Mexican Trotskyists now the country's fourth largest party
The following interview with Edgar Sanchez, leader of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT-Revolutionary Workers Party. Mexican section of the Fourth International) was given to Jean-Pierre Beauvais. translated it and shortened it somewhat from the July 22 issue of Rouge, weekly paper of the French section of the Fourth
Question. It's more than a week now since the elections and the government has still published only fragmentary and apparently disputed results.
Answer. Since the polls closed on the night of July 4-5, a real war of figures and percentages has been raging.
The main opposition cluding the PRT, set up facilities to total the results from a significant number of polling stations in various election dis-
These totals were published quite quickly, along with estimates, based on them, of what the final outcome would
Although these calculations and estimates were made separately by the various opposition parties, and in general on the basis of the results from different polstations-by right-wing opposition parties as well as left-wing ones-they generally converged.
As for the government and the official party, the PRI, they first kept quiet. Then they offered some "estimates, without indicating on what specific partial results they were based. •Finally, as the pressure increased and the protests multiplied, the results for some districts were given, but only for rural districts, which should take the longest to add up than for others. Needless to say, the figures given by the government were markedly different than those released by the opposition parties.
you explain precisely what you are referring to?
A. For the top five political formations-the others got much smaller votesthe opposition gave the following esti-
For the PRI, 60%; for the Partido de Accion Nacional (PAN—the traditional right-wing party), 25%; for the Mexican United Socialist Party (PSUM, a coalition dominated by the CP), 6%; for the PRT, 3.5%; for the Social Democratic Party,
On the basis of its "estimates," the PRI claims 75%; it grants the PAN 15%,
5% and the PRT and Social Democrats 2%each. All these percentages refer to the presidential vote.
The vote for the senators and deputies is more difficult to estimate with Q. So, do you think that there was massive fraud?
A. That's a tradition of the Mexican political system. There was a lot of fraud, on the polling day itself. state of Puebla and in the city of Puebla itself, which is one of the largest cities in the country, a lot of polls were installed an hour before the polling stations opened, without poll watchers being
They already had ballots in In Monterey, a big city in the nothern part of the country, the home town of our candidate, Rosario Ibarra, the police expelled all the PRT poll watchers from the polling stations. A lot of soldiers and sailors had to vote "as a group" under the supervision of their su-
In a lot of rural districts, the PRI by itself organized the "vote" "count." There are many other examples and other forms of cheating, both crude and "sophisticated." But it would take too long to list them.
The obvious reason for the delay in issuing the results is to make it easier to rig the totals. It also reflects differences at the top of the state apparatus about which parties other than the PRI should be given a boost by the vote rigging, and which should be cut down.
For example, in the framework of its so-called political reform, the government has encouraged the formation of a series of little parties that generally accept its polities and are in fact satellites of the PRI. This is a pretty cheap way to put up a show of being "pluralist" and
According to the government's plans, these parties are designed to be both docile parliamentary allies and means of capturing opposition sectors.
it seems that none of these parties got 1.5% of the vote. In that case, they would automatically lose their ballot status. This is not an unimportant
And so there are discussions going on about who is to get a rescuing "boost" and who is not. On problems of this sort, there are diverging opinions and interests in the government and especially
Aside from these still unclear aspects, what initial political conclusions has the PRT drawn about the fact that a much higher percentage of potential voters actually voted than in previous elec-
A. The reduction of the rate of abstention from the 40% to 45% of previous elections to 25% to 30% this time is a political success for the regime. the aims of the "political reform" instituted step by step in recent years was precisely to halt and reverse the growing disinterest in elections among large sections of the population. This apathy resulted from the fact that everything was decided
By giving ballot status to several opposition parties and making it possible for a significant number of oppositionists to be elected to parliament-although all the necessary steps were taken to assure that the PRI would retain its dominant position-the government wanted to conthe voters that the elections were something more than a mere show. It wanted to give a new legitimacy to the electoral processes and thus to the sys-
So, the drop in the abstention rate represents a success for the government. So, the "political reform, " with all its limitations and contradictions, will be
In the coming period, those political parties that have definitely ballot status (by getting more 1.5% of the vote in a national election) will enjoy important rights.
However, at the same time, strug gles, mass mobilizations, social movements will be contained by every possible means, from restrictions on certain fundamental rights up to and including the most brutal repression. It is significant that during the electoral period itself, several strikes and peasant mobilizations attacked and harshly repressed On the other hand, the extent of the government's political success should not be exaggerated. According to the data gathered by the opposition, the PRI gained very little from the increased
The gains were made essentially by the PAN on the right and by the PRT on the left, since the SUM's vote was more or less the same as in previous elections.
What do you make of the PAN In previous elections, it was about 10%. This time, according to the opposition estimates, it was about 25%. Its candidates played skillfully on two themes-the need to cast an opposition
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vote that would count and to protest corruption.
Q. In what sort of shape is the PRT coming out of the elections?
A. We now have legal status. All the political parties regard this as an accomplished fact. The government does as well, despite its refusal to release the results.
Our organisation is now considered the fourth largest party in the country. Among the manipulations going on now is the shifting of some vote to the Social Democrats, to make it look as if we are only the fifth largest. But this is basically a silly game.
On the other hand, the government may get away with rigging the vote on the congressional level. to reduce our parliamentary representation to the minimum by rigging the votes for the deputies elected by proporational representation. We are preparing to wage a hard fight on this question.
The campaign not only made the PRT and its program known in the entire country. It laid the bases for a real national organization, which in a country as large and decentralized as Mexico represents a qualitative step forward. We now have organizations in 29 of the 32 states. Innumerable nuclei of sympathizers are working with us. these sympathizers registered as poll watchers. They spent the day at the polling stations and kept scrupulous counts, which they relayed to our election offices. That is one of the most tangible signs of our increased support.
Our biggest failing up to now has been our conservatism about recruiting We have not opened the doors of the organization wide enough for those who participated in the campaign and want to come into the party.
A lot of people today consider themselves members of the PRT whom we have not yet given a chance to become real members. They are more numerous today than the actual members of the party. The challenge that faces us in the next weeks and months is to turn this situation around, to bring these activists en masse into our ranks.
The tasks and responsibilities that fall on us today are incomparably greater than they were before this campaign. To give impetus to the struggles of the workers and the peasants who have been hard hit by the government's policies, to represent these masses at the national level and in parliament, to build mass solidarity with our comrades in Central America, to build the party of revolutionists that the exploited people of Mexico need, for all these tasks these new forces are desperately needed.
This appeal is particularly directed to all those readers who took out the introductory special subscription. sue is the last of that offer. Don't miss
A new dissident movement emerges in the USSR
Laetitia CAVAIGNALS
On Tuesday, April 6, in Moscow, agents of the Soviet bu- Polish Workers (published below in a box). This material was reaucracy carried out rather widespread raids in "dissident" cir- confiscated.
These five "nobodies" were jailed in Lefortovo prison,
In all, fifty searches were carried out, and twelve persons probably charged on the basis of Article 70 of the Soviet penal were arrested. The silence in Western Europe about this repres code, which is unusual for a first offense. In accordance with sive operation shows how long gone are the days of the hypothis article, they face seven years in a prison camp and five years critical sermons about human rights, accompanied by the shedding of many tears about the fate of the opposition in the
The following article points up the changes that have been occurring in the dissident movement and the repression that it
Another factor in this silence, perhaps, is that there were
It shows also that support for the democratic movement no well known personalities among those arrested, such as Anin the USSR is important for more than humanist or moral rea-
They were people like Andrei Fadin, drei Sakharov or others.
sons. It is becoming more than ever a political necessity. In
Boris Kagarlitski, Yuri Khavkin, Pavel Kudyukin, and Vladimir fact, the repression is coming down not just against people
"who think differently" (the literal translation of the word
In their apartments, considerable literature was found dissident in Russian) but also against people who are fighting to
This included issues of the samizdat magazine Socialism and the
Future, an appeal to the Italian Communist party made in the achieve genuine socialism.
name of this magazine, documents on Poland, the replies of the
The inspiring fight that they are waging has to be matched by an equally inspiring international campaign of solidarity with editors of Variants to questions posed by the French magazine
'Alternative, issues of the magazine Left Turn, the Appeal to
A few lines sometimes have more value and meaning than a long speech or a
This is true, spectacular action.
example, of the Statement to the Polish
Workers that is published below.
This statement is both an exemplary declaration and an act of solidarity.
It does not limit itself to evoking feelings of enthusiasm and admiration.
8 and expresses more, particularly about facts of life in the Soviet Union that are ignored by the mass media. These lines alone are enough to explode all the accepted Sovietology and the cliches about the dissident movement.
One of the first things about it is that it represents a postmortem of the