Monday, March 14, 2005

 

The PRI Prepares to Run Mexico

 

By Kenneth Emmond

 

It’s 16 months till Mexico’s federal election, and months more before a new president takes office, but the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is positioning itself to resume what many adherents believe is its rightful role — to wit, ruling Mexico.

 

The most recent evidence is a decision taken at the PRI’s annual meeting this month. A motion was passed to take a more charitable view of the notion that something must be done to help Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the national oil company, to grow and prosper.

 

Few details emanated from the meeting beyond the tidbit that legislators would no longer be constrained to vote down every energy reform initiative. Yet it was enough to set the National Action Party (PAN), international petroleum companies, and news reporters into a tizzy.

 

Reporters wrote excitedly about the apparent change of heart. Oil companies issued statements welcoming any attitude shift to the right. The PAN called for an immediate meeting with PRI officials to create a plan to surmount the congressional hurdle.

 

It was, of course, all for naught.

 

The PRI’s Chamber of Deputies whip, Emilio Chuayffet, was at pains last week to clarify that the party isn’t ready to approve any changes.

 

“What exists,” he said, “is a declaration in the action program and what will follow is an internal consultation among PRI members, to propose an initiative in legislative terms.”

 

Asked when the party might share its thoughts with the outside world, he replied, “To put a date on the calendar is a task we don’t have in mind.”

 

He said the party wants to do this quickly “in terms of the modernization of the nation, but also we have to do it with the legitimacy provided by the members of our party who will think about it and give their opinions on the issue.”

 

Cantinflas, the Mexican comedic actor, couldn’t have said it better.

 

In his circuitous way Chuayffet confirmed that, despite the implied change, the PRI is following the line it has followed for 76 years — take care of the PRI first, and also try to do something for the nation.

 

No one who understands party priorities should expect any change in energy law while Vicente Fox is president.

 

PRI strategists are perfectly aware of the urgent need for energy reform.

 

They’re moving early to modify their stance, but only to implement a variation of Fox’s failed policies — failed due to PRI obstructionism — once they take over at Los Pinos.

 

By shifting position now they hope to deflect charges of a post-election flip-flop. But the first priority is that the PRI be in charge when change occurs, and that it gets the credit; if the wait harms Mexico, so be it.

 

The party took a similar approach to the expatriate voting issue. It’s been around since Ernesto Zedillo was president (1994-2000), and was one of the first items Fox placed on the table.

 

The PRI knows that millions of potential Mexican voters abroad, driven from their home country often at risk to life and limb by the PRI’s failure to create jobs over decades, might support other parties.

 

So, it waited until now to allow enabling legislation to pass, knowing it’s well nigh impossible to get voting machinery in place in time for 2006.

 

If a shred of doubt remains about the PRI-first approach, one need only recall the 2000 Pemexgate scandal, when the party transferred MX$1.5 billion — from the oil company of all the people — into PRI accounts to support the party’s presidential candidate. That’s the one we know about.

 

To counter evidence in support of this PRI-first theory, party leader and presidential hopeful Roberto Madrazo assures us the leopard has changed its spots, that all corruption, lies, and deceptions have been left behind, and in their place is a New Look democratic PRI.

 

Coming from a politician with a spectacular record of flouting the rules, and who presided over changes at the annual meeting aimed at marginalizing party dissidents, well, it’s a lot to swallow.

 

Despite the party’s outward confidence, a PRI victory in 2006 is not a foregone conclusion.  Still, no one should underestimate the power of Mexico’s only truly nationwide party, whose machine penetrates every nook and cranny, and whose strategists are second to none.

 

If the PRI does win in 2006, and if it instigates a forward-looking program, that program will likely look a lot like the one President Fox is promoting, one that right now the PRI is obstructing.

 

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Kenneth Emmond, an economist, market consultant and journalist who has lived in Mexico since 1995, is also a columnist with MexiData.info.  He can be reached via e-mail at Kemmond00@yahoo.com.