Thursday, December 29, 2005
Javier Trevino's quote in Washington Post
After the Battle, the Blood
By John Ward Anderson and Molly MooreWashington Post Foreign ServiceThursday , July 6, 2000 ; A14
MEXICO CITY, July 5 –– Devastated by its first presidential election defeat in seven decades of rule, Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party has imploded in an unprecedented public bloodbath over who is to blame and how to prevent further collapse.
The battle for the soul of the PRI--reeling since conservative opposition candidate Vicente Fox ended its reign as the world's longest-ruling party--has pitted the long knives of its old-line, autocratic wing, known as "the dinosaurs," against those of younger, reform-minded "technocrats" who have predominated in party councils for the last two decades.
At stake is the leadership, and perhaps survival, of a political party that controlled virtually every aspect of Mexican life for most of the last century but which Mexican voters rejected Sunday as too corrupt and out-of-touch with a more diverse, better-educated and increasingly urbanized nation.
The public brawling began almost as soon as election returns came in showing that PRI candidate Francisco Labastida Ochoa was going down to defeat. Key power brokers started assigning blame while jockeying to take over the reins of the party to try to ensure its survival.
"President [Ernesto] Zedillo is no longer the head of the party," said party stalwart Manuel Bartlett, a former interior minister, state governor and presidential hopeful. Bartlett, considered the standard-bearer of the PRI's old guard, has long been at odds with the president, feeling Zedillo's support for political reforms and free-market policies threatened the party's power structure and hit too hard at its main constituents, the rural poor.
"Zedillo says the party is to blame for the loss and not his policies, and that's false," Bartlett said in an interview today. "He was the moral leader, and he's to blame for the internal problems of the party, and now we don't have a leader. He hasn't existed since Sunday."
Officials allied with Zedillo and the technocratic wing of the PRI said Bartlett and other members of the old guard are out of step with Mexico, which has evolved into a younger, more dynamic, modern country.
"The traditional politicians of the PRI are not getting the message," said Javier Trevino, a top official in the Labastida campaign, arguing that if the party does not change, it will become obsolete. "There is a new set of values, principles and ideals in the electorate, and they are not shared by these people. They have no connection, and when a party has no connection with the people, it dies."
Never has a PRI power struggle blown up so publicly. The two wings of the party have been bitter enemies for years, but they kept their loathing for each other out of the headlines for the sake of political unity and to share in the spoils of power. Not this time.
"Rebellion in the PRI!" screamed headlines in several daily newspapers in Mexico City today.
"We are one step away from a split and two steps away from beating the hell out of each other," a top PRI official told the daily newspaper Milenio.
The fight erupted Tuesday after the party's top executive, Dulce Maria Sauri, took the blame for the PRI's defeat and resigned. When Zedillo proposed to replace her with former Hidalgo state governor Jesus Murillo Karam, the old guard rebelled, complaining the president was trying to push through his own candidate.
Tabasco state Gov. Roberto Madrazo--who along with Bartlett lost out to Labastida in a party primary last November--fired off a letter to the party leadership, complaining about the "haste" of Zedillo's action and proposing instead a National Transition Commission to study how the PRI could best reconstitute itself.
"What is at stake is the possible survival of our party," wrote Madrazo, who is aligned with the old guard and is considered the leading candidate to take over the party. Sauri's resignation was not accepted, and the party embraced Madrazo's proposal, apparently at least in part because it provides several weeks for tempers to cool.
Animosity between the PRI's two wings stretches back a quarter-century, to when Ivy League-educated technocrats--most of whom rose to power through the party bureaucracy and never ran for election--assumed the party leadership and presidency. Because of Mexico's odd form of PRI-dominated democracy--in which the president could virtually handpick his successor--the technocrats promoted themselves, and their bloodline became dominant in the party.
The technocrats, many of them economists, pushed through adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement, privatization of state-owned industries and other initiatives that struck hard at lower-income Mexicans. Under their leadership, Mexico has had seven currency devaluations since 1976, wiping out personal savings and throwing millions of people out of work.
Old-line party figures like Bartlett argue that the technocrats lack political sense. "They're functionaries. They don't know the party," he said today. "They're excellent, they have great education, they speak three languages. We like the technocrats to put in offices," he said with a chuckle. "The problem is, now we don't have any offices to put them in."
But it was the other wing of the party, the unreconstructed dinosaurs, who drove the PRI into decline--favoring patronage, vote-fixing and closed-door politics over the political liberalization that, according to public surveys, Mexicans craved. Bartlett himself is accused of stealing the 1988 election for Carlos Salinas de Gortari by using his post as Interior Minister to fake an election night computer crash. He denies the charge.
Seeing its declining support at the polls, which dates from the early 1970s when opposition parties began seriously challenging PRI candidates in state and local elections, the ruling party implemented electoral reforms, trying to prove that it could transform into a more democratic party. The reforms, including creation of an independent Federal Election Institute to replace the Interior Ministry in overseeing voting, were used by the opposition to strike even harder at the PRI's 71-year reign, culminating in their loss of the presidency Sunday.
"I get the feeling that the more conservative groups within our party have failed to understand either the reasons for our defeat or the magnitude of the disaster," Madrazo said in his letter.
But others say it was the dinosaurs who failed to get the message. "This election wasn't against Zedillo himself, it was an election against the old PRI," said Federico Reyes-Heroles, a political commentator who has written several books on Mexican politics. "They believe they can restore the PRI in the old-fashioned way, and that won't work anymore."
"We were not very effective in reaching . . . 18- to 35-year-olds who massively went to vote against us, and we did not reach the middle class," Labastida campaign aide Trevino declared. "Those are the sections of Mexico that are growing and participating. The message is there, and it needs to be well-taken by the PRI leaders who are used to the old-style politics of Mexico."
Other observers said the PRI split could deepen when Mexico's new Congress--in which no party has a majority--convenes on Sept. 1 and Fox's National Action Party tries to woo PRI technocrats to his camp to form a working majority. Many doubt whether the old-style PRI politics--which relied on patronage, money and power to win voter support--will work without the presidency.
"The party has been a successful employment office, to put it bluntly," said PRI veteran Jesus Silva Herzog, a former ambassador to the United States who was trounced Sunday in his bid to become mayor of Mexico City. "Now we have to make a very significant change to offer people something they can believe in, instead of something they can get."
© 2000 The Washington Post Company
By John Ward Anderson and Molly MooreWashington Post Foreign ServiceThursday , July 6, 2000 ; A14
MEXICO CITY, July 5 –– Devastated by its first presidential election defeat in seven decades of rule, Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party has imploded in an unprecedented public bloodbath over who is to blame and how to prevent further collapse.
The battle for the soul of the PRI--reeling since conservative opposition candidate Vicente Fox ended its reign as the world's longest-ruling party--has pitted the long knives of its old-line, autocratic wing, known as "the dinosaurs," against those of younger, reform-minded "technocrats" who have predominated in party councils for the last two decades.
At stake is the leadership, and perhaps survival, of a political party that controlled virtually every aspect of Mexican life for most of the last century but which Mexican voters rejected Sunday as too corrupt and out-of-touch with a more diverse, better-educated and increasingly urbanized nation.
The public brawling began almost as soon as election returns came in showing that PRI candidate Francisco Labastida Ochoa was going down to defeat. Key power brokers started assigning blame while jockeying to take over the reins of the party to try to ensure its survival.
"President [Ernesto] Zedillo is no longer the head of the party," said party stalwart Manuel Bartlett, a former interior minister, state governor and presidential hopeful. Bartlett, considered the standard-bearer of the PRI's old guard, has long been at odds with the president, feeling Zedillo's support for political reforms and free-market policies threatened the party's power structure and hit too hard at its main constituents, the rural poor.
"Zedillo says the party is to blame for the loss and not his policies, and that's false," Bartlett said in an interview today. "He was the moral leader, and he's to blame for the internal problems of the party, and now we don't have a leader. He hasn't existed since Sunday."
Officials allied with Zedillo and the technocratic wing of the PRI said Bartlett and other members of the old guard are out of step with Mexico, which has evolved into a younger, more dynamic, modern country.
"The traditional politicians of the PRI are not getting the message," said Javier Trevino, a top official in the Labastida campaign, arguing that if the party does not change, it will become obsolete. "There is a new set of values, principles and ideals in the electorate, and they are not shared by these people. They have no connection, and when a party has no connection with the people, it dies."
Never has a PRI power struggle blown up so publicly. The two wings of the party have been bitter enemies for years, but they kept their loathing for each other out of the headlines for the sake of political unity and to share in the spoils of power. Not this time.
"Rebellion in the PRI!" screamed headlines in several daily newspapers in Mexico City today.
"We are one step away from a split and two steps away from beating the hell out of each other," a top PRI official told the daily newspaper Milenio.
The fight erupted Tuesday after the party's top executive, Dulce Maria Sauri, took the blame for the PRI's defeat and resigned. When Zedillo proposed to replace her with former Hidalgo state governor Jesus Murillo Karam, the old guard rebelled, complaining the president was trying to push through his own candidate.
Tabasco state Gov. Roberto Madrazo--who along with Bartlett lost out to Labastida in a party primary last November--fired off a letter to the party leadership, complaining about the "haste" of Zedillo's action and proposing instead a National Transition Commission to study how the PRI could best reconstitute itself.
"What is at stake is the possible survival of our party," wrote Madrazo, who is aligned with the old guard and is considered the leading candidate to take over the party. Sauri's resignation was not accepted, and the party embraced Madrazo's proposal, apparently at least in part because it provides several weeks for tempers to cool.
Animosity between the PRI's two wings stretches back a quarter-century, to when Ivy League-educated technocrats--most of whom rose to power through the party bureaucracy and never ran for election--assumed the party leadership and presidency. Because of Mexico's odd form of PRI-dominated democracy--in which the president could virtually handpick his successor--the technocrats promoted themselves, and their bloodline became dominant in the party.
The technocrats, many of them economists, pushed through adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement, privatization of state-owned industries and other initiatives that struck hard at lower-income Mexicans. Under their leadership, Mexico has had seven currency devaluations since 1976, wiping out personal savings and throwing millions of people out of work.
Old-line party figures like Bartlett argue that the technocrats lack political sense. "They're functionaries. They don't know the party," he said today. "They're excellent, they have great education, they speak three languages. We like the technocrats to put in offices," he said with a chuckle. "The problem is, now we don't have any offices to put them in."
But it was the other wing of the party, the unreconstructed dinosaurs, who drove the PRI into decline--favoring patronage, vote-fixing and closed-door politics over the political liberalization that, according to public surveys, Mexicans craved. Bartlett himself is accused of stealing the 1988 election for Carlos Salinas de Gortari by using his post as Interior Minister to fake an election night computer crash. He denies the charge.
Seeing its declining support at the polls, which dates from the early 1970s when opposition parties began seriously challenging PRI candidates in state and local elections, the ruling party implemented electoral reforms, trying to prove that it could transform into a more democratic party. The reforms, including creation of an independent Federal Election Institute to replace the Interior Ministry in overseeing voting, were used by the opposition to strike even harder at the PRI's 71-year reign, culminating in their loss of the presidency Sunday.
"I get the feeling that the more conservative groups within our party have failed to understand either the reasons for our defeat or the magnitude of the disaster," Madrazo said in his letter.
But others say it was the dinosaurs who failed to get the message. "This election wasn't against Zedillo himself, it was an election against the old PRI," said Federico Reyes-Heroles, a political commentator who has written several books on Mexican politics. "They believe they can restore the PRI in the old-fashioned way, and that won't work anymore."
"We were not very effective in reaching . . . 18- to 35-year-olds who massively went to vote against us, and we did not reach the middle class," Labastida campaign aide Trevino declared. "Those are the sections of Mexico that are growing and participating. The message is there, and it needs to be well-taken by the PRI leaders who are used to the old-style politics of Mexico."
Other observers said the PRI split could deepen when Mexico's new Congress--in which no party has a majority--convenes on Sept. 1 and Fox's National Action Party tries to woo PRI technocrats to his camp to form a working majority. Many doubt whether the old-style PRI politics--which relied on patronage, money and power to win voter support--will work without the presidency.
"The party has been a successful employment office, to put it bluntly," said PRI veteran Jesus Silva Herzog, a former ambassador to the United States who was trounced Sunday in his bid to become mayor of Mexico City. "Now we have to make a very significant change to offer people something they can believe in, instead of something they can get."
© 2000 The Washington Post Company
# posted by Javier Trevino @ 1:01 PM 
