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    Comparative Politics Today A World View Eighth Edition Gabriel A. Almond Stanford University G. Bingham Powell, Jr. University of Rochester Kaare Strom University of California, San Diego Russell J. Dalton University of California, Irvine Boston London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore Maid ‘Mexico City Munich Pari’ Cape Town Hong Kong -Montceal Comparative Politics Today A World View Eighth Edition Gabriel A. Almond Stanford University G. Bingham Powell, Jr. University of Rochester Kaare Strom University of California, San Diego Russell J. Dalton University of California, Irvine London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore | Madsid ‘Mexico City Munich Paris” CapeTown Hong Kong Montreal Politics in Mexico Wayne A. Cornelius and Jeffrey A. Weldon 1002 million 761,602 sq, mi 1917 President Vicente Fox Quesada Head of Government President Vicente Fox. Quesada Spanish, various Mayan, Nahuatl, and other regional indigenous languages Language(s) Religion nominally Roman Catholic 89%, Protestant 6% on election night in 2000, Friends and fam around televisions to watch the state-by- s and see how the next Congress will Exit poll results from the hottest races are Computer generated graphics showing ds flash on and off the screen. Returns are nthe Intemet as central election officials ‘A few hours after the polls close, can- ‘begin appearing on television to concede claim victory. The outgoing president, failed to elect its candidate, also goes on n to congratulate the winner and promise a jewers heave a sigh of relief that ss barrage of campaign commercials has d debate why things turned out as they did, ibility of the results is not questioned. at is striking about this picture is that it oc rot in the United States or some other “First > country, but in Mexico, a country where the ‘of elections had been practiced systematically culing Partido Revolucionario Institucional D for more than six decades. After the hotly con. ‘but Fraud-tidden presidential election of 1988, six days for the government to release even 467 preliminary results, Since then, Mexico has experi cenced a remarkable passage from a political system in which vote fraud and abuse of government re sources by the ruling party were condoned by senior political leaders and cynically accepted by the gen- tral public to one in which government respect for voters’ preferences is expected—indeed, demanded. This and other key elements of modem democratic politics are swiftly becoming routinized in Mexico, Recurrent economic crises (1976-1977, 1982 1989, 1994-1996) were the most powerful catalyst for this revolution in citizen expectations. The vast majority of Mexicans suffered severe economic pain during these two decades, directly attributable to government mismanagement of the national econ- ‘omy: Millions of jobs were lost, real wages were st rant or declining in all but a few years of the period, savings and businesses were decimated by inflation and currency devaluations, and government benefits for the middle and lower classes were slashed in the austerity budgets necessitated by the economie crises. “The 1988 presidential election brought a tidal wave of antigovernment protest voting, with the PRI’s candidate eking out a bare majority victory! 468 Politics in Mexico Zapatista leader Subeo- mandante Marvos arrives in Mexico City in May 2001 to lobby the Congress to ap- Prove sweeping indigenous, ights legislation. The bill was watered down before ussage and the Zapatistas ejected it. The stalemate in Chiapas continues, AFPIGubis © Rewer New Mot Teas y of elections as well as the mass sedi ln the 1994 election, the PRI rode the cour tails ofthe sill highly popular President Carlos Sa. zis and took advantage of public anxieties create py the Zapatista rebelion in Chiapas and a spite af high-profile political assassi ishtened voters with images of destabilizing vio, lence and massive capital igh, inthe event ot ‘opposition party victory atthe national level In the 2000 election, however, the “so1o de ‘niedo” (the fear vote) was overwhelmed by the “ora de castigo” (the punishment vote). Voters were hon ous at having been deceived twice by their govern, ‘Pent fist during the oil boom eca of 1977-1981 anal then during the Salinas presidency (1988-1994), pe: ods when the goverment created an illusion of Taventy and boundless furure economic gains They were equally angry about rising street Sine and mounting evidence of large-scale corruption in gavemment under Salinas, who was almost univer, fully blamed for the economic crisis that engulfed Mexico within weeks after he lft office. For the fig Heit 71 years, the voters soundly rejected the pres idential candidate of the PRI, turning to Vieene Fox, a maverick former Coca Cola executive-tumet Poltcian who ran under the banner ofthe Alliance Bit Change, a centersight coalition consisting of ee Partido Accién Nacional (PAN) and the Parca ‘Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM) (see Box tae Public confidence that a vote for some alters, tive to the PRI would actually be respected by ax authorities had been boosted significantly by sescna ound of reforms in the federal electoral lav in sas 1290s changes that the government proposed xa the PRI endorsed, under strong pressure few co zens and the opposition parties, These procedons actded so many procedural safeguards into the can, dluct of clections thatthe worst, old-style forse ae Hate fraud (stuffing ballot boxes or stealing then falsifsing vote tlc, etc.) became virtually areas. ble without provoking a public uproar Mest ‘impor: {ant the law eeated a new federal elections aren independent of government and PRI authori coe inede it responsible for organizing all phases ofa tlectoral proces, giving all parties access tothe ne cla, allocating public Funds for campaigns, eer iting and training citizens to run the polling places, cosas ing votes, and certifying the results, Zhe results of the 1997 elections for Congrem hhad been a stunning setback forthe PRI, whick nan {12 races (out of 300 in which candidates were 22 rectly elected by majority vote rather than sveerdos theic seats through a proportional represeneane formula) For the first time since 1929, the PRI hes ‘Wayne A. Comelius and Jeffrey A. Weldon 469. tbo X 14.1 The Watershed Election of 2000 the PRI's 71-year monopoly over presidential power in Mexico came to an end with the July 2, 2000 election. At that rime it was the ‘world’s longest continually ruling party av the national level. In the run-up to the election, the PRI had tried desperately to shed its image asa corrupt, authoritarian party by holding a vigorously contested, open primary election co choose its presidential candidate, for the fits time in its history not deferring to che preferences ‘of the outgoing PRI president. The chosen candidate, Froncisco Labastida, was a former state governor and middle-tanked technocrat under several PRI. presi- dents. He tied but failed co distance himself sufti- ciently from the record of previous PRI governments He was badly beaten in two nationally televised de- bates by the dynamic and plain-speaking candidate of she National Action Parcy, Vicente Fox. Labastida sd to excite even the PRI's own electoral base, de ‘spite spending more money on paid campaign adver- ‘ising than any other candidate in Mexican history surrender control of the Chamber of Deputies Tower house of Congress) to a coalition of four ition parties. The PRT also lost its two-thirds ority in the Senate, which is needed to approve tional amendments, In the 2000 elections, PRI continued to lose ground in Congress. Cur- there is no majority party in either house, al- the PRI still controls @ plurality of seats in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies (see 14.1 below). The PRI can be outvoted by a of PAN, PRD, and smaller pasty members, esident Fox must assemble such coalitions on -y-issue basis ond the division of power that has prevailed federal level since 1997, divided governments state level have become commonplace. During 1997 period, for example, seven states bad gures controlled by a party different from that state's governor. Mexicans elected non-PRI es as governors in ten (out of 32) states dur- ppetiod: prior to 1989 no opposition party vic- she state level had been recognized by the gov- All this symbolizes Mexico’ newly shift roward a much more competitive, political system, Fox appealed to the electorate seeking fundamental change in the Mexican political system. His campaign slogan was simple and pocent: “Ya!”—"Change, now! or “Enough, already!” He promised an economic pol= icy “with a human face,” and an end to corruption and. rule by PRI narco-poltiians. Distrusted as an outsider by his own political party, Fox created a nationwide rnecwork of private donors and campaign workers in- tensely loyal to him. Cuauhcémoe Cardenas, running for president for the third time as the candidate of the arty of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), threatened to divide the anti-PRI vote, bur his ineffectiveness as the first elected Mayor of Mexico City (1997-1999) un- dermined his popularity and helped Fox to convince Mexicans that chey should vote strategically for him, as the opposition candidate most able to oust the PRI. ‘The final results were: Fox, 42.5 percent; Labastida, 36.1 percent; Cérdenas, 16.7 percent; other candidates, 4.7 percent CURRENT POLICY CHALLENGES, Mexico entered the twenty-first century with huge social and economic problems: an economy that pro- duces far too few jobs to accommodate the young people entering the labor market each year; an edu- cational system sorely in need of modemization; a highly unequal distribution of income; a growing poverty population, with at least half of all Mexicans living below the official poverty line; acute environ- mental problems that damage the health of both rural and urban dwellers; and a criminal justice sys- tem that barely functions, routinely violates the hu- man tights of citizens, and is heavily corrupted by drug trafficking, The PRI lost its grip on the Mexi- can political system in large part because it had failed to deal effectively with these problems, It re- rains to be seen whether the democratic “opposi- tion,” now in power, ean manage them with conspic. uuously greater success. Several emerging policy challenges will be no less daunting. As a developing country, Mexico has to play catch-up with its international trade partners and competitors. It must modemize its agricultural sector to allow it to survive competition from the 470 Politics in Mexico TABLE Composition of the Mexican Cong ess, 2000-2003, ‘Chamber of Deputies Partido Accién Nacional (PAN)! Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) Partido de ls Revolucién Democritica (PRD)? Partido del Trabajo (PTY? PPareido Verde Reologista de México (PVEM)! Partido de la Sociedad Nacionalista (PSN)? Partido Accién Social (PAS)? (Changed to another party (independent) ‘Total Senate Partido Accién Nacional (PAN)! Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) Pareido de la Revolucién Demoeritica (PRD)? Partido del ‘Trabajo (PT Parcido Verde Keologista de México (PVEM)! Conveigencia por fa Demoeracia (CD)? Total "Alina pore Cambio “Alianas poe México "Numbers in parentheses ae seats awarded by the United States and Canada, where subsidies and more efficient methods make agricultural goods cheaper ‘Mexico needs to replace its antiquated and inefficient labor law with new statutes that both protect workers and encourage job creation. It must renovate the en- ergy sector—oil, electricity, and natural gas—cither through increased govemment spending or by allow {ng greater private or foreign investment, which would require controversial constitutional amend. ‘ments, An unfamiliar demographic problem is begin- ‘ing to emerge—an aging population—and the Mex. ican people must soon bolster the funding of private and govemmentsponsored pension plans. Finally, the government must expand the tax base to provide the resources that will be needed to address all ofthe above-mentioned challenges. On the political front, additional changes in elee- toral rules are needed to close loopholes concerning the financing of campaigns, to make it more difficult for elected officials to use government resources to promote their party’s candidates, and to allow the im. 1 300 3710)" arcs oy 96 46 60 15 1 os: 5 39 1 os 128 100 469 “minor” pcp se tnked Senate conde ofthe secon plae pty never se mediate reelection of legislators, which would make them more responsive and accountable to their con stituents, But in terms of advancing Mexico's transi tion to a fully democratic system, these refinements may be less important than the rapidly spreading be- lief that alternation in power among Mexico's three ‘main patties, at all levels of governance, is both desir able and achievable. In short, most Mexicans seem to have concluded that itis time to get on with the busi ness of modern democracy. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES Colonialism and Church-State Relations Long before Hemn Cortés landed in 1519 and be- san the Spanish conquest of Mexico, its ceritory was inhabited by numerous Indian civilizations. Of these, the Maya in the Yucatén peninsula and the Toltec on the central plateau had developed the most complex political and economic organization, Both of these civilizations had disintegrated, however, be- 1810-1821 War of Independence againse Spain. 1846-1848 War between Mexico and the United States. 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution, 1917 New Constitution is issued, incorpo- rating Revolucionary goals and ideals 1924-1928 Presidency of Plucareo Elias Calls. 1927-1929 Cristero Rebellion (Catholic Church, vs. State). 1928 Alvaro Obregon is elected to the presidency; asassinated a few ‘months late 1928-1934 “Jefe Méximo” Plutareo Ellas Calles rules ftom behind the scenes, under several provisional Presidents (the “Maximato” period), 1929 Plutareo Elias Calles establishes the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR), 1934-1940 Presidency of Lézaro Cardenas. 1938 President Cardenas reonganizes the PNR, sthich becomes the Partido de la Revolucin Mexicana (PRM); Cirdenas nationalizes the oil industry Partido Accién Nacional (PAN) is founded, Presidency of Manuel Avila Camacho, PRM is restructured, renamed as the Partido Revolucionario Insticucional (PRD, the Spaniards arrived. Smaller Indian societies decimated by diseases introduced by the in- for were vanquished by the sword, Subse- ‘grants of land and Indian labor by the Spanish to the colonists further isolated the rural In- spulation and deepened their exploitation, combined effects of attrition, intermarriage, penetration of Indian regions have dras- reduced the proportion of Mexico's popula. ally identified as Indian. By the 1990 cen- , 7.9 percent of the nation’s population Taian language? The Indian minority has tently marginal to the national economy ical system. Today, the indigenous popula- heavily concentrated in rural communities ‘government classifies as the country’s most ically depressed and service-deprived, lo- ‘Wayne A. Cornelius and Jeffrey A.Weldon 471 BOX 14.2 Key Political Events in Mexico, 1810-2006 1952-1958 Presidency of Adolfo Ruiz Cortnes. 1958-1964 Presidency of Adolfo Lépez Mateos. 1964-1970 Presidency of Gustavo Diaz Ondaz, 1968 ‘Scudene protest movement challenges the government and is violently re= pressed (the “Tlatelolco massacre”) 1970-1976 Presidency of Luis Echeverria. 1976-1982 Presidency of José L6pez Portillo; period ofthe oil export boom. 1981-1982 Drop in world oil prices and rising interest rates eause economic col lapse; Mexico is unable to service its external debs. 1982-1988 Presidency of Miguel de la Madi. 1988-1994 Presidency of Carlos Salinas de Gortar. 194 North American Free Trade Agree- ‘ment (NAFTA) goes into effect, peasant rebellion erupesin the stare of Chiapas; PRI presidential candi- date Luis Donaldo Colesio is assassi- nated and replaced by Ernesto Zeaillo; the peso is sharply devalued, provoking a deep economic crisis. 1994-2000 Presidency of Ernesto Zedilo. 1997-2000 The PRI lost che majority of sears in the Chamber of Deputies. 2000 PRI loses the presidency forthe first ‘ime in 71 years. 2000-2006 Presidency of Vicente Fox. cated primarily in the southeast and the center of the country. They engage in rainfall-dependent subsis tence agriculture using traditional methods of culti- vation, are seasonally employed as migrant laborers in commercial agriculture, or produce crafts for sale in regional and national markets, The Indian populs- tion is an especially troubling reminder of the mil lions of people who have been left behind by uneven development in twentieth-century Mexico. ‘The importance of Spain’s colonies in the New World lay in their ability to provide the Crown with vital resources to fuel the Spanish economy. Mex ico’s mines provided gold and silver in abundance until che wars of independence began in 1810, After independence, Mexico continued to export these ores, supplemented in subsequent eras by hemp, cot- ton, textiles, oil, and winter vegetables. 472 Politics in Mexico Since the Spanish conquest, the Roman Catholic Church has been an institution of enduring power in Mexico. Priests joined the Spanish in- vvaders in an evangelical mission to promote conver: sion of the Indians to Catholicism, and individual priests have continued to play important roles in na- tional history. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla helped launch Mexico's war of independence in 1810, and Father José Maria Morelos y Pavén re: placed Hidalgo as spiritual and military leader of the independence movement when the Crown executed Hidalgo in 1811. During Mexico's post-independence period, institutional antagonisms between church and cen- tral government have occasionally flared into open confrontations on such issues as church wealth, ed uucational policy, the content of public school text: books, and political activism by the church. The constitutions of 1857 and 1917 formally estab. lished the separation of church and state and de- fined their respective domains. Constitutional pro- visions dramatically reduced the church's power and wealth by nationalizing its property, including large agricultural landholdings. The 1917 constitu. tion also made church-affiliated schools subject to the authority of the federal government, denied priests the right to vote or speak publicly on politi cal issues, and gave the government the right to limit the number of priests who can serve in Mex- ico. Government efforts during the 1920s to en: force these constitutional provisions led 10 a civil insurrection that caused 100,000 combatant deaths, uncounted civilian casualties, and eco- nomic devastation in a large part of central Mexico. The settlement of this “Cristero rebellion” estab- lished, once and for all, the church's subordination, to the state, in return for which the government re laxed its restrictions on church activities in nonpo- litical arenas. This accord inaugurated a long period of rela- tive tranquility in church-state relations, during which the government and the church ignored ‘many of the anticlerical provisions of the 1917 con- stitution (such asthe prohibition on church involve: ‘ment in education). The central church hierarchy— among the most conservative in Latin Ametica—cooperated with the government on a va- riety of issues, and the church posed no threat to the ruling party’s hegemony. Revolution and Its Aftermath The nationwide civil conflict that erupted in Mexico in 1910 is often referred to as the first of the great “social revolutions” that shook the world early in the twentieth century, However, Mexico's upheaval orig- inated within the country’s ruling class. ‘The revolu- tion did not begin as a spontancous uprising of the ‘common people against an entrenched dictator, Por- firio Diaz, and against the local bosses and landown: ers who exploited them. Even though hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants ultimately partic- ipated in the civil strife, most of the revolutionary leadership came from the younger generation of ‘middle- and upper-class Mexicans who had become disenchanted with three and a half decades of in creasingly heavy-handed rule by the aging dictator and his clique. These disgruntled members of the clite saw their future opportunities for economic and political mobility blocked by the closed group sur- rounding Diaz. Their battle cry was "effective suf- frage, no reelection”—the end of self-perpetuating dictatorship made possible by sham elections. Led by Francisco I. Madero, whose family had close ties with the ruling group, these liberal bour- -ge0i8 reformers were committed to opening up the political system and creating new opportunities for themselves within a capitalist economy whose basic features they did not challenge. They sought not to destroy the established order but rather to make it work mote in their own interest than that of the for- eign capitalists who dominated key sectors of Mex- ico's economy during the Porfiian dictatorship, a period called "the Porfitiato.” Of course, some serious grievances had accu- mulated among workers and peasants. Once the re- bellion against Diaz. got underway, leaders who ap. pealed to the disadvantaged masses pressed their claims against the central government, Emiliano Zapata led a movement of peasants in the state of Morelos who were bent on regaining the land they hhad lost to the rural aristocracy by subterfuge dur- ing the Porfiriato. In the north, Pancho Ville led an army consisting of jobless workers, small landowners, and cattle hands, whose main interest ‘was steady employment. As the various tevolution- aty leaders contended for control of the central government, the political order that had been eteated and enforced by Diaz disintegrated into swarlordism—powerful regional gangs led by revo- Tutionary caudillos (politcal-military.strongmen) ‘who aspired more to increasing their personal ‘wealth and social status than to leading a genuine social revolution. The first decade of the revolution produced a ‘ecw, remarkably progressive constitution, replacing the constitution of 1857. The young, middle-class lite that dominated the constitutional convention of 1916-1917 “had litle if any direct interest in labor Yenions of land distribution, But it was an elite that sscognized the need for social change... . By 1916, ular demands for land and labor reform were too ‘zat to ignore." The constitution of 1917 estab. ed the principle of state control over all natural uurces, subordination of the church to the state, government’ right to redistribute land, and Xs for labor that had not yet been secured even the labor movement in the United States, Nearly decades passed, however, before most of these titutional provisions began co be implemented, ‘Many historians today stress the continuities be- prerevolutionary and postrevolutionary Mex- ‘The processes of economic modemization, capi accumulation, state building, and political lization that gained considerable momentum 2g the Porfiriato were interrupted by civil sttife 1910 to 1920, but they resumed once a sem sce of order had been restored. During the 1920s, central government set out to eliminate or under- ‘Wayne A. Comelius and Jeffrey A. Weldon 473 Peasants demonstrate against construction of a itemational airport for Mexico City on their Jand. Their protests were successful in blocking the project, which would Ihave been the largest publie work built by President Vigente Fox's government. APM Work Posse ‘mine the most powerful and independent-minded re- sional caudillos by co-opting the local power brokers, known as eaciques. These local political bosses be came, in effect, appendages of the central govern- ment, supporting its policies and maintaining control over the population in their communities. By the end. of this period, leaders with genuine popular follow- ings like Zapata and Villa had been assassinated, and control had been seized by a new postrevolutionary clite bent on demobilizing the masses and establish- ing the hegemony of the central government. The rural aristocracy of the Porfitiato had been weakened but not eliminated; its hers still controlled large concentrations of property and other forms of wealth in many parts of the country. Most of the large urban firms that operated during the Porfiriato also survived, further demonstrating that the revolu- tion was not an attack on private capital per se. Ex- cept during the years of most intense violence (1914-1917), the Revolution had surprisingly minor cffects on private investment and economic growth. ‘The Cardenas Upheaval Elite control was maintained during the 1930s, but this was nevertheless an era of massive social and po- litical upheaval in Mexico. During the presidency of Lézaro Cardenas (1934~1940), peasants and urban. workers succeeded for the first time in pressing their claims for land and higher wages; in fact, Cardenas 474 Polities in Mexico actively encouraged them to do so, The result was an unprecedented wave of strikes, protest demonstra tions, and petitions for breaking up large sural estates. ‘Most disputes between labor and management during this period were settled, under government pressure, in favor of the workers, The Cardenas ad- ‘ministration also redistributed more than twice a8 ‘much land as that expropriated by all of Cérdenas's predecessors since 1915, when Mexico's land reform ‘program was formaly initiated. By 1940 the country’s land tenure system had been fundamentally altered, breaking the traditional domination of the large ha- ciendas and creating a large sector of small peasant farmers called efidatarios—more than 1.5 million of them—who had received plots of land under the agrarian reform program. The Cérdenas government actively encouraged the formation of new organiza- tions of peasants and urban workers, grouped the ‘new organizations into nationwide confederations, and provided arms to rural militias formed by the jidatarios. Even Mexico's foreign relations were dis rupted in 1938 when the Cardenas government na- tionalized oil companies that had been operating in Mexico under US. and British ownership. “The Cardenas era proved to be an aberzation in the development of pastrevolutionary Mexico. Never before, nor since, had the fundamental “who bene: fits2” question been addressed with such energy and commitment by a Mexican government. Mexican in tellectuals frequently refer to 1938 as the highwater mark of the Mexican revolution as measured by so cial progress, and they characterize the period since then as a retrogression. Certainly, the distributive and ‘especially the redistributive performance of the Mex ican government declined sharply in the decades that followed, and the worker and peasant organizations formed during the Cérdenas era atrophied and be came less and less likely to contest either the will of the government or the interests of Mexico's private ‘economic elites. De facto reconcentration of land- holdings and other forms of wealth occurred as the state provided increasingly generous support to the country’s new commercial, industrial, and financial lites during a period of rapid industrialization Critics of the Cardenas administration have laid much of the blame for this outcome on the kind of ‘nass political organizing that oceurred under Carde- ‘nas, The resulting labor and peasant organizations were captives of the regime—tied so closely to it that they had no capacity for autonomous action. Under the control of a new group of national political lead: cers whose values and priorities were unfavorable to the working classes, these same organizations, after Cérdenas, functioned only to enforce political stabil- jty and limit lower-class demands for government benefits, “The institutional shell of Cardenismo re mained," wtites historian Alan Knight, “but its inter nal dynamic was lost. In other words, new drivers hi- jacked the jalopy; they retuned the engine, took on new passengers, and then drove it in a quite different direction."4 In the long term, the principal beneficia- ries of Cirdenas’s economic project were the middle cdasses and unionized industrial workers—not peas ants and he unorganized urban poor. “The Cirdenas era fundamentally reshaped Mex {co's politcal institutions: The presidency became the primary institution of the political system, with sweeping powers exercised during a constitutionally limited six-year term with no possibilty of reelec- tion; the military was removed from overt political competition and transformed into one of several in stitutional pillars of the regime; and an elaborate net- work of government-sponsored peasant and labor organizations provided a mass base for the official political party and performed a variety of political and economic control functions, utilizing a mulilay cred system of patronage and clientelism. ‘By 1940 a much larger proportion of the Mexican population was nominally included in the national po- litical system, mostly by their membership in peasant and labor organizations created by Cardenas. No real democratization of the system resulted from this vast expansion of “political participation,” however. Al though working-class groups did have more control cover their representatives in the government sponsored organizations than over their former masters oon the haciendas and in the factories, their influence ‘over public policy and government priorities after Cée ddenas was thinimal and highly indirect. Policy recom ‘mendations, official ations, and nominations for elec tive and appointive positions at all levels still emanated from the central government and official party head: quarters in Mexico City, filtering down the hierarchy to the rank and file for ratification and legitimation. ‘The Era of Hegemonic Party Rule ‘The political system shaped by Lazaro Cérdenes proved remarkably durable. From 1940 until the late 1980s, Mexico's official party-government apparatus the most stable regime in Latin America, It had ellcarned reputation for resilience, adaptability feew circumstances, a high level of agreement in the ruling elite on basic rules of political com 1, and a seemingly unlimited capacity to co- dissidents, both within and outside of the ruling y. As late as 1990, the celebrated Peruvian novel Mario Vargas Llosa could plausibly describe exico's regime as “the perfect dictatorship,” com- fing stability, legitimacy, and durability in a way even the former Soviet Union and Castro's Cuba With the fll of the Communist Party of the So- St Union in 1991, the PRI became the world’s zest continuously ruling political party. Since 1, when the “official” party was founded, both oltical assassination and armed rebellion had been red as routes to the presidency by all contenders be power. A handful of disappointed aspirants to ruling party’s presidential nomination mounted Sandidacies outside the party (in the elections of 929, 1940, 1946, 1952, and 1988), but even the west broadly supported of these breakaway movements were successfully contained through _government-engincered vote fraud and intimidation, In the early 1970s concerns had been raised ‘about the stability of the system, after the bloody re- ‘pression of a student protest movement in Mexico Gity by President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz on the eve of ‘the 1968 Olympic Games, Many analysts at that time ‘sugested that Mexico was entering a period of insti- sotional crisis, requiring fundamental reforms in oth political arrangements and strategy of eco- ‘nomic development. But the discovery of massive oil ‘and natural gas resources during the latter 1970s ‘gave the incumbent regime a new lease on life. The continued support of masses and elites was pur- ‘chased with an apparently limitless supply of petro- pesos, even without major structural reforms. The government's room for maneuver was abruptly erased by the collapse of the oil boom in August 1982, owing to a combination of adverse interna- ‘ional economic circumstances (falling oil prices, ris- ing interest rates, recession in the United States) and fiscally irresponsible domestic policies. Real wages and living standards for the vast majority of Mexi- cans plummeted, and the government committed it self to a socially painful restructuring of the econ- omy, including a drastic shrinkage of the sector ‘owned and managed by che government itself Wayne A. Comelius and Jeffrey A. Weldon 475 ‘The economic crisis of the 1980s placed enor- ‘mous stress on Mexico's political system. In. the July 6, 1988, national elections, the PRI suffered un- precedented reverses in both the presidential and con- sgressional races. The vote share officially attributed to Carlos Salinas was more than 20 percentage points be- low that of PRI presidential candidate Miguel de la Madrid in the 1982 election. Ex-PRlista Cuauhtémoc Cardenas, son of the much-revered former President Lézaro Cardenas, heading a hastily assembled coal tion of minor leftist and nationalist parties, was offi cially credited with 31.1 percent of the presidential vote—far more than any previous opposition cand: date but probably much less than he actually received if the vote count had been honest’ A diminished PRI delegation still controlled the Congress, but the presi-

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