Big cracks in the US's showcase of Latin American democracy
One of the most telling measures of the impact of The outrageous fraud in the July 7 elections reflects
Nicaragua's free elections is Richard J. Meislin's the rapid erosion of the credibility of the official
Analysis" of the Mexican elections for the party in the face of the economic crisis. It is obviously
Meislin wrote afraid to leave any real space for legal opposition. In the type of election that had it occurred in El Salvador the PRI government is afraid of revoluin 1983 or in Nicaragua in 1984 would have produced tionists offering a national focus to the mass struggles worldwide headlines declaiming fraud and would have against austerity and for democratic rights. So, it is led to grave questioning of the credibility of the already boasting that the PRI, the Mexican section ot there." (International Herald the Fourth International will lose its ballot status, getting under 1,5% of the vote.
However, unofficial tallies in Mexico City, where
Meislin went on to say that it was only "elections fraud is most difficult, credit the PRT with 3.5% as usual" in Mexico. In one sense that is true. The of the vote in the country's main population center.
The PRT vote has been estimated at even higher averages in some of the northern states of the Mexican union. It seems clear that a campaign will be necesthis massive fraud was an important event. It marked sary to defend the PRT's rights.
bourgeoisie's attempt The following is an edited version of the PRT's to clean up its act, to create a facade of respectability statement summing up the experience of its campaign.
for its rule. As Meislin's comparison with Nicaragua It is from the July 14 issue of the party's paper,
MEXICO New York Tribune, July 17, 1985.) the failure of the Mexican showed, it badly needed to do that.
With our country gripped by acute crisis on all levels - economic, political, and social — the political parties have had considerable difficulties in putting across their programs. In these conditions, these elections are for the federal parliament, they have not focused the attention of the masses. Most of the population are concerned primarily with coping on a day to day basis with the consequences of the crisis.
official party, the PRI [Institutionalized Revolutionary Party] has only been able to hold a few rallies and has given priority to house-to-house canvassing. It has put all its energy into building apparatus for rigging the elections, badly disguised as a campaign to get out the vote. For this purpose, it has utilized all the resources of the government
PAN [National Action the major bourgeois opposition party] has not waged as strong a campaign as think, to judge from its triumphalist tone.
are its main centers of support, especially the latter, backing of a major section of the bour-
In Chihuahua, Eloy Vallina, one of the most powerful businessmen in this state, a previous backer of the PAN, supporting the PRI. This indicates that some sections of the bourgeoisie have withdrawn their support
The PAN has worked out a strategy for giving the impression going to win the July 7 elections, so that actions against the election fraud that the obviously preparing. This is
Bandera Socialista. indicated by the preparations of shock groups and the training that the PAN is poll watchers in the Top Commands (Comas) in Chi-
On the left, it is the PRT that has most striven to mobilize sectors of the population. opportunities offered by the election campaign, it has promoted the organization and independent struggle of the workers and peasants. The results are indicated by the March of the Bottom Dogs [named after Los de Abajo, a famous novel of the Mexican revolution that describes how the fighters were cheated of the fruits of their strug-
This ended by bringing 30,000 people to the PRT's windup rally.
The PSUM (the Mexican CP) has basically devoted itself to holding forums using marketing techniques to project it. image over the media. Only in a few isolated cases has it called mobilizations.
The Mexican Workers Party (PMT), after making triumphalist statements that it was not competing with the left but was aiming for power, settled down to a routine campaign relying on advertising
The other so-called left parties fell back on arguing for support to the government. That is the case of the PST, the PARM, and the PPS, which offer only slight modifications in the PRI line.
In this campaign, the manipulation of the media has reached grotesque levels. The TV and the press only project image of the PRI. The polls that are being played up in the media are also forms of manipulation.
In these circumstances the vote on July 7 will enable us, with all its limitations, to measure contending classes have politicalized the crisis and to what extent they identity with the various parties. if the voters continue to identify with the PAN as a democratic alternative to the PRI, or if they are able to see that it stands at the head of the reactionary
We will also be able to see to what extent the PRI's control has eroded.
One thing we are sure of now is that the votes cast for the red rectangle of worker-peasant unity presented by the PRT will be a vote for struggle, a vote for protest, a vote for independent organization.
Starting right now, we are calling for a broad movement in defense of honesty in the elections. We will defend the people's vote and first of all the vote PRI's fraud but also against all the parties that overtly or covertly push us out of our rightful place. We know that we can defend the vote if we prepare our forces and have the firm backing of all our allied organizations and sections of the population that have offered us their support.