The Impending Elections: The Only Certainty is Uncertainty
Dresser, Denise
Mexico's short-term future lies neither in apocalyptic chaos, nor in orderly capitalist development. Nor, in all likelihood, does a peaceful democratic transition loom on the horizon. BY DENISE...
...By stressing the unfulfilled promises of Salinas' economic revolution, Cdrdenas could swing the undecided vote in his favor...
...Today, Mexico conforms to neither of these two visions...
...Although they fall short of promoting real democratization, independent groups are VOL XXVIII, NO 1 JULY/AUGUST 1994 27REPORT ON MEXICO pushing back the boundaries of the politically possible...
...President Salinas is paying a high cost for his inability or unwillingness to construct a strong coalition of support to undergird the country's economic reforms...
...93, No...
...However, as a result of the process of economic overhaul prompted by the debt crisis of the 1980s, the party began to fail in its historic role as interest aggregator, policymaker and legitimator...
...China and Mexico, however, remain the great exceptions...
...The critical question is whether Cirdenas will be able to reconstruct the broad social coalition that fueled his candidacy in the 1988 election which many Mexicans believe was stolen from him by Carlos Salinas and the PRI...
...the ultimate destiny of that transition, however, remains unclear...
...Rancorous disputes along complex intergroup and interparty lines have prevailed, particularly regarding the merits of electoral reform While moderates within the party have supported the latest i Cirdenas himself has declared their assure a clean and fair election...
...Zedillo may find it hard to play the democracy card and preach the democratic agenda given the top-down, arbitrary fashion in which he himself was selected...
...Mexican society towards tne center-lert, in ravor or change, democracy and accountability...
...The private TV monopoly and staunch government supporter, Televisa, ends its nightly news coverage VOL XXVIII, No 1 JULY/AUGUST 1994 C 0 0 J_ 4 L 0 23REPORT ON MEXICO with scenes of Colosio walking off into the sunset, and Zedillo himself has headed numerous campaign ceremonies honoring Colosio's memory...
...5. These reforms have been added to those approved in September 1993 by the PRI and the PAN that led to the following changes: 1) Opening the Senate up to minority representation by incorporating an additional senator for each state from the party that comes in second in the voting...
...The PRI is well aware of these risks, and therefore the power struggle within the PRI may subside until the election is over and a semblance of normalcy is temporarily restored throughout the country...
...He dug out documents linking avowed democrat C6.denas to authoritarian decisions in his previous incarnation as PRI governor of the state of Michoacin...
...In addition, the PRD's victor throughout the Salinas term have been limited and partial, especially given its tremendous efforts to mobilize the population...
...7 Social movements accept the material rewards offered by the state, but when it comes time to vote, they vote their conscience...
...He is trying to present himself as the candidate of "change through continuity," an able administrator, and a self-made man of the people (campaign handlers go to great lengths to stress his humble origins...
...8. See Denise Dresser, "Treading Lightly and Without a Stick: International Actors and the Promotion of Democracy in Mexico," in Tom Farer, ed., The Limits of Sovereignty in a Democratic Age (Washington, D.C.: Inter-American Dialogue, forthcoming...
...Incapable of guaranteeing mass support via uncontested electoral victories, the party began to fail as a legitimator of the regime...
...Mexicans may view him as yet another anointed son instead of the guarantor of transparent elections...
...It is true that many Mexicans cannot envision political life in the country without the PRI...
...150, April 18, 1994...
...A recent poll revealed that 37% of Mexicans believe that the PRI is responsible for Colosio's death, and 70% do not believe the government is telling the truth regarding the investigation...
...3 The PRI faces the election in an unprecedented state of disarray...
...With an eye on grooming him for higher office, Salinas placed Zedillo in politically sensitive positions, such as the Education Ministry, in order to test his political skills...
...Center: President Carlos Salinas and PRI candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio in 1993...
...2 Among friends and foes alike, Colosio has been reinvented as a democratic hero, sacrificed while defending liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness...
...The PRI is currently overrepresented with 61 out of 64 seats...
...For an analysis of the reforms see Jose Woldenberg, "1994: Elecclones y legalidad," Nexos, 195 (March 1994...
...The key question is whether consensus in these pressures are enough to fuel a Mexico has democratic ruprendered the ture...
...Unable to meet the demands of sectors accustomed to a flow of material benefits, the party lost support among its bases...
...He fell from 45% to 38% in the polls...
...dangerous climate for the August 1994 election...
...This realization creates a unprecedented pre-electoral pact-the Pact for Peace, Democracy, and Justice-among eight political parties, including the PRI, the PAN and the PRD...
...An overwhelmed and weakened Salinas had to fight against prominent members of his party to impose his choice, the technocrat Ernesto Zedillo...
...The Colosio assassination propelled Mexican public opinion towards the center-right, in support of continuity, law and order...
...In NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 26REPORT ON MEXICO one fell swoop, the debate changed the country's political panorama...
...Left: Demonstrators burn a PRI "coffin" containing an effigy of Salinas to protest fraudulent elections in 1988...
...9. Peter Hakim, "NAFTA and After: A New Era for the US and Latin America," Current History, Vol...
...Several of them belong to the local PRI, and had worked in security-related activities, including the avowed protection of the PRI's presidential candidate...
...Throughout the NAFTA debate, Clinton adopted the Salinas stance on Mexican democracy, considering it an inevitable by-product of free trade...
...Although the Administration has recognized that Chiapas illustrated the serious challenges-poverty and legitimate grievances among the dispossessed-that Mexico faces, it has been reluctant to address the broader issue of Mexican democracy...
...7. Jonathan Fox, "Targeting the Poorest: The Role of the National Indigenous Institute in Mexico's National Solidarity Program," in Wayne Cornelius, Ann Craig, and Jonathan Fox, eds., Transforming State-Society Relations in Mexico: The National Solidarity Strategy (La Jolla, California: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, UCSD, 1994...
...PRI candidate Zedillo revealed one serious weakness: his incapacity to react as a politician...
...But instead of having a presidential bearing, Cirdenas seemed wooden, sullen, illprepared, and perhaps worst of all, surprised...
...Given that the position of numerous international actors regarding the promotion of democracy in Mexico hinges on U.S...
...2. For a post-mortem analysis of Colosio and the political implications of his assassination see Enrique Krauze, "PRI-Occupied," The New Republic, April 25, 1994...
...His campaign strategy has focused on select public appearances with key groups, numerous radio and television interviews, and a deluge of nation-wide propaganda...
...The battle over Colosio's successor merely exacerbated the existing divisions...
...Credibility, however, is a scarce commodity in Mexico these days, particularly given unresolved questions regarding the Colosio assassination...
...Cevallos poked fun at Zedillo's technocratic background, calling him "a good boy who got good grades, but who failed the democracy test...
...4) Setting clear limits and rules regarding party financing, campaign spending, equal access to the media, and the role of electoral observers...
...Its numerous defeats and its difficulty in winning relatively minor elections have reduced its ranks...
...She is the author of Neopopulist Solutions to Neoliberal Problems: Mexico's National Solidarity Program (Center for U. S.-Mexican Studies, 1991...
...The Cdrdenas message in 1994 is relatively more moderate than it was in 1988...
...6. Alonso Lujambio, "El Callej6n con Salida: Las Elecciones Presidenciales de 1994," Instituto Tecnol6gico Aut6nomo de Mexico, (mimeo), April 1994...
...Whatever the "Salinastroika outcome, the August 1994 election without PRisnost" will be the most formula highly scrutinized and watched elecuntenable, tion in Mexico's history...
...A PRI victory, however, becomes plausible only if Zedillo is able to develop and effectively deploy the political skills he now lacks...
...He gambled on the sheer power of his allegedly superior intelligence...
...8 International scrutiny will undoubtedly raise the costs of a PRI-managed, fraudulent election...
...Mexican history has a strange way of repeating itself...
...Special Prosecutor (and Salinas crony) Miguel Montes has announced that at least seven other menaside from the assassin, Mario Aburto-were involved in what has been deemed a "low-grade conspiracy...
...But several lessons are becoming clear in the wake of Mexico's recent troubles...
...581 (March 1994...
...Mexico was viewed as the beacon of hope, progress and stability in a continent littered with political failures and economic mishaps...
...Clinton has welcomed a "new convergence of values" in the Americas and called for the United States and Latin American nations to join in constructing a "Western Hemisphere Community of Democracies...
...Cevallos won because he metamorphosized into a right-wing caudillo...
...The televised debate also placed the three main contenders on equal footing for the first time, and thus contributed to Mexico's political evolution...
...In addition, the political void resultant from Colosio's death revealed the weaknesses of a political strategy that centered exclusively on the use and abuse of presidential power...
...Mexico is witnessing the emergence of incipient forms of citizenship that could become the building blocks of a transition...
...The debate revealed to the PRI, the PAN, and the PRD that public support is not a given...
...5 Although the new electoral reforms make fraud more difficult and costly, the PRI still enjoys obvious advantages, including the financial support of the country's wealthiest businessmen, and media coverage skewed in its favor...
...The Chiapas revolt led to the signine of an Right: PRI candidate Ernesto Zedillo...
...In the wake of the Chiapas upheaval and the Colosio assassination, the PRI is offering continuity and stability, while both the left- and right-wing opposition have centered their challenge on the lack of democracy, the existence of entrenched corruption, and the need for a systemic change that would lead to government accountability...
...The government did not announce the winner...
...Because both Zedillo and the PRI know that he has to win the election for the time-honed political system to prevail, the temptation to assure that outcome will be great...
...Over half the population watched transfixed as Cevallos went straight for the jugular of his two main opponents in the debate, and left them reeling under the onslaught of his verbal jests...
...His new-found moderation is clearly an attempt VOL XXVIII, No 1JULY/AUGUST 1994 25 VOL XXVIII, No 1 JULY/AUGUST 1994 25REPORT ON MEXICO to combat the government-sponsored imagery of him and his party as intransigent, violent political forces, linked to the Chiapas rebels...
...Post-electoral mobilizations, anti-government protests, independent electoral observation and monitoring efforts, the ascendency of avowed reformists such as the mercurial ex-mayor of Mexico City, Manuel Camacho: all these events represent incremental challenges eating away at traditional political mores...
...His economic plan is rather vague and oftentimes fraught with contradictions...
...By nurturing economic development in Mexico via NAFTA, the argument goes, a democratic opening would ineluctably follow...
...Armed with his most powerful weapon-moral authority--Crdenas, just like his counterpart in the PRI, also believed that he could win merely by appearing presidential...
...Whether or not Ctrdenas decides to play the "all or nothing" card will ultimately depend on the credibility of the election, and on his political momentum...
...22REPORT ON MEXICO Los Pinos...
...Salinas turned out to be Gorbachev...
...The hastily chosen PRI candidate is now one of the three main contenders in the August 23 presidential election, along with left-leaning Cuauht6moc Cdrdenas of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and center-right Diego Fernmndez de Cevallos of the National Action Party (PAN...
...Mexico was not the next Singapore but the next Russia...
...Well armed with an acerbic tongue and a combative style Diego FernAndez de Cevallos, the candidate of the right-wing PAN, won the debate and emerged as a serious contender in the August election...
...Zedillistas and priistas know that their survival is at stake...
...n the forthcom- ing presidential elections, the PRI faces the dual task of winning the contest, and doing so in a credible fashion...
...Credibility, however, is a scarce commodity in Mexico these days...
...The ruling party may want to steal the election, but it may not be able to do so without unleashing further havoc...
...Clinton's response suggests that the Administration has not yet articulated a strategy for assisting Mexico to strengthen its democratic institutions...
...Some organizations linked to Cardenismo in 1988 have dropped out of the alliance...
...His support in the polls jumped from 14% to 31...
...Cdrdenas is at his best when he waves the banners of the dispossessed and the disaffected, and at his worst when he outlines the specifics of the cardenista development model...
...Although Cirdenas' personal popularity has kept his presidential bid afloat, support for his party has not extended beyond 20% of the electorate...
...One debate does not democracy make, but the candidates' first crossfire may have shown the Mexican people the stuff of which competitive elections are made...
...6 By condemning the elections, inciting massive anti-government demonstrations, and blocking access to the National Palace, Cirdenas could force a democratic rupture...
...3) Suppressing the electoral colleges and the winning party's ability to certify the legitimacy of the electoral process (autocalificacidn), and strengthening the supervisory role of autonomous bodies such as the Federal Electoral Institute and the Federal Electoral Tribunal...
...Salinas' selection of the PRI candidate through the traditional "dedazo" (the incumbent President's hand-picked selection of his successor) has raised questions about Zedillo's independence and whether the outgoing president will attempt to govern behind the scenes...
...In 1928 President-elect Alvaro Obreg6n was assassinated, inaugurating an era of uncertainty that ended with the creation of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI...
...Zedillo will attempt to seize the torch, further the Colosio cause, and build on the political capital that martyrdom has so generously granted the PRI...
...4 The causes of Colosio's assassination remain an enigma...
...This could, however, be the PRI's last temptation...
...The assassination has revealed that the Mexican political class is at war against itself.' After Colosio's death, a raging battle over the course of Mexico's future took place behind closed doors at the presidential residence of NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Denise Dresser is a Mexican political scientist based at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) in Mexico City...
...Throughout the Salinas term, groups within the PRI Guti6rrez Barrios...
...Questions remain whether Cirdenas can engineer this strategic shift in a credible fashion, given that he spent five years debunking the main tenets of the Salinas reform program...
...The current state of the Mexican economy is providing him with a great deal of grist for the mill, and if the situation further deteriorates (for example if a devaluation unleashes economic chaos), Cdrdenas' position could be strengthened...
...While polls reveal a strong lead for the PRI, over 30% of the electorate remains undecided...
...Confronted with Cevallos' attacks, he behaved as his party usually does: he ignored the opposition...
...In all likelihood, an "official" story will be marketed to the public, scapegoats will be found and condemned, and Colosio's death will join the lengthy list of unsolved assassinations headed by that of John F. Kennedy...
...The big loser of the debate, however, was Cdrdenas...
...The Impending Elections: The Only Certainty is Uncertainty 1. See Alma Guillermoprieto, "Letter from Mexico City: Losing the Future," The New Yorker, April 4, 1994...
...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 24REPORT ON MEXICO Although the announcement suggests that groups within the ruling party conspired against Colosio, it is unclear what their motivations were, whose instructions they were following, and whether those instructions emanated from the party's upper echelons...
...But uncertainty is the essence of democracy, in Mexico as elsewhere...
...The debate highlighted his vices and revealed few of his virtues...
...Displaced by a technocratic team intent on implementing economic reform, and wracked by internal factionalism, the party was increasingly marginalized from the decision-making process...
...He remains, however, very critical of the government's "discretionary" privatization policies, and the technocrats' obsessiveness with achieving macroeconomic success as measured by First-World indicators...
...His biting wit and self-assured, aggressive demeanor won praise from a population trained to admire men with a heavy hand...
...Although an amateur Zapruder-like video has revealed that the assassin did not act alone, Mexicans may never be privy to the truth...
...Zedillo is admired for his technical expertise but faulted for his political ineptitude...
...Congressman declared during the NAFTA debate on Capitol Hill...
...Since its founding in 1929, the PRI has functioned successfully as a pragmatic coalition of interests, based on the organized inclusion of the working class, peasants, bureaucrats and the military...
...A key problem is that in its transition from a social movement to a political party, Cardenismo has been plagued over the past six years by bureaucratization and infighting...
...Ultimately the lack of institutionalized mechanisms for generating consensus in Mexico has rendered the "Salinastroika without PRIsnost" formula untenable...
...the public did...
...2) Eliminating the "governability clause" that automatically assigned 51% of the seats in Congress to the party that obtained over 35% of the vote...
...A broad coalition of NGOs, for instance, recently banded together under the umbrella of the so-called Civic Alliance for the purpose of promoting independent electoral supervision...
...It is obvious that Mexico is undergoing a turbulent transition...
...Upon his death, Colosio was endowed by Mexican public opinion with the noble attributes he seemed to lack while alive...
...The Clinton Administration's response to events in Chiapas and the Colosio assassination has been guarded and cautious...
...Given the climate of insecurity that prevails as a result of the assassination and the kidnappings of two prominent businessmen, Zedillo is avoiding mass public rallies...
...P Center: PAN candidate Diego Fernindez de Cevallos...
...Washington is making democratic procedures a condition for preferential economic treatment in most of the world...
...Zedillo's political appointments, including the new Secretary of Information and Propaganda of the PRI, are vintage members of the country's dinosaurial guard...
...They are The lack of significant insofar as they represent institutionalized the emergence of a more mature and mechanisms for activist political generating culture...
...4. See Jose Antonio Crespo, "Credibilidad electoral: La cuadratura del circulo," Este Pais, No...
...Mexicans will believe the results of the ongoing investigation as much as Americans trusted the findings of the Warren Commission...
...We may not know beforehand which party will win, who will get elected, or how that president will exercise power...
...Or so many Mexicans were led to believe...
...The Clinton Administration has staked out the global defense and promotion of democracy as one of the pillars of its Latin American policy agenda...
...Free-market reformists favored Salinas' economic-liberalization policies, while old-guard bureaucrats decried the death of the interventionist state...
...He offers continuity with "revisions...
...This process will be open-ended, its outcome uncertain...
...The power struggle pitted Salinas against Colosio supporters, reformists against the old guard, and ultimately, the PRI against the PRI...
...Until the investigation is resolved, Zedillo's image will be tainted by association with a party whose involvement in the Colosio assassination remains suspect...
...The race promises to be the most competitive, scrutinized and controversial in Mexico's history...
...Left: PRD candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas...
...The centerpiece of his campaign is a call for renewed government intervention in virtually all areas (education, agriculture, social welfare, and industry) to assure renewed economic growth...
...policy, that policy may have to be modified...
...Right: A woman weeps next to Colosio's coffin the day after his assassination in March, 1994...
...In the midst of a political crisis whose parameters change daily, the only certainty in Mexico's future is uncertainty...
...And just like the PRI, he paid a very high price: he presented himself as an insecure, inexperienced and cornered candidate...
...Cuauhtrmoc Cirdenas may not gain enough momentum to significantly undercut Zedillo, but Cdrdenas could exercise veto power by refusing to accept the results of a perceived fraudulent election...
...He arrived ensconced in the typically arrogant attitude of a member of the PRI, feeling that he owed no explanations and did not have to debate anyone...
...In order to assure the unity of the party, Zedillo is tapping into the traditional strongholds of power, and appealing to some of the most conservative forces within the ruling party...
...3. See "Entrevista Zedillo: 'Esto es lo que hare,"' Epoca, No...
...If Zedillo runs too much of a traditional campaign, resuscitates too many of the PRI's standard operating procedures, and relies on too many of the party's voices of the past, the pendulum of public opinion could swing back in favor of change and against the ruling party...
...In this pact (subsequently voted into law), the country's main political forces agreed to make the electoral authorities impartial, carry out an external audit of the voterregistration list, guarantee equitable access to the media, prohibit the use of public resources for partisan purposes, review the Penal Code in order to define and punish "electoral crimes," name a special prosecutor for electoral crimes, and change the composition of the Federal Electoral Tribunal (IFE) to reduce the weight of the government and political parties...
...His tenure as Education Minister was clouded by controversy stemming from his rocky relationship with the powerful teachers' union and by his failed attempt to institute new history textbooks that many mainstream academics found unacceptable, largely because controversial actors in Mexico's history-including dictator Porfirio Diaz, the U.S...
...government--can contribute to Mexico's political evolution by nurturing independent organizations and institutions, by emphasizing the protection of human rights, by stressing the advantages of free and fair elections via indirect diplomatic channels, and by underscoring the need for international election observers...
...Mexico was riding on the crest of a wave, ready to assume its place as an up-and-coming Latin American tiger...
...image...
...His next incarnation as Colosio's campaign manager further contributed to diminish his image, as pundits blamed him for the campaign's mediocrity and mishaps...
...BY DENISE DRESSER efore masked guerrillas stormed down the hills in the southern state of Chiapas, and the ruling party's presidential hopeful was gunned down in a dusty colonia on the northern border, Mexico-from Tijuana to San Crist6bal de las Casas-seemed poised at the threshold of the First World...
...In 1994 the party's presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, shared the same fate, and once again the country's political future is at a painful crossroads...
...As events in Chiapas underscored, NAFTA, Pronasol and reduced inflation are no longer sufficient to keep the "other" Mexico at bay...
...Support can be won and lost by exposure to the media...
...The Salinas team won a major battle by imposing Zedillo over a disgruntled and divided party...
...The decisive actors in Mexico's transition process will, however, be internal rather than external...
...Whatever happens from now on will be the result of a tug of war between the Mexican people and their government...
...Cdrdenas' gamble might be to call for an interim president, a provisional Constituent Assembly, and a new round of elections in 1995...
...9 Its policy towards Mexico, however, exemplifies the ambiguities and contradictions that plague the Administration's new stance...
...After Subcomandante Marcos seized the country's political imagination and Colosio's death clouded it, Mexico suddenly became the next Peru: a country on the brink of revolutionary upheaval, immersed in chaos, ensconced in the past, at the mercy of barbarians and caudillos...
...But in return President Salinas was forced to sacrifice his Chief of Staff, Jos6 C6rdoba Montoya-who was "reassigned" to the Inter-American Development Bank-in order to garner the support of C6rdoba's numerous enemies within the party...
...His defeat led the candidate of the leftist Worker's Party, Cecilia Soto, to declare that her miniscule organization had moved up to the third place in the presidential contest, had "voluntarily" dropped to the :ted the volatility of the Mexican political scenario, in which public preferences can change overnight...
...Up to now, the traditionalists appear to be holding the upper hand...
...The technobureaucrats have yet to win the war for control of the PRI...
...For the first time in Mexico's history, an independent Federal Electoral Tribunal will assess the outcome of the electoral process, and electoral fraud will be sanctioned by the law...
...process of candidate selection and promote individual affiliations, while traditionalists sought to maintain the party's age-old structures and standard operating procedures...
...rumor mill has laid the blame on a gamut of political players who possibly stood to benefit from Colosio's demise: drug traffickers, Salinas himself seeking to replace a perceived bad choice, the Zapatista rebels, or hardliners within the PRI attempting to destabilize the country by discrediting Salinas...
...President Salinas was hailed as the Mexican Lee Kwan Yew, the great modernizer, "one of us," as an enthusiastic U.S...
...Zedillo faces the daunting task of constructing a broad-based coalition of support among disputing factions, many of which vehemently opposed his candidacy...
...Politics reached peoples' homes and psyches...
...External actors-including the U.S...
...Time and again, Zedillo seemed to prove that he did not have any...
...As Jonathan Fox has argued, the National Solidarity Program (Pronasol) has created enclaves of pluralist bargaining in some areas of the country...
...Zedillo arrived with a well-constructed, prefabricated speech that he had been advised not to depart from...
...The Mexican The PRI faces the dual task of winning the presidential elections, and doing so in a credible fashion...
...Instead of standing passively by on the sidelines, the population participated, observed and judged...
...His perceived political weaknesses and the vacuum created by Colosio's death have opened windows of opportunity for feuding factions within the party who are attempting to exploit Zedillo's need for political advice to further their own agenda...
...Adversaries within the PRI will probably unite to assure the party's permanence-in other words, the ruling party will close ranks...
...Even more so than before, the three parties will have to behave as though the electorate really mattered...
...n the midst of Mexico's unprecedented political uncertainty, Cuauht6moc Cdrdenas is attempting to present himself as a moderate center-left alternative...
...He was shocked that his political foe on the right would call his PRI past into question, and condemn him as a Janus-faced, hypocritical leader not to be trusted...
...31, October 1993...
...He has accepted the inevitability of free trade, and the need to maintain sound public finances, while vehemently disavowing suggestions that he would nationalize the banks, and return to the protectionist policies of the past...
...Integration with the United States and Canada has entailed not only the movement of goods and capital, but also the flow of communication, people and ideas from abroad...
...His victory transformed what pundits had predicted would be a two-way race between Zedillo and C6rdenas into a three-party contest...
...Doubts are surfacing whether support for C.rdenas can be effectively translated into support for the PRD...
...This may guarantee the PRI's support, but it could very well prove to be the recipe for fraudulent elections and post-electoral turmoil...
...Instead of importing American goods and Jeffersonian values, Mexico had imported civil war and political assassination...
...The PRI was not modernizing itself but rather cannibalizing its own...
...For the first time in over 60 years, pundits cannot predict if the ruling party will win the next presidential election, if the elections will be fraudulent, if President Salinas will leave office with a bang or with a whimper, or who the unfinished investigation surrounding Colosio's death will blame...
...The PRI's objective will be to inextricably link the two figures in the minds of the voting public...
...But civic and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly willing to bet on the unknown, and to venture out into unexplored political territory...
...Nor has it decided how much it wants a democratic Mexico, and how much it is prepared to invest in that outcome, beyond a $6 billion line of credit to defend the peso after the Colosio assassination...
...Prior to the debate Cevallos had been trailing far collecting expensive cars, his social conservatism, and his willingness to endorse the PAN's legislative marriage of convenience with the PRI throughout the Salinas term made him a controversial figure...
...Instead of rigging the elections, the PRI may be forced to work at winning them...
...Cirdenas is attempting to shed his statist, populist image, and present himself as a modernizer with a social conscience...
...Or so many foreigners feared...
...Cirdenas' prospects were altered-for the worseby the country's first televised presidential debate...
...Increasingly his political offer seems to be geared to assuage domestic and international investors...
...In the past, the costs of overlooking Mexico's authoritarian regime were almost insignificant, but North American integration has heightened those costs...
...While one faction of the party supported the emblematic "party man" and president of the PRI, Fernando Ortiz Arana, other hardline groups advocated the return of the emblematic "law and order man," former Minister of the Interior Fernando Perhaps the PRI's most powerful weapon is Colosio himself, and the legacy he leaves in his wake...
...In order to win the election, Zedillo will attempt to ride on Colosio's postmortem popularity, and the assured onslaught of support for the ruling party from those who equate democracy with chaos...
...government, and foreign investors-were portrayed in a more favorable light...
Vol. 28 • July 1994 • No. 1
