man in the Chamber of Deputies, a former senator, and an attractive progressive with broad intra-party backing--began barnstorming the north-central state of Zacatecas with an eye to capturing the statehouse...
...Before Monreal knew what hit him, he had mysteriously lost his bid to a so-called "unity candidate" backed by the influential Borrego...
...The responsive applause echoed like thunder off the walls of the cathedral for a full ten minutes...
...To add insult to injury, current PRI president Mariano Palacios AIcocer implied--with no proof at all--that the popular Monreal had ties to narco-traffickers...
...Last July, for instance, Zedillo-backed innovations allowed the people rather than the chief executive to decide upon Mexico City's mayor...
...Jim, on the other hand, has already been accepted at several law schools, including Notre Dame...
...The PRI National Executive Committee held its collective breath when the polls opened on primary day, March 8; by nightfall, it was celebrating a political coup...
...Stephen Privett, S.J., is provost of Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California...
...If those behind the murder of Bishop Gerardi intended thereby to end "the search for truth" and halt "the social reconstruction" undertaken by the peace process, they are sorely disappointed...
...Still, Mexico is also undergoing a slow but real political evolution that promises to bring more democratic and responsive government to a country that has known only one-party rule for nearly seven decades...
...If conducted honestly, primaries will enhance the legitimacy of PRI candidates in general elections, according to public-opinion surveys...
...Moreover, last July the PRI lost its hammerlock on the 500member Chamber of Deputies as the PRD, PAN, and minor parties collectively amassed 262 seats...
...The most moving and inspiring moment of the two-hour liturgy came at the conclusion of the homily when Bishop Flores in a booming bass voice promised Guatemalans "that the day will soon be here when the people will cry and sing, Guatemala, Guatemala: nunca mas ]never again...
...and _9 Set the stage for a wide-open contest for the PRI presidential nomination, featuring a half-dozen aspirants...
...His ambition raised the hackles of PRI power broker Genaro Borrego, a former party president and ex-governor of Zacatecas, who now runs Mexico's social security system...
...A college chaplain asks why hris is a young man concerned about getting into C a good medical school...
...This observer had the sense that people shared the martyred bishop's belief, expressed the previous Friday, that the work of REHMI, the promotion of justice and peace, is "a beautiful service of veneration for the martyrs and a dignifying of the victims of destruction and death...
...It will be both ironic and appropriate if this murder produces a thorough and impartial investigation that brings perpetrators and plotters to justice and serves as the first step toward a Guatemala where truth and justice prevail over silence and impunity...
...It would be foolish to minimize the serious nature of these problems...
...Cardenas is now regarded as a serious threat to defeat the PRI nominee and succeed Zedillo as president in the 2000 election...
...Fearing defeat, the PRI state leadership agreed, and Iglesias--while privately grumbling about such a process-followed suit lest he admit fear over entering a fair fight...
Vol. 125 • May 1998 • No. 10
