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By Nicholas de Juanes
The streets of Mexican cities read like the copybooks of history students, Littered with dates that chart the (official) story of a nation. November 20th, September 16th, May 5th. Independence, Revolution, The Insurgents... Other days, the anniversaries of massacres and failed insurrections Are marked by the passage of popular demonstrations along these self-important thoroughfares.
Now there is another date to be fixed up on street corner plaques; July 2nd 2000 - the day when presidential elections gave 43 to Vicente Fox (National Action Party - PAN); 36% to franciso Labastida ( Institutional Revolutionary Party - PRI); and 17% to Cuauhtemoc Cardenas (Party of the congratulated) Fox on his election victory, he was conceding the end of a 71-year stranglehold over power by the PRI. Fox will assume the presidency in December.
A one-time Cola Cola manager and former governor of the state of Guanajuato, Mexico’s new leader is hardly typical of the people. Standing several inches over six foot, his cowboy boots and "ranchero" image belie his sympathy with urban, business interests. Economically, he will continue the neo-liberal policies have reacted positively to his victory. Governments around the world - most notably in the United States and the European Union - have hailed the Mexican people's "new democracy". Neo-liberalism has brought US-style shopping malls to many suburbs, but the number of Mexicans classified as living in dire poverty has grown even faster - to around 40% of the population. Most of the others rank only as "poor". Political democracy is a new experience for Mexico, but an open, laissez-faire economy is not. The dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz (1877 - 1910) was characterised by complete reliance on foreign capital and the sale of huge swathes of land to non-Mexican interests.
Fits were often exported, and the economic activities that were supposed to "modernize" the country - coffee, cocoa, rubber and timber - brought immense benefit to Europe, but none at all to landless Mexicans. It was overthrown by a revolution proclaimed by the moderate Francisco Madero in the name of effective suffrage and a ban on regime, but instead a bloody struggle for power ensued. In the country the poor threw their weight behind radical leaders such as Emiliano Zapata, and Francisco Villa and the cry of "Land and Despites" taking Mexico City on December 6tth 1914, they were eventually defeated by the forces of Carranza.
Carranza and his successors were no political radicals, but they were pressurised into making some gestures towards social measures such as land reform. The Twenties were marked by feuds, finally brought to an end by the establishment of the Party of the National revolution (later the PRI) which joined together those forces that had emerged victorious from the revolution. The stability gained helped the economy to recover from the long years of war, and living standards began to rise. The PRI maintained a brilliant balancing act, co-opting social leaders and palliating the worst effects of poverty, but essentially satisfying the demands of the new elite. Left-wing elements enjoyed fleeting moments of influence, but the party was firmly ensconced in the political centre. Its vice-like grip on the country was maintained through repression and populism, a "carrot and stick" approach. Despite the party’s very dubious methods, one of its proudest achievements was establishing Mexico’s independence from its northern neighbour.
After the Second World War, the economy grew quickly and many industries were brought under public ownership. As in other countries, the state became stronger, but the military were excluded from the inner circles of power. A system of secular education was developed. Despite this progress, the destiny of the nation was far from being in the hands of its people: an individual’s place in society was determined purely by his relationship with the party. Corruption became an ideology in itself. The ideology of the PRI was dictated by its reliance on populism. For many years it was a centre-left party by Latin American standards, but it bles with the prevailing wind. Its nationalism meant that at times it lent support to more clearly-defined anti-imperialist movements. At home, however, the government hunted down popular leaders such as Ruben Jaramillo or Genera Vazquez, and there are still legends of massacres of indigenous peasants that the newspapers never reported.
Challenges to the PRI came from the left, in the form of popular uprisings and guerrilla warfare, but also from the right. The PAN had to wait until 1947 for its first triumph - gaining control of a municipal council in the state of Ithacan. Left-wing opposition came also from the universities, and Mexico had its own '68 when thousands of students gathered in Tlatelolco, Mexico City on October 2nd. The army opened fire on them, killing perhaps over a thousand - the dead were never properly counted. The popular movement for democracy had begun. Some of the survivors of Tlatelolco joined the guerrillas in the hills, while intellectuals such as Poniatowski or Monsivais hurled savage criticism at the regime. By 1988 the regime was so weakened that it had no resort to obvious fraud to win the Presidential election for Carlos Salinas, a "brilliant" neoliberal economist whose policies bombed living standards back into the Seventies, and consigned notions of national sovereignty to the historical dustbin. On January 1st 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, the US and Canada came into force. Salinas proudly proclaimed that Mexico had joined the First World. Meanwhile, a ragged band of Indians had taken over half of southern-eastern state of Chiapas. They were the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and they called on Mexicans to take up arms and march on the capital in order to install a transition government that would pave the way for democracy. Though not heeding this call, huge numbers did take to the streets in support of the Zapatistas. For the next six years the indigenous resistance waved its banner of freedom under the very nostrils of the PRI despite heavy militarisation of states such as Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero and ongoing human rights abuses.
The toppling of the PRI has given Mexicans good cause to celebrate. It’s been 71 years since they have last had a change of government, so any new face has to be welcomed. For business sectors in Mexico, the US and Europe, there is also the relief of finally having a reputable broker to deal with. A more open economy will make Mexico a more profitable place in which to work; not that they didn’t do business with the likes of Carlos Salinas before - it just seemed harder to justify. So Vicente is very definitely their blue-eyed boy. The PRI is not dead, of course, and it will be fighting dirtier than ever to hang onto its control of a majority of the states. However, even the left is celebrating the defeat of its long-time executioner. Many battles remain, however. Fox’s triumph may only take Mexico further down a road that leads back to the economic injustices of the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship, whatever the gains make in the political arena. Progressive forces in Mexico must ask themselves why it was that voters turned to Fox rather than the left-wing Cardenas to oust the dinosaurs of the PRI. Many appear to have voted for the candidates they perceived to be more likely to succeed, rather than the one who represented their real aspirations more closely. Cardenas, who conceded defeat to Salinas back in 1988 rather than call for civil disobedience, was clearly not a solid enough figure. Fox’s "friendship" with US Ambassador and the support he received from TV giant TeleAzteca - closely related to the elite business group that benefited so handsomely from the Salinas years - proved that he was an opponent that the PRI would have to take notice of. Ordinary Mexicans will have to wait and see if the man from Coca Cola can prolong the sweet taste of freedom that accompanied his victory, or, whether it will be followed by a reverberating belch. Fox's popularity will be dependent on the effects of his economic and social programme and his efficacy in dismantling the PRI’s hierarchy of graft.