Postscript: September 2000:
Mexico and the Fall of the PRI

After seventy-one years the PRI has lost the Presidency and with it national power in Mexico. Despite getting up to all their old tricks in the run-up to the July 2^nd poll — the Michoacan governor was caught plotting to divert state funds into election bribes, and in the state of Quintana Roo the PRI were even giving away free washing-machines — and despite the fact that the much heralded independent Federal Electoral Institute was controlled by the party-state, Vicente Fox, the leader of the PAN received 43% of the vote. The shock came in the PRI conceding defeat so swiftly. This time around, they lacked the political stomach for arranging the vast fraud needed to switch defeat to victory.

Why did the PRI lose? The simple answer is corruption. After so many years of institutionalized venality the electorate finally found a sturdy enough opposition bandwagon upon which to jump. On a broader level, it is now apparent just how far the PRI’s traditional networks of power were undermined by the economic restructuring — and particularly the privatizations — of the 1980s and 90s. Their irony is that, having propelled Mexico out of its old economic protectionism, they themselves have not survived the transition. Just as the Porfiriato was compelled eventually to assault its own social base in the years before the Revolution, so the PRI through its economic reforms has attacked its social base — the peasants and the working class. What future now for the PRI? With command over such large resources they are far from finished. But the splits were evident from the very first morning of defeat. There could now be an official divorce between the dinosaur wing and the technocrats. The dinosaurs, desperate to recapture their traditional constituency may veer headlong back into old-fashioned social democracy — an unpalatable alliance with the PRD could be on the cards. Meanwhile the technocrats, who side naturally with the PAN, will wish to see their party reinvented along Western lines. A split with the social democrats would be in their interests, so long as the left-wing do not take too much of the organization with them. Alternatively, a clear split could fail to emerge and the whole party could collapse in on itself. Whatever happens, it will be messy and protracted.

In Chiapas, the PRI have also lost their hold on the governorship, and there is a new PRD governor. Will the new PANista President, or the PRDista governor pull the troops out? It seems unlikely, though there may be a minor peace initiative. The fact that there has been the democratic change the EZLN has long called for, but that nothing will change, may now begin to shake the uncritical attitudes of the Zapatistas towards the concept of democracy. At the same time, after nearly seven years of military seige, the communities may wish to grab any olive branch that is offered them. But even in the unlikely event of an accommodation with the state, the Chiapan bourgeoisie will never forgive them.

The PAN victory has set the US bourgeoisie cock-a-hoop, naively believing that Mexico has voted for a unadulterated regime of ‘neoliberalism’. For us, the Fox triumph raises several questions. How will the working class, no longer subjected to the ideological weight of The Revolution, react to the next wave of restructuring? Could campaigns such as that waged by the electristas grow in size and dynamism in the future without the hegemonic influence of the PRI? Before the election, the CTM had boasted of its intention to call a general strike should the PANista win — a boast which fell away hours after the result was declared. Already there are signs of a rapprochement with the new regime. Fox, for his part, will need the union bureaucrats if he is to forge ahead with the program of rationalization. The flashpoint could well be the energy sector. The international finance markets demand this bastion of union power be privatized — but any move towards it will be hugely divisive. Fox will surely need to set up his own version of PRONASOL to offset the increasing class polarity in Mexican society, and he will need to do something fast about the debt millstone from the 1995 bank bailout.

For the Mexican proletariat, the battle lines are now much more clearly drawn.