Comment No. 44, July 15, 2000
"The Mexican Elections: A Victory for What?"
In Mexico, the party that governed Mexico for 71 years has just lost the presidential election, marking the end of a de facto one-party system. Who won? And what was won? This is an important question not merely for Mexico but for most of the world, since in the last decade or so, one-party systems, de jure and de facto, have been falling everywhere. Is this a worldwide victory for democracy? The answer must be yes in part and no in at least as great a part.
Let us start with the Mexican situation. The party that has been in power had the name, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The name itself is symbolic. It represented "institutionalized" revolution. The revolution (or revolutions) to which the name refers is the national liberation of Mexico - from colonial rule, from dependency on the United States, and from the heavy hand of the Catholic Church. But of course, the actual revolution or revolutions occurred a long time ago; that is why this is a revolution that was "institutionalized." In this sense, Mexico was a world leader in twentieth-century revolutions (it can date its from 1910) but of course not the only one that succeeded in coming to power. These movements all represented political opposition to a world-system in which surplus-value flowed to the core zones and the periphery suffered from increasing polarization.
In Mexico, this revolutionary thrust reached perhaps its acme under the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas from 1934-1940. Cárdenas pursued land reform, nationalized the (U.S.-owned) oil industry, and provided unyielding support to Republican Spain against the Fascist onslaught. He also was imbued with the anti-clerical spirit of the revolution and severely limited the role of the Catholic Church in Mexican society.
Mexican politics has been moving steadily to the right for the sixty years since 1940, but along two somewhat separate lanes. On the one hand, successive PRI presidents (under the law, they were only each permitted one six-year term. but in practice each could choose his successor) drew steadily closer to the United States, particularly in the economic arena. This was especially true in the last 20 years. The current PRI president, Ernesto Zedillo, considered himself part of the Third Way of Blair, Schroeder, and Clinton, which might be termed the watered-down version of neo-liberalism.
An opposition party has been legal in Mexico for half a century. It is called the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN). Its roots are in the so-called Cristero rebellion of the 1920's, in which Catholics fought the Mexican government because of its anti-clerical policies. PAN was long considered a right-wing party promoting conservative Catholic values and policies. About a decade ago, some PAN members began to emphasize right-wing economic issues more strongly than right-wing social issues, without of course renouncing the latter. The victorious PAN candidate for president, Vicente Fox, embodied this new tendency. It was this emphasis on economic issues that enabled PAN to move beyond its limited traditional clientele and capitalize on the widespread anti-PRI sentiment in the electorate.
The revolt against PRI is understandable to anyone who has observed what happens in one-party situations with a national liberation movement in power for a long time. PRI had long since become tired ideologically and corrupt politically. It relied on its machine, its largesse, and the loyalty of older voters for its maintenance in power. In the 1980's, the remaining holders of the revolutionary flame in PRI seceded under the leadership of Cuahtémoc Cárdenas, to form the Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD), which was able to rally to its side many left intellectuals who had seceded individually from PRI long before.
What are the issues today in Mexico? Again, they are familiar ones around the world. Issue number one is how Mexico will deal with the world-economy. Here PRI and PAN are virtually on the same wave-length, a right-of-center wave length. To this PRD opposes a left-of-center wave length. This picture explains why when, in a three-party contest in 1988 in which, according to most observers, PRI stole the election from Cárdenas who won it, the U.S. said nothing, but when in 2000, in another three-party-contest PAN won the election, the U.S. hailed this as a victory for democracy and praised the present PRI president, Zedillo, for permitting a free election.
Issue number two are the social issues. They are not at the forefront presently, but they are very much in the background. Fox, the PAN candidate, played down this issue, so that he could pick up center votes. But he is a committed social conservative, committed for example to limiting or eliminating abortion, and anti-clericalism still is an underlying theme of PRI. What we are seeing here is the world-wide tension on the right of center, between economic and social conservatives.
Issue number three is the rights of the large, oppressed Indian minority (actually majority) in Mexico. The great symbol of their struggle at the moment is the neo-Zapatista movement in Chiapas. PRI has reneged on the San Andrés agreements, which had been designed to permit a reasonable amount of autonomy to the Indian communities. PRD has been struggling to get the government to honor these agreements. PAN's policy has been somewhat ambivalent. Fox says he will implement them. We shall have to see not only if he does this, but how.
The results of the election give us two houses of Congress, in which neither PRI nor PAN have a majority, and the swing votes are with the PRD. It is not clear what PAN will do. PRD does not seem in the mood to support them. It wishes rather to establish itself as the strong opposition. PRI is in turmoil. There are segments who feel close to PAN, as well they should. They probably include Zedillo himself. There may be a few left who feel close to PRD. The majority of the party appartchiks are close only to a lust for power. PRI has no solid ideological position, and may well split up in three pieces. If a large enough chunk goes to PAN, PAN could establish itself solidly for six years as a neo-liberal government.
Then what? Well, then, its policies will either pay off for the ordinary Mexicans who shifted their votes from PRI to them, or it will not. What we have learned by watching the post-revolutionary regimes in erstwhile Communist countries, but also in Asia and Africa, is that neo-liberalism often sounds good after the many negatives of a tired erstwhile national liberation movement government. But neoliberalism often looks less good in a peripheral country after five years or so, and many voters start yearning for a more socially-oriented government. The very same month of the Mexican elections there were elections in far-off Mongolia. Mongolia had been governed by the Communist Party for some 70 years, which in the post-1989 atmosphere was thrown out by a group of young, energetic neoliberals. In 2000, the now "reformed" Communist Party swept the elections, getting all but three seats in the legislature.
Were the Mexican elections a victory for democracy? Were the Mongolian elections a victory for democracy?
Immanuel Wallerstein
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These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen
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