PRI's sophisticated fraud
International Viewpoint #259 September 1994
HE ELECTIONS held in Mexico sely monitored in its history.
However,they were still undemocratic.
### MEXICO the PRI, which, although they supported him in the election, do not view him as "their" candidate. While there is support for his technocrat agenda,
Zedillo cannot rely businessmen, and a sustained campaign by the media (to the effect that a
PRI defeat would plunge the country into political and social instability) all determined the final result.
The PRI won once again, while the democratic opposi- ALFONSO MORO tion candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdewith a much lower vote than six years ago, when Salinas de Gortari took the presidency through large-scale electoBy manipulation, intimidation, votebuying and marginalisation of opposition leaders, the Mexican State apparatus went all out for the PRI, achieving an unexpected result. The electoral register, with over 47 million names,had a margin of error in excess of 5% (2,350,000 potential votes) while thousands of people were unable to vote on the day due to a shortage of ballot papers. The only difference from 1988 was that this time the State party regime commited electoral fraud in more sophisticated fashion, in that it did so before voting took place, rather than after. Just hours after voting finished, statecontrolled media credited the PRI with more than 50% of the vote;only the immediate reaction of Cárdenas at a press conference, that he would not stand for any tampering with the result, changed this. In the end, the official figure for Ernesto Zedillo, the PRI candidate, was 48%. At 2% short of an absolute majority, this is unusual for Mexico. The PRI will enjoy considerable room in which to manoeuvre. To the votes of its own deputies can be added many of those of the National Action Party (PAN), a right-wing party which achieved second place; its economic programme differs little from that of the PRI. However, although Zedillo was over 20% ahead of his nearest rival, demands will be placed upon him by the various factions which make up upon any group of his own to guide him through the complicated web of compromises and favours upon which rests the state machinery. For this reason (at least at first), he will be but the mouthpiece for those groups demanding their slice of power. This position of relative weakness inside his own party (and so at the heart of the State apparatus) explains why he is now stating that, for the most part, he does not intend to interfere in the decisions of his own party. This same weakness could lead to Zedillo having to collaborate with politicians in his cabinet who are not active in the PRI, or who are members of other parties, notably PAN. This will only encourage those who still want a "transition to the Spanish way".
Is for those organisations in the
(AND) which, together with the
National Democratic Alliance Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), supported Cárdenas, clearly the result was a poor one and there are many questions to be answered in the immediate future. The political outlook is bleak and only deeply held political conviction enables any optimism. Although they are the obvious democratic alternative to PRI continuity, Cárdenas and the forces which supported him were unable to break through the fear of change held by broad sections of the population, particularly since the assassination in March of Donaldo Colosio, the successor chosen by de Gortar to replace him. The assassination, the kidnapping just before the elections of a number of