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What Style Democracy for Mexico?
| Article
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15003 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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9 / 1988 |
2,023 Words |
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James Dorsey
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The ruling party's Carlos Salinas de Gortari may be Mexico's new president, but disputes over the validity of the hotly contested vote that brought him to power and deep divisions within the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) threaten to make him a disputed leader.
"I belong to a new generation, the one of national renovation, the one that is modernizing Mexico," Salinas told the crowds last year after he was presented as the PRI's successor to outgoing President Miguel de la Madrid.
But a series of tactical errors by the PRI in the days following the July 6 elections--the greatest was the severe delay in the announcement of at least partial results of the vote--have cast doubt on Salinas' sincerity and ability as a reformer.
During fierce campaigning, Salinas committed the PRI, which has ruled Mexico for nearly 60 years, to clean and honest elections. Aware that his credibility rested at least in part on a relatively small margin of victory, Salinas argued strenuously against announcing the traditional election majority of more than 70 percent.
With an official election result that gave him just barely an absolute majority, Salinas appeared to have won an initial victory. But Mexico's foremost government opponent, left-wing National Democratic Front leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, and other opposition leaders sharply disputed the official election results that gave Salinas 50.3 percent compared with 31.3 percent for Cardenas and 17.7 percent for Manuel de Jesus Clouthier of the National Action Party (PAN).
Opposition distrust was fueled by the government's failure to fulfill its promise to announce election results within hours of the closing of the polling station--a move that appeared to seriously damage Salinas' credibility.
PRI claimed that Salinas had won the ballot even before the votes were completely counted. This was countered by similar claims by Cardenas and Clouthier.
In addition, political analysts said Salinas engaged in some of the campaign practices employed by his predecessors, such as payment to journalists covering him. Moreover, shortly before the elections, large crowds were lured to a rally organized by the PRI-backed Confederation of Mexican Workers by offers of free tickets to a soccer game.
Cardenas, a former PRI member who headed a faction that tried to reform the party from within before breaking away from it, has vowed to wage a long-term protest involving demonstrations and sit-ins. Cardenas hopes that Congress will fail to ratify the election results bringing Salinas to power when it convenes in September. Initially he tested the waters, allowing Clouthier's PAN to take the lead in publicly opposing the election results.
The delay in announcing the results and Cardenas' public restraint fueled rumors that Salinas' attempts to keep his victory as small as possible had been initially opposed by the PRI's old guard and that the party might be negotiating secretly with Cardenas, and possibly, Clouthier. Both Cardenas and Clouthier have rejected this notion. "The issue is the defense of democracy," snapped
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