Comrades
Here is analysis of Mexican election results from US CWI section.
Stephen Jolly, Socialist Party
Preliminary results of the Mexican elections gave the victory - after 71
years in power, 50 years as being the main agent of imperialism and 12
years of crisis of the PRI - to the main, conservative, opposition party.
The fact that Vicente Fox is a former high executive of Coca-Cola is more
than symbolic. The PAN has emerged as the main tool of imperialism and Fox
victory was greeted by the international markets, big business and both the
Democrats and Republicans as the greatest thing on earth since the fall of
the Berlin Wall.
But it would be shallow thinking just to interpret this election as the
biggest victory of imperialism ever in Mexico. The crisis of the PRI
initiated 12 years ago precipitated the need for imperialism and the
Mexican bourgeoisie to change horses and privilege the PAN as its main
agent in the area. The PAN tamed his "catholic" roots and integrated many
cadre from the PRI and its program today - on fundamental issues - is not
that different from the PRI's. But the fact that the PRI lost the election
effectively ended the one-party regime and opens up a period of political
instability in Mexico and most likely of an upsurge of the class struggle.
Fox has announced an aggressive policy of defense of NAFTA and the
demolition of the remaining barriers for imperialist penetration in the
country - barriers that were significantly lowered during the last three
PRI's presidencies.
The victory of Fox will have an effect in the class struggle in Mexico.
Will encourage strikes, demonstrations and peasants struggles since the
tombstone of the PRI machinery was lifted and the mass movement is now
freer to pursue democratic demands with more effectiveness.
Some of the side effects of the PAN's victory is that the "official" links
between most unions and peasants organizations with the PRI will be
tremendously weakened or even demolished in the next period. The tradition
of building independent unions and peasant's organizations will certainly
accelerate. Together with that will come the demands of the different
sectors. The one-party regime - modified 20 years ago but still in
existence until Zedillo took power - is gone. This is an incredible
advantage for the mass movement and if anything - the traditions of the
Mexican proletariat and the mass movement - will re-emerge in this new
situation.
The tremendous defeat of the PRD - which won the elections in 1988 but
failed to take power - is just the retarded effect of that betrayal.
Yesterday, while Cuahtemoc Cardenas was codemning the victory of Fox - and
saying that what happened was a "disgrace" for Mexico - half of the
leadership of the PRD were with Fox celebrating his victory. This will
bring the possibility of a big split in the PRD and an increase in its
left's opposition to the new government. The fact that the PRD won again
in the Capital, Mexico City, if not of little importance.
One thing that Cuahtemoc "forgot" to mention yesterday in his interviews
with the media is that an year ago he proposed a comon electoral front with
the PAN and only retreated from it when it was evident that he would not be
the candidate of such a front. Over one million PRD votes shifted sides
and voted for the PAN candidate yesterday. Maybe another million or so of
PRD followers voted for all the lists of the PAN. After all, they were
educated by Cuahtemoc and the PRD - and the left - that the most important
thing was to defeat the PRI, independently of what or who would do such a
thing. The left accompannied this capitulation by ceasing any independent
activity since 1988 and supporting the PRD uncritically and finally
dissolving themselves in the bourgeois party.
One sector of the PRD will go to collaborate witht he new government -
another will increase its opposition.
What the PRI will do now when it is the opposition is of much relevance as
well. An split in the PRI will be on the agenda from tomorrow. The
different wings of the bureaucracy, the tradeunions and the popular sectors
controlled by the PRI will re-assemble and re-aligned. There are already
talks of an agreement between the PRI and the PAN to govern together (Fox
announced a government to include all other parties). But any agreement
with a sector of the PRI will bring decisive divisions with the "Mapaches"
or hard liners and other sectors to the left of the center-right wing of
the party which is the only capable of reachign an agreement with the PAN.
Many things in this front will depend on what the PAN does with three
issues: a) the administrative corruption at all levels of government
institutionalized by the PRI in 71 years in power. If the PAN does attack
this corruption, even in a tokenist way, that will trigger huge conflicts.
There are hundreds of thousands of public employees and bureaucrats
involved and over 1-Million people enjoyed well-paid patronage jobs in
Mexico; b) the relationship between the PRI and the drug cartels. This is
not exlcusive of the PRI, though. The PAN administrations, particularly in
the North of the country had been involved on this relationship as well but
they are junior partners compared with the PRI.; c) What the PAN would do
in relationship with the unions and peasant/popular organizations tied to
the PRI. If it leaves the class struggle to decide its fate, it can
re-direct some of these forces to consolidate its power. If it attacks
those ties head on will encounter a lot of resistance and will force
significant sectors of the PRI to go on the offensive against the new
government.
Few weeks before the elections, the remnants of the one time pwoerful PRT
(the USEC section, now reduced to a hundred or so members) and of the POS
(the remaining couple of dozen members of the party created by the LIT
decades ago) formed a coalition to run a symbolic, unofficial presidential
campaign. Too little, too late. The PRT and the POS were destroyed in a
decade of political zigzags that included the capitualtion to the PRD, the
Zapatistas and lost most of their members to those forces. The POS was
also further destroyed with the crisis in the LIT(CI) in 1988, just in the
verge of that year's gigantic political and economic crisis. The PRT - who
once claimed thousands of members, was also destroyed before the
presidential elections in 1988 when its National Committee and most of
their main cadre deserted "in masse" to the PRD and became - for a while -
even cadre of that organization.
The rest of the left is in no better shape. The PSUM - the Stalinist party
and the PMT (a nationalist left wing party) and other big organizations
dissolve themselves in 1988 and integrated themselves to the PRD of
Cuahtemoc. After the betrayal of the PRD in 1988, many of the cadre of the
left emigrated to the Zapatistas furthering the fragmentation and
destruction of 60 years of left wing traditions in Mexico. They are today
mere appendices of the PRD or the Zapatistas. The EZLN that could have
filled the vacuum left by the PRD betrayal in 1988, also crystallized in a
regional and isolated movement and lost most of its potential of evolving
into a new national left wing formation.
The next year or so will be decisive in the political life of Mexico.
Moreover, this situation in Mexico will have tremendous implications for
socialists' political work in the United States especially in California
and New Mexico and cities like Chicago and New York.
--
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