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Seeking Changes in the 'Perfect Dictatorship

John Ross writes from Mexico City
***Following a 12th straight election victory, it is understandable to expect Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to be enjoying a honeymoon. But the party is under increased pressure to separate itself from state apparatus and become truly democratic.***
FOR Mexico s long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
Its most recent election victory has brought headaches as well as congratulations.
Sensitive to the criticism that Its slx-and-a-half decade domination of the Mexican government ensured its triumph In August's poll. President Ernesto Zedillo has placed the separation of the ruling party from the state apparatus at the top of his pollti cal agenda.
Zedillo has proposed a three-stage reform programme designed to make the PRI Into a representative political party Independent of the state that it has controlled since 1929. His endorsement of the separation of PRI and the state is a legacy inherited from his predecessor, former president Carlos Salinas' assassinated first-pick candidate Luis Donaldo Coloslo.
PRI's promises to reform itself are not new. In 1958. its leaders urged the separation of the political institution from the government.
By 1965. PRI president Carlos Madrazo was demanjiing the delineation. Increasingly frustrated by the Institutional Party’s refusal to change with the times. Madrazo launched an independent bid for the presidency but his quest ended in a mysterious 1969 plane crash.
Death has dogged these proposed changes as well. Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu. the former brother-in-law of
Salinas and the man charged with the "re-creation" of the PRI was assassinated in late September* near party headquarters in Mexico City.
Attempted reforms in 1972 arfti 1988 also failed, making many sceptical .of true change this time around.
"Bah. it's all Just rhetoric Is how eminent historian Lorenzo Meyer responds to the PRI's pledges of change. "After the traditional self-assignment of the vote, we get the traditional promise to reform. This has been going on since 1929."
Meyer doubts that the f’RI knows how to change its rela-
tionship with the government or alter its undemocratic, authoritarian approach to running Mexico, a style that has earned the Mexican ruling party Ihe accolades of generations of Latin autocrats as "the [for feet dictatorship."
The only way to separate the PRI from the state is Io remove it from power." Meyer says.
The separation of the PRI from the government to which it has been joined like a Siamese twin for 65 years, requires surgery so generalised That party physicians do not seem to know where to begin
the operation. The possibility ol a plural government tn which members of the opposition might be included in the incoming cabinet was quickly nixed by Zedillo.
Modern Mexico has never had a cabinet secretary from an opposition party. Similarly, the PRI dominates the legislature, the Judiciary, the security forces, the media, and the bureaucracy.
The resignation from the PRI of all government employees is one fanciful measure proposed to split the ruling party from the state. Another is the end of the dedazo. the
President's traditional designation of his successor as the PRI candidate and almost sure winner
Instead, popular consultations similar to an American -style primary election, are promised by the year 2000 — the measure was first approved by the PR] s 14th Congress, headed by the late Coloslo during his campaign to reform the party. Both Coloslo and Zedillo were subsequently designated by Salinas.
Zedillo s' approach to the separation of party and state has been a luke-warm reiteration of Colosio's offer of radical change which came last January in the wake of the Zapatista uprising in southern Mexico. — ’"
The new president has limited himself to advocating that the PRI keep "a safe distance"' from state and municipal governments. a traditional source of PRI hegemony, and also endorses a new reform that will finally make the electoral authority independent of gov-’ ernment control.
But whether even so mild a round of reforms are acceptable to the party’s old guard, represented by Secretary of
Agriculture Carlos Hank Gonzdlez. remains dubious. Zedillo Is particularly indebted to Hank for his electoral vic tory
Success of the party's ef forts to right Its wrongs are not given much credibility by Mexicans. According to a recent poll by the dally Reforma. 77 per cent of all Mexico City residents questioned were highly to moderately sceptical of the party's reform intentions. The figure was 60 per cent In Montdrrey
One long-standing symbol of the PRI's wedding to the Mexican state is its patent on the national colours — red white: and "green No other party IS allowed to use these hues, the colours of the nation’s flag.The party's logo is displayed from one end of the country to the next.
On the eve of Mexico's Independence Day in September, several hundred urban activists marched to PRI's headquarters, produced a huge home-made party logo and systematically ripped the letters off each colour.
"We have taken the national colours tjack!" exclaimed Superbarrio Gomez, the protesters leader. They then sang the national anthem.
"That's one way to strip the PRI from the state." Gomez later quipped to reporters.
— GEMINI NEWS
JOHN ROSS is a freelance Journalist based tn San Francisco specialising on Latin America. He also contributes to 'El Flnanciero' in Mexico.