Mexican politics get nasty within the PRI

 

By Barnard R. Thompson

 

For months intra-party warfare has been taking place in Mexico within the PRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party − the government-created political arm and machine that held power and the Mexican presidency from 1929 to 2000.  Moreover, the two main perpetrators are party stalwarts at the top of the food chain, each of whom should know better, except egos and hunger for power go beyond the good of the party and quite possibly the nation.

 

In 2002 Roberto Madrazo Pintado was named president of the PRI, while Elba Esther Gordillo Morales took over as secretary general, the party’s number two post.  And while things seemed to start off amicably enough between the two, the relationship soon started to nosedive.

 

Born in Tabasco in 1952, Madrazo is the son of a PRI strongman and reformer who died in a suspicious plane crash in 1969.  Educated as an attorney, the often controversial career bureaucrat and politician served in both houses of the Mexican Congress before being elected governor of Tabasco in 1994.  A longtime aspirant to the presidency of Mexico, he stepped down from the party chairmanship earlier this year in his successful quest to become the PRI’s presidential candidate in 2006.

 

As for Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, she is the longtime − and powerful − leader of Mexico’s National Education Worker’s Union (SNTE), at over 1.5 million members the largest union in Latin America.  In 2003, in addition to holding the secretary general position in the PRI, she was elected to Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies where she was also named her party’s coordinator in that lower house of Congress.

 

However soon thereafter the public began to get inklings of her rift with party president Madrazo.  And as time went by, with hatred growing, Madrazo and his henchmen were successful in ousting Gordillo from her congressional coordinating position, and ultimately the post of secretary general.  The latter while blocking her sought after ascendancy to the party presidency, a rank that arguably, and according to PRI statutes, should have gone to her (for a short time at least) when Madrazo resigned last August.

 

Now the powers that be associated with Madrazo want to throw her out of the party − which could prove to be a huge mistake.

 

The fracture and enmity between Madrazo and Gordillo have grown even worse since November 13, when Madrazo attained the PRI presidential candidacy.  One of the low points being a telephone exchange during a radio debate turned maelstrom of accusations and countercharges.

 

Madrazo accused Gordillo, among other things, of working against the interests of the PRI and his candidacy.  He also claimed she is collaborating with Vicente Fox and the president’s National Action Party (PAN), and denounced her for treasonously fighting with ex-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari who opposed her efforts to gain the PRI presidency.

 

Gordillo countered that Madrazo is a liar, suggesting the two should debate while hooked-up to lie detectors.  She also called him “a misrepresenting snake that woos and seduces with the eyes.”

 

On a far more serious note Gordillo claimed that Jorge Hank Rhon, a Madrazo ally and the mayor of Tijuana, has passed on a death threat warning to her, by Madrazo, through a message conveyed by Tijuana teacher’s union member Noé Rivera.  Unproven, this accusation is expected to be investigated.

 

Almost immediately after the radio broadcast the PRI took action against its ex-secretary general, for placing party unity at risk and failing to recognize Madrazo as its candidate.  Gordillo has been stripped of her party privileges, and on November 16 she was given 15 days to formally present her allegations or be thrown out of the party.

 

The union quickly retaliated.  On November 18 the National Political Action Committee of the SNTE ratified a decision to reject the presidential candidacy of Roberto Madrazo.  

 

The possibility of Elba Esther Gordillo leaving the PRI, and taking more than a million teachers with her, has most certainly attracted the interest of Mexico’s other political parties.  The PAN especially, based on her friendship with Fox since the 1990s and the democratization work of the Grupo San Ángel.

 

But not just because of the number of votes represented.

 

For years Mexican teachers have been at the forefront in organized efforts to get out the vote for the PRI on Election Day.  Should those efforts be made on behalf of another party’s candidate − especially in a country where voter apathy and absenteeism normally run high, they could tip the scales against a shortsighted Madrazo. 

 

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Barnard Thompson, a consultant, is also editor of MexiData.info.  He can be reached via e-mail at mexidata@ix.netcom.com.