JCG-12 Mexico City
December, 1966
“The Partido Revolucionario Institucional is indestructible. PRI has the conviction that, because of the law and the support of the institutions it has established in Mexico, it is invulnerable. The people have faith in the PRI because they are convinced that only by the roads traveled by the Mexican Revolution will they manage to satisfy their demands and their problems. For Mexicans, the first value is the man; for him our political activity has to guarantee his dignity under the law.”
– PRI national chairman Lauro Ortega, in a speech April 19 at the Teatro Melchor Ocampo in Morelia.
Once when I was very young I owned a little dog named General George S. Blood and Guts Patton, who devoted his life to the loud and enthusiastic pursuit of automobiles. One afternoon an old gentleman named Jim Craig watched Pat’s performance from, his porch swing and exclaimed: “Look at that! I never saw a dog make a 1939 Ford run so fast.”
Jim Craig and General George S. Blood and Guts Patton (the dog, not the distinguished soldier) came to my mind frequently the last ten months as I watched Lauro Ortega’s PRI bark furiously around Mexico trying to convince people it runs the country. Oh, the commotion is confusing, and is apt to deceive the unwary: Political scientists publish solemn tomes about the wonders of PRI. Visiting politicians from the United States are always impressed with PRI’s handsome office building on Avenida Insurgentes Norte and wistfully dream of duplicating both the opulence and the voting percentages. Tacho Somaza, who runs Central America’s most efficient dictatorship, confided to an Excelsior reporter last summer that he envied PRI and wished he had one of his own. And I admit that PRI’s reputation initially blinded me; my first few months here I frequently used the adjective “dominant” when referring to the party. And if one went no further than the official election returns a case can be made for PRI’s prowess. Since its founding in 1929 as the “official party” of Mexico (under another name, but with unbroken genealogy), PRI has not lost a single race for president, governor or senator, Occasionally an isolated town elects an opposition alcalde (mayor) or sends a maverick deputy to Mexico City. But under normal circumstances a local jefe who doesn’t win by 90 percent in sacked for inefficiency.
Nonetheless PRI has second-banana status in the Mexican power structure. During one brief period in the 1930a the then president, General Lazaro Cardenas, attempted to make the party work in practice as it was supposed to do on paper. The attempt failed, Mexico veered towards electoral anarchy, and PRI reverted to what it had been previously: A cardboard facade which allows an inner clique to rule Mexico while convincing the bulk of the outside world (and Mexicans, too) that there is a “democracy” in the country.
PRI indeed in an impressive front: Its three sectors, labor, farm and popular, contain perhaps six million adherents, compared with less than half a million formal members of the other three legally recognized parties.
Yet one element is conspicuously lacking in the PRI ranks – membership of the banking, industrial and commercial interests which have shaped the country’s domestic policies and politics since the presidential administration of Miguel Aleman (1946-52). These persons emphatically decline suggestions that they formalize their role in Mexican politics by grouping into a fourth sector of PRI. “It would be a grand error,” industrialist Juan Sanchez Navarro said this month, ‘an absurdity.” This inner group, allied closely with, and occasionally overlapping, the top layer of government, views PRI as a harmless plaything with which the masses can amuse themselves. The government is sufficiently sprinkled with persons who claim heirship to the Mexican Revolution of 1910-17 to give credence to the myth that the Revolution is still alive. The claimed continued existence of the Revolution is almost as much a sham as is PRI. It died in the third or fourth year of Aleman’s regime. The preserved carcass is brought out for national holidays and exhibited to the people with much hoopla and oratory, although the crowds are kept at a safe distance so that no one can attempt to feel the now-silent pulse. No one active in Mexican politics is willing to admit to the death, for
PRI flattens the opposition Partido Accion Nacional. From Ultimas Noticias, Mexico City afternoon daily.
the Revolution continues to possess considerable magic among persons who still believe their government Is a continuation of what was began by Madero, Zapata and Villa, and continued by Calles and Cardenas. Too, it’s handy for a politician to be able to yell that his opponent is “anti-Revolution.”
How It Began
The most unfortunate byproduct of the Mexican Revolution was a surplus of victors. The Revolution was a series of regional wars, fought by armies and generals lacking coordination and a community of interests, in a vast, relatively primitive land with no effective communications. The immediate target, President Porfirio Diaz dictator since 1876, was toppled in 1911, but no one revolutionary faction could claim credit for the triumph. It was the bloodshed after the Revolution “ended” that left Mexico in trauma. The roster of victims is a Quien es Quien of the Revolution: Francisco 1. Madero, the first popularly-elected president, assassinated in 1913; Emiliano Zapata, the Attila of the South, who gave an agrarian flavor to the Revolution, assassinated in 1919; Venustiano Carranza, first president elected under the Constitution of 1917, assassinated in 1920; Francisco (Pancho) Villa, the Caudillo of the North, who degenerated into banditry after being nudged from the Revolutionary inner circle, assassinated in 1923; and General Alvaro Obregon, who first supported, and then betrayed Carranza, assassinated in 1928. In summary, the major Revolutionary figures killed one another off, in Greek tragedy fashion, and the fraticide seemed destined to last indeterminably. No central government or force existed which could claim the fealty of plundering, ambitious generals and state political bosses whose greed was matched only by their absolute autonomy.
Little altruism was involved in the founding of what was to become PRI. Then as now, the official party was the creature of whoever happened to be the strongest force in Mexico. The important point established by the official party, however, was provision of a pseudo-democratic framework through which the strong man (or group) could exert his will, and which was sufficiently flexible to permit him to adjust when pressures from other interests became annoying.
The structure of the official party, and the channels through which various groups let their desires be felt, has varied from president to president. The important element – subordination of the party to the president and to the people around him – has remained substantially the same.
General Plutarco Elias Calles set up the official party in 1929. He was prominent in the Revolution and also as a defender of the post-Revolutionary government of Carranza; it was Calles, victory at Agua Prieta in 1916 that effectively removed Pancho Villa from national politics. Calles was also the first president elected under the Constitution of 1917 to go through his political life without assassination. History supports two motives for Calles’ founding of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR, or National Revolutionary Party): (a) his desire to continue his domination of Mexico without violating the constitutional ban on re-election of a president; (b) his recognition that unless someone took control of the country in a tolerably legal fashion, Mexico would fall into the anarchy common to Latin America. Thus Calles issued join-or-else invitations to the bickering factions.
Through the PNR Celles offered an arena for resolution of presidential successions without violence, and with consideration for all viewpoints. The idea worked because Calles was the man with the most muscle at the right time. The party gave war-weary generals and politicians a face-saving avenue to cessation of hostilities in the name of national unity. Generals and politicians who attempted to remain outside the official party were decimated (one military victim was the general father of Miguel Aleman, less than two decades later an official party president).
Wary of violating the no-reelection rule, Calles operated from behind a shadow president, Pascual Ortiz Rubio, whose chief qualification was invisibility. Calles broke the power of the caciques – the state and municipal political bosses – by giving a federal ministry, Gobernacion, control of elections, and the authority to announce “results” without the bother of a count, individual citizens were herded into the official party rather than into personal organizations of the caciques. Local bosses who tried to remain outside the official party found themselves stripped of federal funds and patronage. In 1929, the year the PNR was chartered, 61 parties took part in assorted elections in Mexico; four years later the number had been reduced to four-and none of the “outsider” groups worried Calles and the PNR, Calles’ anointed presidential candidate, General Lazaro Cardenas, another Revolutionary hero, received 98.19 per cent of the total vote.
Cardenas’ peaceful succession to the presidency, and what he did thereafter, established some basic ground rules for conduct of the official party that are still observed today:
First, he almost immediately asserted his independence from ex-president Calles, who for a while attempted to continue his behind-the-Palace control of Mexico. Cardenas jousted with his one-time mentor, ignored him, then finally put him on an airplane and told the pilot not to stop until he saw the palm trees of Brownsville, Texas beneath his wings. Mexicans accepted the deportation of the once powerful general and president with scarcely a mutter. And no ex-president since then has attempted to control his successor.
Second, Cardenas made a 180-degree turn in the course of Mexican government. The Revolutionary fires kindled by Madero, Zapata and Villa had been banked by Carranza, Obregon and Calles; Cardenas rekindled them and threw on a few dashes of gasoline (notably the nationalization of oil properties) to make them spring higher. By doing so he showed that a Mexican president was not Irrevocably bound to the policies of his predecessor, and that from an ideological standpoint the official party was whatever the president decreed it should be. The rule has been affirmed time and again in modern Mexican history. Niguel Aleman, for instance, has about as much ideological common ground with Cardenas as Bobby Kennedy does with Lester Maddox or George Wallace.
Third, through a “sector” form of organization, Cardenas made it virtually impossible for a second party to have any chance of surpassing the official party’s strength. In 1936 he brought all labor leaders together into a massive assembly in which was created the Confederacion de Trabajadores de Mexico (CTM, or Confederation of Mexican Workers). He demanded that the ejidatorios who gained land through his agrarian reform program affiliate with campesino groups, which in turn made up the Confederacion NacionalCampesina (CNC, or National Farmers Confederation). Again, all government workers and teachers (excepting the top ten per cent) were melded into the Federacion de Sindicatos de Trabajadores en el Servicio del Estado (FSTSE, or Federation of Syndicates of Workers in the Service of the State). Professional soldiers were put into a fourth broad grouping. With this spadework behind him Cardenas killed the PNR and replaced it with the Partido de la Revolucion Mexicana (PRM, or Party of the Mexican Revolution), with the slogan, “For a democracy of workers,” Party membership was changed from a geographical basis to one based on occupation and the four groups outlined above became the official “sectors.”
The sector grouping gave Mexicans scant opportunity to join other parties, even had they so desired. If a man works at a plant whose union is a CTM affiliate, he goes automatically into the official party. If he lives in an ejido, he is in the official party. If he works for the government, as minor clerk or teacher, he is in the official party. The sector structure devised by Cardenas is still intact today with two exceptions: The military sector was disbanded in the early 1940s on the ground that soldiers should not have such a role in the political process. A new “popular” sector was inaugurated which took in the FSTSE – the Confederacion Nacional de Organizaciones Populares (CNOP, or National Confederation of Popular Organizations). This catchall group includes everyone from professional men to small merchants, taxi drivers, organ grinders, intellectuals and youths. Numerically it is the official party’s largest wing.
Cardenas apparently made an honest attempt to rule Mexico through the mechanism of the “special interest sector” democracy. But the presidential elections of 1940 proved that the system did not guarantee electoral stability, and that the official party, if permitted true Internal democracy, would devour itself. By choosing the relatively conservative Manuel Avila Camacho as his successor, Cardenas angered the farm and labor sectors. The army, meanwhile, wanted General Juan Andreu Almazan because of its wariness of Communist involvement in the official party in the farm and labor wings. (Vincente Lombardo Toledano, then CTM head, spent more time on Communist International matters than he did on Mexican workers.) The farm people liked a third candidate, General Francisco A. Mugica, a liberal. Blood and verbal bombast splattered the campaign. Although the official count gave Avila Camacho 93.89 percent of the vote, some old-timers in Mexico still believe an honest tabulation would have put General Almazan into office.
La Familia Revolucionaria
Mexico hasn’t risked democracy since 1940. Avila Camacho agreed with Cardenas that a further refinement of the official party was essential. The result was something that is variously called “The Revolutionary Family,” “The Revolutionary Coalition,” “The Circle,” or simply “They” I prefer the former, for the words la familia revolucionaria are heard most frequently among Mexican politicians and are also most commonly used by Mexican political journalists and analysts. Too, there are many familial factors found in the ruling group – a strong paternal figure at the top, a closeness among members akin to blood brotherhood, an aloofness from outsiders – that one also encounters in a Mexican family group.
The familia has an amorphous and undefined membership. It consists of those persons who the president (who is usually the family head) feels constrained to consult on major policy matters. Not everyone is asked for an opinion on every subject, nor does the president “count” votes before making his decisions. Some family members, also, weigh more than others: Cardenas, for example, would be able to veto a presidential candidate, or even a key gubernatorial choice, just as would Aleman or Adolfo Lopez Mateos, the other active living ex-presidents. A lower-rung familia member – Octaviano Campos Salas, the current Secretary of Industry and Commerce, to name one – could not block a candidate; what he could do is ring a warning bell so that the president can know his particular area of Mexican life might not be happy with the choice. Sector heads such as Fidel Velasquez, the onetime milkman who heads the CTM, and Amador Hernandez, leader of the CNC, receive attention but the influence they could exert would depend upon the type of issue involved. (Velasquez, who is now in President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz’ disfavor, probably would be hard-pressed to veto the appointment of a traffic cop in Tijuana.) Yet another level of familia member has an almost entirely advisory role. Certain intellectuals are called upon occasionally for opinions so that Mexico’s painters, writers and “thinkers” can feel they have a part in national life.
In some respects the process of familia consultation is reminiscent of the “consensus” finding technique once used so effectively by President Johnson. There is a key difference, however: Mr. Johnson can talk on the telephone all day and then do what he pleases. But no Mexican president would dare to overrule the familia and attempt to execute a policy, which he found to be directly contrary to its wishes.
Who makes up the familia? Common sense and deductive guessing would put these persons into the inner ranks: The governors of key states such as Nuevo Leon, Jalisco Michococan, Veracruz, Morelia, Sonora, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas; the regent of the Federal District; the heads of the Banco de Mexico, the Banco de Comercio system, the Nacional Financeria, and the Banco Longoria; such industrialists as Carlos Prieto of the Monterrey steel family, Juan Sanchez Navarro of the Modelo beer enterprises, Bruno Pagalai, who began his career as a waiter in Tijuana and amassed one of Mexico’s largest fortunes; key cabinet members such as the Secretaria de Gobernacion, Luis Echevarria, and Carrillo Flores, the foreign minister. When a president is a conservative, as is the case with Diaz Ordaz, his views are reflected in the family makeup. The private sector members almost without exception are non-PRI members, yet at present they exert more influence in familia circles than do the government officials.
Possession of the presidency does not guarantee familia control, as is illustrated by the case of Miguel Aleman. Under Aleman Mexico swung far far to the right, with labor paying the price (in low wages) for rapid industrialization, The discontent of workers became so widespread that Cardenas moved to a co-equal position with Aleman to restore balance to the familia. Before his control was diminished, however, Aleman signaled that the Mexican Revolution was over. In 1946, at his behest, the Party of the Mexican Revolution became the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI, or the Party of the Institutionalized Revolution), and the slogan, “For a democracy of workers,” was changed to “Democracy and social justice.” (The words “institutionalized revolution,” Mexicans are quick to point out, are a self-contained contradiction, for one connotates rigidity while the other connotates change. And while the United States occupies itself with a debate over whether “God is Dead,” Mexicans ask themselves, “Is the Mexican Revolution Dead?” The answer, of course, is “Yes,” and Aleman wrote the epitah when he chose the name PRI.)
How PRI is Organized
PRI’s usefulness to Mexico lies in its role of tool for the familia revolucionaria. As such it is only slightly parallel in function to a United States political party. Did not PRI exist the familia would have to devise another mechanism, for Mexican life demands a straw boss who can bring familia dictates to the municipal and neighborhood level. PRI’s three-sector organization – labor, agrarian and popular – theoretically is found at every level of government, from village through to national (although obviously there are no farm representatives in the industrial colonias of the Federal District, nor labor chairmen in the farming villages of Veracruz and Chiapas). The reins eventually reach the hands of the national chairman, who is not necessarily a familia member. On paper PRI has these functions:
Serving as a broadly based sounding board for the familia. What the PRI sector leaders hear among their members is duly reported back up the line through channels to PRI offices in Mexico City, and thence to the appropriate governmental official or familia member.
Relaying decisions of the familia to the public. In some instances the orders might be active, such as the command to turn out a crowd for President Johnson when he came to Mexico in April. (See JCG-2: A Presidential Visit.) In other instances it might be for PRI militantes not to become involved in an activity, such as the order warning members to have nothing to do with Carlos A. Madrazo, onetime party head. (More on Madrazo later.) This year the farm sector of the PRI was employed as a conduit through which the government sought to persuade ejido residents to accept private titles to the state-distributed farm properties, which they occupy. And it was PRI, which supplied public manifestations of support for Diaz Ordaz during the tedious days of the National University strike.
Sorting out a slate of candidates at all levels that will be acceptable to the familia. In this respect no village is too small to escape the national PRI office’s watchful eye.
Insuring that enough people vote to give PRI candidates a respectably sized rubber-stamp. Right now the PRI apparatus in the Federal District is training no less than 50,000 persons who will be responsible for getting residents to the polls in the 1967 elections there – elections the results of which are already PRI-ordained.
Propagandizing the Mexican public on the constant theme that “only PRI” is capable of “continuing the Mexican Revolution,” and that the opposition parties have naught in mind but a turn to (a) Communism, on the Dart of the leftist Partido Popular Socialista (Peoples Socialist Party) or (b) neo-fascism, by the conservative Partido Accion Nacional. PRI completely, usurps control of ceremonies honoring Revolutionary figures, and PRI wreathes are always the most prominent when there are fetes that call for the depositing of flowers at monuments.
Collecting enough money, through dues and thinly veiled graft, to pay for all of the above. The Mexican government is very cooperative in this respect with its quasi-partner. PRI youth groups obtain concessions in public buildings and parks. Shop stewards collect PRI dues along with union dues. A person who is unable to obtain a government permit on his own knows he can find a friend at PRI, and perhaps some of the money collected for services goes into the PRI till. A staff job at a PRI office can produce as much personal graft for an individual as he could find in a government bureau.
Theoretically, PRI’s broad base provides “automatic democracy” in the selection of party candidates. Members of the three sectors choose slates of nominees, and then the three sector leaders decide who is entitled to what job. If disputes arise, the chairman involved is supposed to be politician enough to work out a compromise. In probably the majority of cases this is exactly what happens. However, the next-higher step in the command ladder might decide that the persons chosen are unsuitable. If so, they are rejected out of hand. The supervising level may then order new nominees to be chosen, or impose its own choices without further consultation with the local sectors. It is not uncommon for state legislative candidates, or even municipal alcalde nominees, to survive all the way to the national level and then meet rejection. Given a choice between competency and reliability. PRI chooses the latter.
A requisite for success in FRI politics is proof of what is called “revolutionary militancy.” Thus novices spend a considerable amount of time uttering boring, fawning eulogies to higher-ranking politicians at unutterably long banquets and party rallies. An aspiring priista is conspicuous at a variety of political “musts” – national holiday ceremonies, functions of his home sector at all levels, any affair at which the president, governor or national or state party chairman is apt to appear. The Mexican press dotes on head-table photographs; anyone sitting within seven chairs of the guest of honor will probably make the next morning’s paper, even if the technical difficulties inherent in putting 15 faces into a two-column picture make for a certain murkiness of features.
Another way to gain prominence in PRI is to buy it. According to PAN representatives, nominations for alcalde start at 10,000 pesos ($800) in the smaller municipalities and range as high as one million pesos ($80,000) for the larger cities. The alcaldes have access to scant tax money, but their position gives them the opportunity to take a cut of the Federal monies that filter down, to award what municipal contracts there are to friends (or to themselves, for that matter), and to sell lesser jobs in the community. Memberships in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies are not for sale, however; these are reserved for the hierarchy of the three sectors as prestige positions.
Strengths of the Familia System
“It works.”
Those two words are the most frequently uttered endorsement of Mexico’s PRI-facaded government. Mexicans gripe constantly about their one-party system. Stand on the fringes of the crowd at a PRI rally, or a command performance of workers brought out for a parade, and the comments on the party officials present are ear-burning. Seldom save among the highest functionaries does one encounter anything approaching respect for PRI. The first time I asked a cab driver to take me to PRI headquarters in the Federal District he asked if I wouldn’t enjoy myself more at the Chapultepec Park Zoo. A friend of mine says that ten years ago he rode in a car with a PRI candidate during a campaign in a state west of Mexico City. The candidate had to roll up the windows because people kept spitting at him. He won by more than 90 percent of the vote.
“It works.”
A young Mexico City labor official, somewhat dismayed by the corruption and complacency among CTM officers, decided to do legwork on establishing a Mexican branch of the Christian Democratic Party, the group that is now dominant in Chile and which is attempting to establish electoral outposts in several other Latin American nations. Whether he should have done so or not I do not know, but the official sought the advice of a man in the political affairs section of the United States Embassy. The labor official says he was told: “We are not interested in anything you have to say about the Christian Democrats. We like PRI.” After a moment the U. S. diplomat added.
“It works.”
PRI has provided a mechanism for peaceful transitions of government unparallel in Latin America. Not since Calles’ opposition to Cardenas in 1934-6. Resulting eventually in his expulsion from the country has anyone of stature in PRI or the familia attempted to disrupt a Mexican presidency. PRI militantes who are bypassed in the presidential nomination process (the most important of all familia functions) accept the decision quietly if not always happily. Once a president leaves office he makes his influence felt through the familia rather than in public announcements. To use Lazaro Cardenas as an illustration: In the early 1950s he became totally disillusioned with Miguel Aleman and forced the incumbent president to share familia leadership when it became time to choose a successor. Had Cardenas challenged Aleman’s primacy in a public forum the left and right wings of PRI would have polarized around their respective leaders and shattered the party irreparably. By working from within PRI Cardenas persuaded the familia to select a middle-of-the-road candidate (Adolfo Ruiz Cortines) who was acceptable to, if not loved by, both factions. Again, in 1966, Cardenas exerted pressure on Diaz Ordaz when the present chief executive seemed ready to abandon the ej1do form of land ownership, and GDO went no further.
PRI’s top-to-bottom presence in Mexico insures uniform execution of policies backed by the familia – theory if not always in substance, PRI is broad enough to permit diversity of ideology, yet persons who hold office under its auspices are explicitly committed to support of the Mexican Revolution, as currently defined by the familia. For example, the familia won’t suddenly find itself burdened with a governor who decides to take his state out of the land reform program, because the screening and tight control it exercises over candidates (through PRI) makes virtually impossible the election of mavericks. The few who occasionally slip through can be removed in an afternoon’s time by the president and the Chamber of Deputies.
“The soldiers are in the library.” “And what are they reading?” – La Prensa’s comment on army intervention in Morelia university strike.
“Sure, it’s a dictatorship,” a Mexican official once told me candidly. “But don’t forget – we change the dictator every six years.” And indeed the familia system provides Mexico with a strong executive. The Mexican president, within the bounds of common sense and good taste, can rule as absolute monarch during his term. With familia advice he decides what legislation is to be passed by both federal and state assemblies. Through Gobernacion he controls the election of every alcalde in the Republic – and a man the president doesn’t want is not elected. Through other government ministries the president controls the foreign businessmen who are permitted to operate in Mexico, and to a large extent controls the profits of local industrialists. It is the president who can make land reform go fast or slow, for all parcels are distributed in his name. It is a presidential prerogative to say “ENOUGH” to any political movement, and when the word is spoken he can use the full power of his office – as was done this summer when Diaz Ordaz used the army to end a violent student strike in Morelia. By doing so he ignored the historic “autonomy” of Mexican universities, but scarcely a protest was heard (save for the predictably frothful yelps of the far-left and Politica, its twice-monthly megaphone). The La Prensa cartoon reprinted above is indicative of the “so what” attitude of most Mexicans towards the army intervention.
The familia system of demanding a consensus of opinion before a president is selected is of demonstrable value: In the 37 years of official-party history the familia has not made what could be termed a serious error in judging the caliber and course of action of its nominees. Each president has abided by the rules of Mexican politics when the time came for him to surrender the office. The system has produced Cardenas, an unexpected liberal, and the system has produced Aleman, a conservatives and the system now seems to have settled upon presidents slightly to the right of center (Ruiz Cortines, Lopea Mateos and Diaz Ordaz). There has been no appreciable difference in Mexican presidents since 1952, nor is there likely to be so as long as the current familia continues dominant (the drift if any, will be gradually away from the center towards the right).
The question for Mexico can be stated thusly: Where does stability end and where does stagnation begin?
Weaknesses of the Familia System
Because of its role as the familia-backed party, PRI is so omnipresent, so smothering, so demanding, that its very existence dissuades competent persons from entering politics. Except for the handful of persons prominent enough in familia (or PRI) circles to become involved in the nominating process, there is no meaningful participation in politics for the mass of Mexican citizens. Consequently elections are a national joke – and a not so funny one at that. A woman teacher tells of her visit to the polls in 1964, when Diaz Ordaz was running for president. “I think I’ll vote for Accion Nacional “ she said jestingly to the poll official. “ That’s all right,” he replied, “we won t count it anyway.”
By law the Federal Electoral Commission is composed of the Secretary of Gobernacion, a deputy, a senator, and representatives of three parties that are recognized (by Gobernacion) as legally constituted. This arrangement gives PRI four places – three public, one party – as opposed to two for the other parties, and no one of authority in the opposition seriously expects to threaten PRI until they attain equality or impartiality in the commission. (There is a similar composition of membership at state and municipal levels.) In November’s alcalde elections in the State of Mexico, PRI handily won 117 of 120 positions. When PAN nominees took the lead during counting in three villages – San Salvador Atenco, Capulhuac and San Antonio de la Isla – the state electoral commission, which is PRI-dominated, froze the proceedings and ordered an inquiry. After two weeks of humming and hawing the commission nullified the elections in the towns and declared it would seat provisional (i.e., PRI) officials. Such incidents discourage opposition parties from bothering to go to the expense of entering candidates.
As a further checkmate, outgoing members of the Chamber of Deputies have the right to approve or veto newly elected representatives, and are also final arbiters of an disputes that might arise in presidential elections (none have). “Can you really conceive,” an official of PAN asked me, “of a chamber dominated by PRI that would actually permit us to take our seats in the unlikely event we won a majority?” (No.)
The inevitable handmaiden of one-party government – be it in Philadelphia, Haiti, or Mexico – is corruption, and in modern Mexico graft is as institutionalized as is the Revolution and familia politics. Lacking a system of governmental checks and balances, and facing an opposition that has not the slightest chance of gaining power, and unfearing of a judiciary and prosecutor which are subservient to the familias politicians and bureaucrats consider plunder a privilege of office. Despite the high moral tone of the bulk of its membership, the familia permits graft as a tacit reward for politicians and offcials who have the day-by-day job of shamming democracy, A man pays a bribe to obtain a government job and is expected (nay, required) to pass on a share of the loot he collects from the citizens with whom he has dealings. Part of the $4 to $8 mordida (literally, bite) required for the most routine of Gobernacion papers reputedly goes as high in Mexican government as is possible without encountering the ghost of Juarezo Madero and other late national saints. Any industrial item brought into the country requires an import license from the Secretary of Industry and Commerce., and the categories are so loosely drawn, so indefinite, that every decision made by functionaries is ad hoc. Thus businessmen learn to take along a wad of peso notes – the larger the denomination the faster the service – when they seek a permit.
Industry and Commerce, which is also involved in the highly subjective business of setting tariffs, produces the most graft of any government office. Another lucrative agency is the Treasury, whose tax agents customarily threaten to confiscate a business’ books unless the manager is willing to pay a bribe during the most routine of inspections. (Since the agent’s superior obtains a share of the take, threats of complaint are futile; if anything protests tend only to increase the amount of the mordida.) Mexican business morals are on a par with those of the government, which gives the businessmen an incentive to pay the mordida; they know full well that virtually any set of books in the country contains evidence of tax-dodging or excessive profiteering.
Shakedowns can be performed under official color. In late 1961 the administration of president Adolfo Lopez Mateos ran short of cash, and treasury agents levied arbitrary “assessments” against a host of Mexico City business houses – concentrating on those in which there was a substantial United States interest. One norteamericano businessman says his “assessment” originally was pegged at $8,000 argued with the guy. He started picking up my books and putting them in his briefcase, as if to carry them out of the office. Without the books I’m dead for I can’t bill. We argued some more and he settled for $4,000. No receipt. But he did promise to let me count it as a deductible business expense for tax purposes.” A functionary charged with inspecting another company’s vehicles began his work by announcing that his superior expected 150 pesos ($12) per truck, else he would ground the entire fleet. The inspector said, “My own fee is negotiable. What do you offer?” The price eventually came to 200 pesos per truck – 150 for the superior, 50 for the inspector.
To assign PRI and the familia system sole blame for the mordida is unkind, for graft has been a part of Mexican life since the days of the Spanish Conquest. (Or perhaps even previously: Wags here say the first mordida recorded in Mexican history was that of the eagle biting the serpent, the scene depicted on the Mexican flag.) The Spaniards considered government and its functions to be just as much the Grown’s property as the royal lands. Thus if anyone wanted a governmental service he paid for it. From this distance it’s hard to equate a chiseling immigration agent in Reynosa, Tamp., with the King of Spain, but Mexican social scientists claim that the Conquest was the starting point. And PRI, so thoroughly overlapped by and enmeshed with the government, happily permits the system to continue. Only rarely are prosecutions brought against persons who are corrupt in office, and then normally only when they are caught pilfering from the public till – extorting funds from persons dealing with public agencies is an acceptable practice. And the occasional prosecutions are directed at officials who are flagrantly conspicuous, who have already left office, and who for one reason or another are politically expedient targets. Here is a sampling of How to Succeed in Public Life in Mexico, circa 1960s, according to charges made by the Mexican Government:
The former secretary to the Minister of Agrarian Affairs and Colonization went into the real estate business, using as his “stock” properties in the Federal District which the government had taken for distribution to landless campesinos under the ejido program. Mexican law requires the President’s signature on an ejido grant, so the secretary (the government charged) forged the name Adolfo Lopez Mateos and sold some 75 parcels to developers. He kept one for himself and built a $20,000 house with part of the proceeds. Complaints of neighbors during the Diaz Ordaz administration’s early days prompted criminal action against the ex-official; he is now free on bona, however, and the case appears to be on a natural death bed.
The alcalde of Monterrey was one million pesos in debt and had a heavily-mortgaged house when he took office four years ago, Now he has a 7.6 million peso ($608,000) bank account, owns a ranch, and has installed a lighted swimming pool at his home – with no other open source of income than his alcalde’s salary. PAN complained so loudly about this case that a judicial commission in Nuevo Leon, of which Monterrey is the capital, finally began an investigation.
The governor of Michoacan is co-owner of a construction company that receives the bulk of road building contracts in his state. He is also a partner with a minor state functionary in a corporation which has as a subsidiary an insecticide company which in 1965 had sales of almost $l00,000 to the public Banco Ejidal de Apatzingan, which is partially controlled through the state government.
For years Mexico has had on its books a “law of public responsibility” under which officials can be required to file a net worth statement when entering office, an accounting of all sums received during their tenure, regardless of the source, and another net worth statement upon retirement. Enforcement is too rare even to be called sporadic or haphazard. A person who secures an office within four rungs of the top of government is assured wealth if he decides to take advantage of established customs. Economist Frank Brandenburg, who spent ten years here as student, teacher and consultant before joining the Council for Economic Development, estimates there are no less than 25 jobs in government and in state-run industry worth 45 million in extra income during a six-year administration, How high does the graft go? There are no poverty-stricken ex-presidents, yet Miguel Aleman is the only chief executive who came close to trouble while in office. For a fleeting moment the familia thought of forcing him from office prematurely because of the corruption which existed in his official family. The familia ultimately chose not to act, more in the interest of retaining Mexicots record for presidential stability than for personal considerations. Immediately after Aleman’s term ended, however, the government went after the more corrupt of his associates with vigor.
The cruelest instance of corruption, and one which PRI and the familia surely could squelch were the jefes so inclined, involves labor racketeering. Militancy has virtually vanished within the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM, PRI’s labor sector), while Fidel Velasquez and other “leaders” disappear behind ever-widening paunches and ever-darkening sun glasses, There is a price tag on virtually any job that requires union membership beginning at 35 pesos ($2.80) for shoe shine boy to 42,500 pesos ($200 ) in the state-run oil industry., Petroleos Mexicanos, or PEMEX.
The membership fee does not guarantee tenure. A Mexico City businessman who I have reason to believe is truthful told of a woman employee, a troublemaker, who he wished to fire because she kept his plant in turmoil. “It cost me 500 pesos, which I paid to the union president, but it was worth the price. He got her off the premises in 24 hours, and there was no hassle about severance or the like,” he said.
Governmental and union corruption come into interesting juxtaposition in PEMEX, and an insurgent labor group there has put onto the record evidence of odious collaboration between management and leaders of the “official,” CTM-affiliated union, the Syndicato de Trabaladores Petroleros de La Republica de Mexico (STPRM, or Syndicate of Petroleum Workers of the Republic of Mexico). As a matter of policy PEMEX management likes to keep the permanent workforce low so it will have an excuse to farm out work to contractors (often PRI officials and persons on the fringe of the familia) who respond with kickbacks. The union cooperates by not trying to organize the contractors, and keeps its own ranks small by charging the $2,000 entrance fee. Union members at the Poza Rica refinery in Veracruz State earn $13.07 a day, a substantial sum in a state where the legal minimum wage is $1.68. The contract employees, conversely, earn only $2 per day, and at that must pay a kickback of a few cents to straw bosses in order to work. The union members, in addition to the higher salaries, obtain such benefits as social security and retirement; the contractor employees have no protection whatsoever. STPRM officers find a variety of uses for their proceeds. One local with more initiative than most balked at expenditures in one month of $237 for beer for its officers and $160 for the entertainment of a girl named Rosalia, whose role in labor affairs was not explained further.
Some of these facts were brought out by an insurgent group that for the past 12 years has attempted to organize the PEMEX truck drivers. Then this group – the Syndicato de Trabajadores Mransitorios de Petroleos Mexicanos – made a tactical error. It sent a membership roster to the International Labor Organization and asked recognition. The group’s lawyer, Carlos Eaguerra, says.
“The ILO sent the list to the Mexican government, and many of our members were fired. The government now opens our mail. But we are on the right side, and we will continue.” The STTPM, Esguerra says, is non-political, although certain of its leadership is oriented towards the Christian Democratic Party. “PRI does not afford dynamic, leadership for labor unions,” Esguerra said. ‘This is one area in which the Christian Democrats could be helpful – a non-Marxist left as an alternative both to Communism and to the system with which we are afflicted today.”
The government made a cursory attempt to cleanse PEMEX shortly after the Diaz Ordaz administration went into office. Jaime J. Merinos onetime superintendent of the PEMEX facilities at Poza Rica, fled into exile in the United States after being charged with corruption in office, and has successfully resisted attempts to extradite him. In December a reporter for El Mundo, a Tampico newspapero encountered Merino in Disneyland. According to the reporter Merino said he thought the extradition matter was dead and that the charges ultimately would be dropped. Then he returned to the wonders of Disneyland with his wife.
PRI considers one of its prime virtues to be the cohesion it furnishes to Mexican life; Mexican government officials maintain (and with justification) that establishment of a strong central government was perhaps the most important achievement of the Mexican Revolution. Subordination of the state and municipal governments to Mexico City – and by Mexico City I mean the FRI, the national government and the familia revolucionaria – was of undisputed advantage to Mexico, for it created a nation from what had been a handful of political and economic fiefdoms.
Concurrently, however, the totality of rule has isolated the Mexican citizen from government at the only level at which he could easily become involved in political affairs. The federal government and PRI hold the loyalties of state and municipal governments the same way Huey Long once held Louisiana – by the pursestrings. Through preemption of tax sources, the federal government controls the bulk of official spending in Mexico, and deliberately keeps the municipalities in penury. Some towns in Chiapas and Oaxaca make do with total budgets of $40 to $60 per -year. The states collectively do something like 10 per cent of all governmental spending in Mexico – a figure that has steadily decreased since FRI was founded. And state budgets, which are set by the Federal Secretary of Hacienda, vary widely from year to year – as much as 100 percent, depending upon the intensity of the cooperation which the governor is giving the government and the familia. According to Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, who heads the School of Political and Social Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico: “The dependence of the states upon the central government is a political, military and financial fact.” In 1929 the municipalities received eight per cent of the total federal budget for their own use; since 1952 the figure has hovered near three per cent. In the State of Mexico, which partially encircles the Federal District, towns of 20- to 30,000 population can scarcely afford to hire a police force; maintenance of streets is impossible without the aid of the federal department of highways. Total subservience to the Ministry of Hacienda is essential if a municipality expects any income whatsoever – which explains in large part the trouble the opposition parties have in gaining a foothold in Mexico.
PRI is as authoritative in exercising political dominance. In November there were 120 municipal elections for alcalde in the State of Mexico. In 16 of these PRI headquarters in Mexico City imposed candidates who did not even live in the cities, which they were chosen to “govern.” The jobs were handed to party hacks who live in Mexico City and adjoining suburbs, and who wanted the prestige, pittance of salary and opportunities for graft. Because of the efforts of Ernesto P. Uruchurtu, who was Federal District regent for 14 years before Diaz Ordaz shoved him from office in September (in a peculiar episode more of which will be said later) Mexico City is perhaps one of the cleanest big cities in the world, insofar as commercial vice is concerned. The prostitutes and after-hours club owners have flocked outside the District, and if there is an instance in history where vice did not enrich Local governments which tolerated its existence I have never seen it mentioned.
A Reform Attempt
For ten months during 1965 the PRI apparatus was directed by a man who was willing to admit that the Mexican political system has problems, and, what’s more, attempted to begin to solve them. The reformer, Carlos A. Madrazo, has a turbulent and varied background. During his youth he was a member of the infamous Red Shirts of Governor Garrido Canabal in his native Tabasco State, a band that burned every Catholic church and hunted down and shot or expelled priests as if they were outlaws. (Garrido Canabal’s Tabasco provided the setting for British novelist Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, the story of a priest who hid from the Red Shirts for ten years.) Later, during the 1930s, Madrazo drifted close to the Mexican Communist Party, following the example of persons in and near the administration of General Lazaro Cardenas. He worked for the Federal Ministry of Education and from 1960 to 1964 was governor of Tabasco. Diaz Ordaz selected him for the post of national PRI chairman with familia approval.
The areas which Madrazo chose for reform were the very ones in which he could expect to encounter troubles from oldline priistas:
Municipal control. Rather than have sectors handpick candidates for approval or disapproval by national headquarters, Madrazo called for open primaries. This change he felt, would encourage citizens to take a more active interest in politics. In turn, the citizen participation would force PRI to be a more viable organization. Initially Madrazo proposed primaries only for the municipal level. His longrange goal was to institute. the system throughout the country, up to and including the presidency.
Appeal to youth. One of PRI’s graver problems is to absorb Mexico’s ever expanding corps of college graduates. These persons come out of the national and state universities eager to enter politics and discover PRI, as stodgy and caste-ridden as the army. Top party posts and seats in the Chamber of Deputies are reserved for the very-very venerable politicos whose sole qualification is seniority. Resultantly, the Mexican left is gaining way among -youths who do not have a sponsoring padron to give them a toehold in the PRI system, or who are too idealistic to be at ease there. Throughout their school years these youths are taught the virtues of the Mexican Revolution; when they finally see it at first hand the Revolution is so lacking in vitality as to be undeserving of the name. Kadrazo suggest-ed that party hacks permit young people a voice in party affairs, and access to meaningful positions. He sought to identify himself and implicitly, PRI – with student causes; in one instance he publicly supported a university strike against higher bus fares, a position which CTM, jefes were unwilling to take.
Corruption. Unspeakable of unspeakables. Madrazo actually managed to establish something called the Commission of Honor and Justice to work with the Procurador de la Republica (the Mexican equivalent of the Attorney General) to halt political racketeering. A petroleum union leader was bagged, and a second level functionary of the agrarian affairs department. Madrazo enthusiasts were carried away. Cries were hard, “Now Fidel Velasquez,” The veteran CTM boss, however, is large game, even for a PRI national chairman.
Party formality. Sector leaders match one another exaggeration for exaggeration in membership claims so as to justify their demands for a larger share of party posts. Let’s have a headcount, said Madrazo, and formally register everyone lie also proposed that individual financial pledges be solicited and recorded.
For several euphoric months PRI actually seemed to be coming to life, and Madrazo, felt he was going to be the head of a real live political organization that would restore meaning to the first half of the “Revolutionary Family” name. But his reforms were more than the familia and the old guard priistas dared tolerate.
The primary idea, while idealistic, would have taken power away from the jefes and given it to the people – and Mexican politicians, despite what they might say publicly, do not trust the Mexican people. The youth idea, while practical, would have forced retirement of veterans at the very time when they were enjoying the reward for years of loyal service to the familia. (Besides, holding a seat in the Chamber of Deputies gives politicos a chance to come to Mexico City and get rousing drunk at public expense – and under Mexico’s weak legislature system a deputy has scant else to occupy his time). The corruption proposal – well, just what did this hombreMadrazo Intend to do, deprive us of our PRI given rights? And party formality? Once the national office starts counting dues money, half the profit of being a local PRI leader is gone.
Madrazo undoubtedly had enough political acumen to realize the dangerous position into which he voluntarily placed himself. But, also, not being a fatalist, he presumably thought he could survive the exposure, even if his plans were knocked down. With open backing from President Diaz Ordaz, perhaps he could have done so. Had the reforms been put forth one at a time, perhaps he could have persuaded PRI to drink his medicine sip by sip. Had priistas stopped to consider that Madrazo actually was trying to save their party, not kill it, perhaps they would have paid more attention when he spoke, rather than emitting reflexive cries of protest. Had Madrazo been less abrasive towards his fellow politicos, perhaps personalities would not ultimately have become an issue. But, as former Mayor Richardson Dilworth of Philadelphia likes to say, “If we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs.”
In May 1965 Madrazo ordered the PRI organization in Sinaloa State to hold primaries to select candidates for municipal posts. Governor Leopoldo Sanchez Celis, who retains the powers and outlook on life of an oldtime cacique, went right through the ceiling of his office. Charitably, Sanchez Celis can be described as a screwball. For example, he is the only Mexican governor who actually enforces the law requiring cantinas to be full-fledged restaurants, to the dismay of the powerful brewing industry; his is the only state in the republic where one doesn’t encounter drunks on the streets day and night. Sinaloa is so isolated from Mexico City (far north on the Pacific coast) that Sanchez Celis seldom pays attention to what is happening in the capital; if he has a problem he solves it with his pistoleros, rather than running to Gobernacion for help. The governor said, “If Carlos wants a primary, Carlos can have a primary. I’ll hold my own elections.” And that is what he prepared to do, announcing an official “independent’ slate and printing ballots on which to put it. Sanchez Celia made clear that the people who won HIS election (there was no opposition, of course) would be certified as alcaldes of the various towns. And since Sanchez Celis owns the election commission, there wasn’t much Madrazo could do except invoke the help of Gobernacion, which he did not do, or forget Sanchez Celis, which he did. There were no PRI primaries, and Sanchez Celia put his picked men into office. A bit later Madrazo attempted to force primaries in his native Tabasco. The governor there, Manuel he Mora, teamed with Sanchez Celia and enough other assorted Madrazo enemies to force the reformer to resign.
Diaz Ordax’ silence during the episode indicates the familia did not approve of Madrazo’s reforms, for had the opposite been true the government could have crushed Sanchez Celia like a taco shell.
Madrazo spent several months in stunned silence. He returned to his law practice and to the supervisory position he previously held in the library section of the education ministry. By degrees he began breaking his silence this spring, first to groups of young priistas with whom he held private meetings, then in an interview with the magazine Sucessos in which he gave the journalist the impression he intended to start a new political party. In statements later he denied any such plans, saying that PRI provided ample space for whatever battles he intended to wage. “The revolutionary postulates (which govern PRI) are still valid,” he said.
In July Madrazo made two tactical moves that were revolutionary for the closed corporation politics of Mexico. First, he sent a circular letter to some 3,000 political figures – deputies, senators, labor officials, alcaldes, and intellectuals – asking suggestions on how municipalities could achieve greater economic and political freedom. The response was overwhelming more than 1,500 replies. Not all were complimentary to Madrazo, but he discovered the question did have the broad interest he had anticipated. Next, Madrazo made a talk to a national youth convention which was a clear tip off to his strategy for the future. It is parallel in many respects to what Bobby Kennedy is doing in the United States: A deliberate alignment with young people, an identification with their problems, a pledge to do what he can to help solve them. By Madrazo’s definition young people” are anyone between the ages 15 and 34 (he repeatedly used the word jovenes in his talk, and it translates to “youths”), and in 1965 there were 12,928,665 Mexicans in this age bracket, or 31.6 percent of the population. According to a study by Olizar Maaynka, a Mexican social scientist, the 1965 population was distributed thusly:
Age Number Percentage
0 to 4 6,750,727 16.5
5 to 14 11,333,039 27.7
0 to 14 18,083,766 44.2
15 t o 24 7,568,997 18.5
25 to 34 5,359,668 13.1
15 to 34 12,928,665 31.6
15 to 44 16,774,534 41.0
45 to 64 4,500,484 11.0
65 and more 1,554,714 3.8
40,9130498
What was particularly unusual about the Maarazo talk was the way in which he bluntly told the young people that they were being bypassed by the Mexican Revolution, and not sharing its fruits. Normal PRI oratory demands that a speaker laud the accomplishments of the Mexican Revolution, not dwell upon its failures. Madrazoo however, ticked off these points:
The jovenes of Mexico comprise about 60 per cent of the total work force (12.9 million of 21.3 million).
Per capita income in Mexico ‘continues to be low and its distribution to be irregular.” In 1960 it was only $200, compared with $2,800 for the United States.
In 1965, 72 percent of the Mexican population earned less than 750 pesos ($60) per month, a figure so low it permits only an “extremely deficient diet, rudimentary dress, and a painful existence in hovels, huts or neighborhoods without elementary services of hygiene and security.”
– The jovenes…who form 60 per cent of (the less than 750 pesos per month group) are also victims of this situation” If the politics of development are to be successful, “it is indispensable that tie jovenes have access to occupations with higher productivity that offer higher salaries.” How can Mexico progress, he asked, when there are such disparities even in the minimum wage scales of its residents: $1.76 in Nogales, Sonora; $1.56 in Valle de Bravo in the State of Mexico; $1 for the mining town of Galeana in Nuevo Leon; 80 cents of La Canada, Oaxaca; $1.68 for Tuxpan and Poza Rica, Veracruz; $1.20 for San Luis Potosi; $l.32 for Zacatecas.
A leftist view: President Diaz Ordaz, standing on PRI, shields wealthy from the Mexican Revolution and social justice . (Rius in Politica, the far-left newsmagazine.)
Madrazo also discussed another matter which PRI orators prefer to slide over rapidly when talking about the Mexican Revolution: That although Mexico has experienced one of the most rapid economic expansions of any nation in the world since 1946, “the beneficiaries of the progress are a minority that represent approximately 5 per cent of the total population.” These persons, he said, include “financiers, big businessmen, industrialists, large land holders, some national impresarios colluding with big foreign businessmen, and especially, increasing all the time, certain persons who have been enriched immorally by acting in cooperation with….all types of the privileged.
One group of Mexican intellectuals and political analysts maintain the only reason the familia is able to continue its dominance is because most citizens are politically and economically “marginal.” Gonzalez Casanova of the National University points out that without exception the opposition parties receive their lowest number of votes in Mexico’s five poorest states – Chiapas, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Oaxaca and Tlaxcala – and their highest number in the most prosperous areas – Baja California, Chihuahua and Durango States, and the Federal District. The majority of Mexicans, and especially it those in the country, are “passive instruments of their leaders, says Gonzalez Casanova. He also suggests that the existing political system has proven itself incapable of coping with Mexico’s problems: That while the percentage of Mexicans who are literate, speak and write Spanish, rather than an Indian dialect, and eat wheat bread, milk, meat, fish and/or eggs daily (an index of development) is increasing, in gross numbers these persons are steadily increasing also, because of the population gain. Gonzalez Casanova’s implication is that there is a direct relationship between poverty and ignorance and the strength of PRI.
Madrazo is the first Mexican political figure in recent years (of any stature, at least) to suggest that Mexico’s economic imbalance is related to its political system. He keeps saying that he intends to stay within PRI; in his jovenes talk he eventually got around to proposing that the party establish a youth sector. But the way he says the things he has in mind convinced a good number of people (including me) that if he is unable to work through PRI, he’ll try another tack – a new party. The far-left at first rushed to Madrazols side, most likely because he was willing to talk about the shortcomings of Mexican society; Politica, the way-left newsmagazine, even reprinted the text of the jovenes speech. Signs appeared in the 26th of July parade, however, denouncing Madrazo. The left now apparently sees him more as a rival than as a potential ally. Madrazo’s 1930s association with Communists is not taken too seriously by persons within the United States Embassy who know him; they tend to dismiss it as a Cardenas-ish folly which he has outgrown, and were sorry to see him lose his PRI leadership.
Now Madrazo is continuing his speech-making and private conferences throughout the country, trying to convince priistas of the necessity for reform. Lauro Ortega, his replacement as national chairman, won’t discuss Madrazo, although the party did arrange for several tons of newspaper headlines to fall on the former leader when it suspected him of fomenting a new-party movement. Gobernacion says nothing would Drevent registration of a Madrazo party provided he obtained the required 75,000 members. Madrazo’s following is diverse: At a dinner marking the anniversary of his celebration in November the crowd Included a sprinkling of brave priista deputies and Luis Procuna, the famed matador who heads the national bull fighters union.
Mexican political history since 1929 is littered with remains of men who tried to buck the official party. There is something curious about Madrazo’s situation, however: Then his son was married in late November one of the men who turned up as a witness was none other than Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, the president of Mexico.
The Formal Opposition
Tb leave a couple of blank pages under this heading would be flippant but nonetheless accurate. There are other parties in Mexico, for one occasionally reads statements in the newspapers by their spokesmen, and finds their initials painted on walls and buildings in out-of-the-way places and, with enough effort, can actually locate real live people who confirm they are leaders of the opposition. (Whoever chose the name for Partido Accion Nacional would do well to seek a fortune on Madison Avenue: The initials PAN are also the Spanish word for bread, and my first three days in Mexico City, when I still thought electoral politics to be a serious business, I mistook every bakery shop for an Accion Nacional stronghold.) Upon closer examination, however, PAN proved to be little more than a mimeograph machine that gripes about the elections PRI is always stealing, out in the states, and a handful of lonely men who make widely-ignored speeches in the Chamber of Deputies.
PAN was formed in 1969 by Catholic-oriented conservatives who had never been associated with the official party. At first it didn’t attempt to gain a mass following, contenting itself with what founders considered the “elite” of conservatism, and endorsing someone else’s candidates. PAN fielded its first presidential candidate in 1946 and received 67,762 votes to PRI’s 1.7 million. It now runs considerably closer races, losing in 1964 by only 8,368,446 to 1,034,337. A friend of mine who has a slide rule computed that at this rate of gain PAN would overtake DRI In something less than two million light-years.
PRI alternately laughs at PAN and treats it as a menace. In 1958 federal troops used bayonets to disrupt PAN rallies in Baja California, and persons died in the violence. On other occasions priista alcaldes arranged for street repair crews to commandeer PAN rally sites just as the speaker mounted the platform. A favored PRI trick inccountry towns is to have a portable merry-go-round follow PAN campaigners and lure away the crowds by offering free rides.
PRI harasses members of its affiliates who associate with PAN. Last June the national mine workers union, a CTM affiliate, suspended 12 members who ran for office or supported candidates on the PAN ticket in Parrai, a northern mining town. The most prominent was a deputy, Roman Pineda Casas, who lost his union rights for five years. An electrical workers union president who filed for a legislative post on the PAN ticket in the State of Mexico the same month was fired personally by Fidel Velasquez. (Commenting on this firing, PAN called Velasquez “the ranking slave-driver in Mexico’s politically-dominated unionism.” Velasquez says union membership is incompatible with affiliation with the “reactionary and rich” PAN. Replied PAN: “If the PAN were the party of the reactionary and the rich the labor profiteer Velaaquez should be one of its top members. He, the payroll legislator (Velasquez is a deputy) is reactionary and obviously rich; he’s got to have something saved from 27 years of ‘liberating the working classes.’”
“It isn’t revolutionary to kick the manger,” PPS leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano tells PAN and PARM friends, By Rius in Politica.
In the 1950s the familia became embarassed over PRI’s domination of the Chamber of Deputies (Mexico is a democracy, you know) and revised the election laws to give the opposition parties a semblance of representation. A national party that is legally registered and receives 2.5 per cent of the total legislative vote in the country is entitled to five seats in the chamber, regardless of whether it wins any Individual races. For each .5 per cent of the vote it gets an additional seat up to a maximum of 20. Persons seated in this manner are diputados de partido (party deputies) rather than diputados populares (popular deputies). The change enabled PAN to jump its representation from- six in 1958 to 20 in 1964; PPS went from one to ten, It also gave ammunition to critics who charge that PAN and PPS are “captive opposition parties” whose leaders make only token efforts to break PRI’s hold, and who accept the party deputyships as a payoff. These critics also maintain that PRI and/or the government subsidize the opposition so as to create the illusion that a multi-party system exists in Mexico. Given the realities of Mexican politics, however, parties such as PAN and PPS have about as much chance of gaining control of Mexico as the Prohibitionists do of drying up Baltimore, Maryland.
The familia could cut off any aid it conceivably gives the opposition without lessening its grip on Mexico in the least.
Furthermore, PAN occasionally produces a proposal that strikes to the core of a Mexican problem, and thus it’s a pity that the party isn’t taken more seriously; Mexicans, however, will not concede that the “loyal opposition” has anything worthwhile to offer. PAN talks frequently about labor abuses. It maintains that unions as constituted today in Mexico are nothing more than political and economic gangster units, and that leaders should spend more time on workers’ problems and less time on PRI activities. In December PAN deputies proposed extending the no-reelection rule (that covers all elected officials in the country) to union officers, and tightening financial reporting laws. PRI and the Partido Popular Socialista hooted down PAN. Other recent PAN ideas included a divorcement of PRI from the federal government (PAN notes PRI has even adopted a variation of the Mexican flag as its own) and impartial election panels.
PAN is an ineffectual representative of the Mexican right; the Partido Popular Socialista is just as ineffective for the left. At lunch one day a couple of my Mexican leftist friends harangued me about the way the Central Intelligence Agency “is always disrupting our work by putting its agents into positions of leadership in our parties and unions.” By this time I had watched the Mexican left in action for several months. “Look,” I told them, “If I ran the CIA in Mexico I would1t waste the time, money or manpower. You do a far better job of fouling up your parties than the CIA could ever hope to accomplish. And if I ever find any evidence that the CIA is wasting its money on you, I’m protesting to my Congressman.”
Vicente Lombardo Toledano founded the FPS in 1948 after losing his position at the fireside of the familia revolucionaria when his love affair with the Soviet Union coincided with the administration of Miguel Aleman. At one time he took in every leftist who came along – Communists, Marxists, Trotskyites, any number of gabbleheads. Communist painters Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros joined the fun (the latter riding to socialist party meetings in his latest sports car), and by the early 1950s VLT had a following of perhaps 350,000 persons, including a sizable labor sector. But the unions could not obtain governmental recognition as bargaining units, and membership melted rapidly. In 1954 VLT attempted to rejoin the familia and had the door slammed in his face. The FPS won only one of 162 seats in the Chamber of Deputies In 1955 and a single seat again in 1958, when it endorsed Lopez Mateos for the presidency after realizing the futility of finding its own candidate.
The triumph of Fidel Castro fired the blood of Mexican leftists for more dynamic leadership, something VLT has been unable to supply. He wouldn’t let the Communists into the FPS because he feared they would take it away from him. The Communists could go nowhere with their own party because the government won’t recognize it. The unrecognized Moviemento de Liberacion Nacional (MLN, or National Liberation Movement) siphoned off the more active of the PPS members, leaving poor VLT with his party registration papers and perhaps the most divided following of any Mexican political “leader.” The persons who suffer the most from the PPSI sad status are left-of-center Mexicans who dislike the MLN’s Castroist tendencies and who are unwilling to give VLT the unquestioning obedience required of PPS members.
– Name calling among the Mexican left: “I am the PPS proclaims egotistical Vicente Lombardo Toledano, as portrayed by Rius in anti-VLT magazine Politica.
The other recognized party is the Partido Authenico de la Revolucion Mexicana (PARM, or Authentic Partv of the Mexican Revolution) which Is composed almost entirely of veterans of the fighting between 1910 and 1917. These persons feel their original revolution was perverted, and that priistas are making a commercial con game of government. Two brothers of the late president Francisco I. Madero helped found PARM, which gained recognition in time to endorse Lopez Mateos for president in 1958. One principal member shortly thereafter was designated director of Mexican ports; one of the Madero brothers was installed as PRI governor of the State of Chihuahua. Not too much has been heard from the PARM since these appointments.
Late last spring Gobernacion indicated it intended to cancel the PARM registration because it lacked the necessary 75,000 members. There was much blather in the Dress about the passing of a Grand Old Institution, etc., and then the talk faded away. Later I asked a friend in the government whatever happened to the idea of killing off PARM. “Someone checked the law books and could find no statutory provision for euthanasia,” he replied with a straight face.
The Future: More PRI
At the same time that Madrazo travels around Mexico talking about bringing more democracy to Mexico, his successor, Lauro Ortega, is doing what he can to stamp out the already meager chances a citizen has to choose an alternative avenue of political expression. His medium is what he calls an “affiliation ceremony,” at which members of PRI sectors line up docilely to receive a membership card and to swear allegiance to the official party.
I witnessed one of these affairs on September 10 in the Plaza de la Republica, the centerpiece of which is a massive monument to Juarez, the man who supposedly restored “human dignity” to Mexico. The obligatory massing of humanity, the shrill insistence of the PRI major domos that it was all “spontaneous,” the who-gives-a-damn acceptance of the crowd, all reminded me of another Latin ceremony I attended two years earlier: One of Fidel Castro’s 26th of July shindigs in Santiago de Cuba. The participants this day were 20,000 Federal District government workers. Workmen had painted rows of numbers in the plaza and for several blocks deep into an avenue leading away from it. And, in the preceding week section chiefs in the various departments gave each employee a piece of paper showing where he was to stand for the spontaneous ceremony.
The crowd began arriving at about 9 o’clock in the morning, although the spontaneous ceremony was not to begin until 11. I ran onto the scene by accident and asked a garbage truck driver, identifiable by his smelly and distinctive gray uniform, Que Paso. What he replied I’m glad my accompanying three-year-old son couldn’t understand. In essence he said he felt his time would be better spent collecting rather than listening to garbage.
The Federal District supervisors were present, too, each with a ro6ter so they could tell who was there and who wasn’t; there were few numbers unoccupied. One of the speakers, Fernando Diaz Duran, PRI secretary general, noted from the podium that critics had said PRI was incapable of attracting members involuntarily.” Diaz Duran continued: “You have demonstrated the contrary with this act in which the free women and men of Mexico ratify their militancy freely and spontaneously in the files of our party,” Someone way at the back threw an orange, but it missed Diaz Duran by 100 feet. The section chiefs had stacks of FRI identification cards at the head of each line, and after the speech making they passed out all 20,000 of them in a few seconds less than 25 minutes.
Ortega has been presiding over similar ceremonies for PRI sectors throughout Mexico since midsummer, and the last newspaper tabulation I read said he had given out something over 700,000 of the cards. He intends to continue until every member of every PRI sector has been affiliated, and has a card to prove it.
After Ortega finishes the only missing element in the official dominant party of Mexico will be the persons who actually run the country.
A Mexican View
“I agree that our ‘one party’ is better than the so-called opposition parties. But what I reject is the sleep our one party has imposed or; Mexican politics, preventing the birth of political movements which could solve our problems and make good use of elements which have lapsed into somnolence and indifference; good elements that have never associated with either the clerical reaction or the Soviet reaction. Must the party go on accepting a status quo that gives no solution at all? Which is the same as saying to the Mexican masses, You’re quite well off as you are. Don’t think, don’t speak. We know what’s best for you. Just lie quiet. Isn’t that, precisely what Porfirio Diaz said?”
**Mexican novelist and intellectual Carlos Fuentes , speaking through one of the characters in his Where the Air is Clear.
Received in New York January 3, 1967.
©1966 Joseph C. Goulden, Jr.
Mr. Goulden is a 1965 Alicia Patterson Fund fellowship winner on leave from The Philadelphia Inquirer.Permission to publish this article may be sought from The Managing Editor, Philadelphia Inquirer.
