Monday, October 6, 2003

 

Past military leaders want more of a role in Mexican affairs

 

By Barnard R. Thompson

 

With bizarre similarities to the activities and ambitions of aging revolutionists following the Mexican Revolution, today there are a number of retired military officers (plus some who are still on active duty in the three branches of service) who want to right and reshape the political course of Mexico.  And to do this — so it is said — they have severed past ties to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in order to make their current organization an independent political party.

 

Following the 1913 ouster and killing of President Francisco I. Madero, from the height of conflict and hostilities during the 1910-17 Revolution to the 1946 election of civilian Miguel Alemán, Mexico was ruled by a succession of soldier-politicians.  Venustiano Carranza, First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army, was elected president in 1917, and in 1920 he unwillingly yielded to the election of General Álvaro Obregón, and what was to become — with rare exceptions — 80-years of elections that were seldom free in spite of the rhetoric about democracy and reform.

 

During his 1920-24 presidency Obregón embraced the army, wooing the generals with special considerations while he ran the country with an iron fist.  And at the same time Obregón was grooming his successor, Plutarco Elías Calles (1924-28), who during the Revolution rose to the rank of colonel but who ultimately became known as Mexico’s jefe máximo, or maximum leader.

 

In 1928 Obregón was reelected president, but before he could take office he was assassinated.  As a result, Emilio Portes Gil was named provisional president.

 

But before Portes Gil left office in 1929, and at the instructions of Elías Calles, he shepherded a political party into being to serve the developing governance machinery and to insure the patrimonial inheritance of those who had fought in the Revolution.  That official party was named the National Revolutionary Party (PNR), a name that was changed in 1938 to the Mexican Revolution Party (PRM).

 

And in 1946 the name of this political machine of the one-party state was changed again, this time to the Institutional Revolutionary Party — the PRI.

 

During those years most who were part of the military or military past were content with their perks, concessions, appointments and rewards, but in 1946 a first chink in the armor appeared.  With the election of Alemán there were some revolutionary and political veterans who objected to the “subversion of revolutionary goals to personal and frequently dishonest gain,” and they formed the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution (PARM) to counteract the corrosion of values.

 

Something similar may be happening today.

 

Over the past decade a group of retired generals, admirals and other officers has been forming an autonomous political organization named the National Revolutionary Alliance (ANR).  And while it was formerly aligned with the PRI (the PARM was a PRI filial for years), that may be changing as those involved with the ANR are now seeking to upgrade the organization to a standalone political party.

 

Last year the ANR passed a major hurdle, when it formally qualified for registry with the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) as a “national political association.”  Now organizers are working to increase the core registration of militants, and during this new stage of the ANR plan letters of Invitation to join and participate have been sent to 30,000 to 35,000 retired members of the military and their families.

 

The letters, in talking about present and future priorities of the organization, point to the need “to adequately attend to the demands of the people with respect to the economic situation, jobs, safety, health, the environment and education, among other things.”  Another of the objectives is to find ways to reform aspects of the armed forces in order “to promote the restructuring of the institutions that defend national sovereignty, and to prompt improvements to the legal framework that will support (military) participation in internal security and in the fight against organized crime.”

 

With respect to the recent midterm elections for federal deputies, the ARN emphasizes with disappointment that “the historic quota for the sector” of the PRI offered the military only one seat on the percentage representation lists in 2003.  The National Action Party (PAN) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) are also criticized, for refusing any opportunities whatsoever to non-party members.

 

And that may well bring us to the paramount objective of the ANR — a registered political party that will again offer military candidates elective office, part of what some still view as an inherited patrimony won by their revolutionary forefathers.