Mexico's election
Right gains with push
from U.S. imperialism
By
Gloria La
Riva
Did
the recent presidential election in Mexico set the stage for a political
sea-change in that country? Or was it merely another
election?
On
July 2, Mexico's voters elected Vicente Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive and
the candidate of the right-wing PAN (National Action Party), handing the ruling
PRI its first presidential defeat in 71 years. PRI stands for Party of the
Institutional Revolution.
Fox
received 42 percent and PRI candidate Francisco Labastida 35 percent of the
vote. The candidate of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), Cuauhtemoc
Cardenas, came in third with 16.5
percent.
In
1988, it may be remembered, Cardenas had run for president and was so popular
with the workers and peasants that most Mexicans believe he actually won that
contest. Many charged election fraud on the part of the ruling PRI. After the
election, when the PRD did nothing to forcefully challenge the results, the
impatience of the masses with their miserable conditions was shown in the
emergence of new revolutionary groups, especially in the
countryside.
When
PRI nationalized the
oil
Cardenas
is son of the late president Lazaro Cardenas, who between 1936 and 1940 carried
out far-reaching economic reforms. With capitalism in a worldwide depression,
the workers and peasants were organized and militant enough to pressure the
Mexican bourgeois government to nationalize the country's petroleum, land and
other industries. These measures helped rescue Mexico from a legacy of U.S. and
British control of its economic
pillars.
To
the extent that the masses for many decades perceived the PRI as the party of
Mexican sovereignty, it was because of the role it had played in those
years.
Established
in the aftermath of the 1910 Mexican national bourgeois revolution, the PRI
began its 71-year domination over Mexican politics in 1929. Nationalizing the
oil stabilized the economy after the chaos of the Depression. This stability
aided the PRI's political monopoly, as did a patronage system developed over the
years.
However,
economic turmoil after Mexico's economic crisis in the 1980s began to create
widespread opposition to the PRI's increasingly right-wing policies. It
abandoned its earlier independent stance and surrendered to the dictates of the
imperialist banks and corporations, leading to the wholesale dismantling of
Mexico's national economic infrastructure.
One
example was the passing of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
enthusiastically endorsed and promoted by President Carlos Salinas in 1994. The
purpose of the accord was to open up Mexico's markets to U.S. agribusiness and
other companies through the elimination of tariffs that traditionally protected
Mexican
products.
Effects
of
NAFTA
Since
NAFTA was passed in 1994, Mexico's agriculture and peasants have faced disaster.
In these six years, according to the Agricultural Commission of the Mexican
Parliament, Mexico has been converted into an importer of what had been its main
domestic grains--rice, beans, wheat, soy and sorghum. Giant U.S. agribusinesses
like Cargill, Anderson Clayton and Pilgrims Pride now sell Mexico the corn that
once was produced by 2.5 million Mexican farmers and agricultural workers. Even
the U.S. Department of Agriculture didn't dream of such success. It had
estimated that U.S. producers would accomplish this task in 15
years.
Before
NAFTA, the PRI presidents Miguel de la Madrid (1982-1988) and Carlos Salinas
(1988-1994) sold off more than 1,800 state-owned mines and industries to foreign
and other private investors. Essential government food subsidies that had
existed for years to keep the poorest from starving were cut or eliminated. From
1994 to 2000, the number of poor people who received milk and tortilla subsidies
was cut from 1.5 million to 1.1
million.
As
a result Mexico's most oppressed were forced to flee to the north just to
survive. As their numbers increase, the deaths of Mexican immigrants in U.S.
deserts is testament to the effects of U.S. imperialist pressure on their
economy.
Even
as the Mexican people grew more desperate for economic improvement and real
change, the U.S. was helping to fund and promote the PAN, often described as
"pro-business," as the potential political alternative to the PRI, undercutting
the social-democratic PRD. Now the PRI may lose more than just the presidency.
The
Mexican masses saw the PRI's defeat as their number-one objective in this year's
elections. This is the main reason for the strong turnout in favor of the PAN,
rather than an endorsement of PAN's right-wing agenda. PRI and "one-party
politics" are seen as the main culprits in political corruption, repression and
economic
crisis.
On
election night in Mexico, people were cheering, saying that Fox would implement
real economic and social change to benefit the people, even though his ideology
is also anti-worker and reactionary. It is wishful thinking. Sooner than later,
the Mexican people, with their proud tradition of struggle and revolution, will
see through the farcical self-portrayal of Fox as the people's candidate, in the
same way they now see through the PRI.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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