-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 20, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
MEXICO'S ELECTION:
RIGHT GAINS WITH PUSH FROM U.S. IMPERIALISM
By Gloria La Riva
Did the recent presidential election in Mexico set the
stage for a political sea-change in that country? Or was it
merely another election?
On July 2, Mexico's voters elected Vicente Fox, a former
Coca-Cola executive and the candidate of the right-wing PAN
(National Action Party), handing the ruling PRI its first
presidential defeat in 71 years. PRI stands for Party of
the Institutional Revolution.
Fox received 42 percent and PRI candidate Francisco
Labastida 35 percent of the vote. The candidate of the
Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), Cuauhtemoc Cardenas,
came in third with 16.5 percent.
In 1988, it may be remembered, Cardenas had run for
president and was so popular with the workers and peasants
that most Mexicans believe he actually won that contest.
Many charged election fraud on the part of the ruling PRI.
After the election, when the PRD did nothing to forcefully
challenge the results, the impatience of the masses with
their miserable conditions was shown in the emergence of
new revolutionary groups, especially in the countryside.
WHEN PRI NATIONALIZED THE OIL
Cardenas is son of the late president Lazaro Cardenas, who
between 1936 and 1940 carried out far-reaching economic
reforms. With capitalism in a worldwide depression, the
workers and peasants were organized and militant enough to
pressure the Mexican bourgeois government to nationalize
the country's petroleum, land and other industries. These
measures helped rescue Mexico from a legacy of U.S. and
British control of its economic pillars.
To the extent that the masses for many decades perceived
the PRI as the party of Mexican sovereignty, it was because
of the role it had played in those years.
Established in the aftermath of the 1910 Mexican national
bourgeois revolution, the PRI began its 71-year domination
over Mexican politics in 1929. Nationalizing the oil
stabilized the economy after the chaos of the Depression.
This stability aided the PRI's political monopoly, as did a
patronage system developed over the years.
However, economic turmoil after Mexico's economic crisis
in the 1980s began to create widespread opposition to the
PRI's increasingly right-wing policies. It abandoned its
earlier independent stance and surrendered to the dictates
of the imperialist banks and corporations, leading to the
wholesale dismantling of Mexico's national economic
infrastructure.
One example was the passing of NAFTA, the North American
Free Trade Agreement, enthusiastically endorsed and
promoted by President Carlos Salinas in 1994. The purpose
of the accord was to open up Mexico's markets to U.S.
agribusiness and other companies through the elimination of
tariffs that traditionally protected Mexican products.
EFFECTS OF NAFTA
Since NAFTA was passed in 1994, Mexico's agriculture and
peasants have faced disaster. In these six years, according
to the Agricultural Commission of the Mexican Parliament,
Mexico has been converted into an importer of what had been
its main domestic grains--rice, beans, wheat, soy and
sorghum. Giant U.S. agribusinesses like Cargill, Anderson
Clayton and Pilgrims Pride now sell Mexico the corn that
once was produced by 2.5 million Mexican farmers and
agricultural workers. Even the U.S. Department of
Agriculture didn't dream of such success. It had estimated
that U.S. producers would accomplish this task in 15 years.
Before NAFTA, the PRI presidents Miguel de la Madrid
(1982-1988) and Carlos Salinas (1988-1994) sold off more
than 1,800 state-owned mines and industries to foreign and
other private investors. Essential government food
subsidies that had existed for years to keep the poorest
from starving were cut or eliminated. From 1994 to 2000,
the number of poor people who received milk and tortilla
subsidies was cut from 1.5 million to 1.1 million.
As a result Mexico's most oppressed were forced to flee to
the north just to survive. As their numbers increase, the
deaths of Mexican immigrants in U.S. deserts is testament
to the effects of U.S. imperialist pressure on their
economy.
Even as the Mexican people grew more desperate for
economic improvement and real change, the U.S. was helping
to fund and promote the PAN, often described as "pro-
business," as the potential political alternative to the
PRI, undercutting the social-democratic PRD. Now the PRI
may lose more than just the presidency.
The Mexican masses saw the PRI's defeat as their number-
one objective in this year's elections. This is the main
reason for the strong turnout in favor of the PAN, rather
than an endorsement of PAN's right-wing agenda. PRI and
"one-party politics" are seen as the main culprits in
political corruption, repression and economic crisis.
On election night in Mexico, people were cheering, saying
that Fox would implement real economic and social change to
benefit the people, even though his ideology is also anti-
worker and reactionary. It is wishful thinking. Sooner than
later, the Mexican people, with their proud tradition of
struggle and revolution, will see through the farcical
self-portrayal of Fox as the people's candidate, in the
same way they now see through the PRI.
- END -
(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
------------------
This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
