Mexico: a new country?
Mexico has had a political earthquake that shifts the balance of forces in the country. The victory of Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas and his Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in the Mexico City mayoral election, and the Stunning defeats for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the congress have changed the Mexican political landscape. Cárdenas's victory in the Mexico City mayoral election already makes him almost inevitably the PRD candidate for president, and front-runner against all comers. For almost 70 years, since its foundation in 1929 the Institutional Revolutionary Party has dominated Mexican politics. There were decades when no other party won a single important office in the country. The PRI held power through fear, favours and fraud, and when necessary through terror. This election marked a step forward for democracy. The EZLN rebels in Chiapas state called on indigenous communities to boycott the election, and closed a large number of polling stations, pointing to the impossibility of a fair election with Chiapas under brutal martial law. Since the elections, the Zapatistas have launched an ambitious programme to capture the political initiative. This month, 1,111 representatives of the EZLN "base communities" will converge on Mexico City. And, a two years of preparation, "civic Zapatistas" will formally launch a non-violent mass movement, the Zapatista National Liberation Front (FZLN). The Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT, Mexican section of the Fourth International) again won one seat, through their electoral alliance with the PRD. [JD] 2 International Viewpoint #292
• Mexico's ruling party has recognised its partial defeat in the July 6 elections, surrendering control of the federal capital, and a majority of parlamentary seats to the opposition. If the electoral dynamic, and social pressure, continues, the 2000 elections could see the definitive end of the one-party state. José Martínez Cruz* The triumph of PRD leader C. Cárdenas in Mexico City has given new momentum and energy to a wide range of struggles.
The elite, including President Zedillo, is gradually abandoning the single party state model. The PRI is still meshed with the state, but it no longer has a majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies. For the first time, Mexico's parliament is not subordinate to the President. What Vargas Llosa calls the "perfect dictatorship" is being replaced by an authoritarian presidential regime.
The weakening of the PRI-state bureaucracy is a great step forward for the democratic movement in Mexico. This may boost the currently low level of protest against neoliberal reforms, privatisation, and the NAFTA free trade agreement with the USA and Canada.
Broad sectors of the population have, once again, indicated their desire for democratic change, through the ballot box, without provoking a civil war. The EZLN (Zapatista') guerrillas in Chiapas have understood this dynamic. So, cautiously, it seems, have the more "traditional' guerrillas of the EPR.
Some of us had argued that the Mexican regime was incapable of self-reform, and that the PRI would never accept the results of an election that reduced their power this much. This was not the case. Surprisingly, the regime recognised Cárdenas' victory in
This is not the first time the Mexican regime has absorbed, a direct blow from below. When the Zapatista uprising began in January 1994, the President halted the military counter-offensive after only ten days, in the face of determined resistance from the Mayan population of Chiapas state, and massive demonstrations of solidarity in the mestizo (Spanish-speaking) north.
The government's strategy has since been to sign, but not respect, a series of accords with the rebels, while maintaining a low intensity war against them.
This combined strategy of militarisation and superficial democratic change is designed to give the system a few more years breathing space. Meanwhile, the crisis of the system gets deeper and deeper. Despite the buoyancy of the financial markets, the boat is still taking in water.
None of the democratic advances of recent years are undo-able. The semi-corporatist system is still present, though many of its components are in crisis. Single-party states are not decreed out of existence. Nor is democracy ever installed solely through the ballot box. As in so many other transitional regimes, the monster can still lash out in its death-agony.
The crisis is also visible in the trade unions, a pillar of the PRI regime. The recent death of union boss Fidel Velázquez increases the internal instability of the state unions, which are increasingly threatened by dynamic militant unions. The dark side
Mexico's "democratic transition" is accompanied by a dark side: hundreds of assassinations, political prisoners, and political "disappearances Persecutions,
Fifty human rights groups recently came together in the Red de Organizaciones Civiles de Derechos Humanos to publish a damning report, "All rights for everyone" (Todos los Derechos
*The need for control, so as to ensure the snecessful introduction of the neo-liberal model, has resulted in authoritarian policies, to impose "order." One key policy is the growing involvement of soldiers in civilian posts in the judicial system. This has two goals: eradicating corruption (as far as possible), under US pressure. The second goal of this militarisation is to gradually increase public tolerance of military practices.
The logic behind this creeping militarisation is described by Carlos Fazio as the "Third Link" in Mexico's new relationship with the USA. US-sponsored militarisation complements economic and political cooperation to ensure the introduction of the neo-liberal model in Latin America.?
The introduction of soldiers - trained to kill, rather than restrain the enemy - has led to an increase in violent repression. The same thing happened in the 1970s. Most of the hundreds of political "disappeared" of that period were victims of military units like the Brigada Blanca, assigned to police duties. Across Latin America, the transfer of police powers to the army has been one of the warning signs of a coup d'état or authori-
More than 5.000 soldiers are officially assigned to police duties, in 28 of Mexico's states. The real figure, including plain clothes and 'dirty war' units is certainly higher. And this figure does not include the massive military presence in Chiapas state.
The Mexican regime is lurching towards authoritarianism. Either the army will support the political elite in its current project, or the generals will make a direct alliance with the major capitalists, short-circuiting the "normal' political process, and imposing military or authoritarian rule in order to guarantee economic stability. In both scenarios, the army needs to become much more present in political life. This explains most of the media noise about the need for strong police measures to combat the wave of criminality. The real problem for the elite is that the social mobilisation is a threat to the power of the current governmental elite and, in this sense, a threat to economic stability.
In Mexico City police and para-military forces have increased their wave of "social hygiene" attacks against street children. In regions where the EPR is thought to operate, the whole adult male population of selected villages has been arrested. According to the report, "there are many cases where civic groups and social militants have been threatened or persecuted in various ways, to pressure them to stop their activities, particularly their activities in defence of human rights." These threats range from anonymous telephone calls and threatening letters, to beatings kidnappings and torture by unidentified groups or the police robberies in which documents are taken, and valuables ignored. At least 50 journalists have reported that they have been followed by unidentified men. Over the last seven years, over 600 members of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) have died in violent or suspicious circumstances. Low intensity war
This complex strategy, developed by the USA after their defeat in Vietnam, combines political, diplomatic, economic, psychological and ideological pressures, over a sustained period, in a context of low-intensity military-police repression. This "war without front lines" makes little distinction between civilians and rebel protagonists. The goal of the regime is to win the "hearts and minds" of the civil population, to legitimate the status quo as the lesser of two evils.
This strategy is particularly visible in Chiapas state. In the Zapatista-controlled north, there is a real civil war. In the rest of the state, there is a massive "decline in respect for human rights, increase in political violence and inter-communal conflict, all of which is weakening the social fabric. These are the consequences of the counter-insurgency strategy which has been implemented in Chiapas and other states of Mexico, to defeat the organised opposition."
According to the Report, this counterinsurgency plan has four aspects. • State tolerance of the illegal actions of paramilitary groups controlled by local landlords and PRI "bosses."
• An inadequate judicial system, which fails to offer even minimum guarantees of impartiality, and acts in a consistently discriminatory fashion, favouring the partners of the government, and seeking to eliminate its opponents.
• militarisation of the territory, under the The author is a leading member of the Trotskyist PRT. In the July 6 election he stood as reserve candidate to Patria Jiménez, lesbian activist and PRT member, who was elected to the chamber of deputies for a Mexico City constituency on the PRD list.