Electoral fraud and free trade
CONTRARY to the claims of the Mexican government, which have been widely reproduced in the international press, the elections to parliament and half of the senate of August 18, 1991, were among the most fraudulent in Mexican history. International Viewpoint talked to Edgar Sanchez, a member of the leadership of the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT - Mexican section of the Fourth International), who was a candidate in these elections on the Socialist Electoral Front (FES) slate, about the current social and political situation in his country. The interview was conducted by Paquita Gomez in Mexico City on August 22, 1991.
W ERE the elections of
August 18, 1991 as clean as the government media has been claiming?
The government decided to have recourse to fraud on the grand scale in the aftermath of the presidential election of July 1988, when the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) suffered an important setback at the hands of a formation around Cuauhtemoc Cardenas'. . The population came into the streets to challenge fraud during the elections, and the election of the PRI's candidate was called into question; the PRI also lost ground in the parliament and senate, where a significant number of opposition deputies were elected. For the first time since the 1930s, four non-PRI senators were elected.
In order that such a situation should not arise again, the government entered on a three-point strategy. Firstly it relaunched the satellite "rump" parties designed to divide the opposition; in 1988 these parties had gone in with Cardenas. A first success was gained by supporting the Party of the Cardenist Front for National Reconstruction (PFCRN), which took this name to sow confusion among Cardenas' supporters.
Then, the PRI established a political accord with the National Action Party (PAN — a party which has existed for 50 years and which is the traditional party of the conservative right). This was quite easy, since the present PAN leadership shares the same economic programme as the Salinas government. Finally, it decided to electorally defeat Cardenas' Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
To this end the PRI set about organizing a new fraud. In 1990, it organized a census of the whole population which arrived at some surprising conclusions: in the states where the PRI had been defeated in 1988, the population had stopped growing, while in those where it had kept control, growth continued and had even become more rapid. These findings did not tally with the normal tendencies of demographic growth; thus, according to official figures, the population of Mexico City is no longer growing, although it is known the world over that it is one of the fastest growing cities on the planet.
The second stage of the fraud took place in 1991 at the time of the drawing up of the new electoral lists — a central demand of the opposition, but which the government turned to its own advantage. In the course of this process, the number of voters fell significantly; according to the census, some 46 million citizens should have the right to vote; however only 39 million appear on the electoral lists. Interestingly, it was in the strongholds of the opposition that the voters disappeared.
The fraud continued when it came to distributing the voters' cards. According to official figures only 36 million Mexican came to get their cards. The government has tried to explain this as a result of the citizens' electoral apathy. However, many people who the PRT was hoping to run as candidates, and who cannot be suspected of a lack of interest in the political process, were unable to get their cards. Thus, Rosario Ibarra, one of our candidates for a senatorial post? only got her voting card on the eve of the poll. At least ten million Mexicans of voting age were unable to vote.
Fraud was still being practised on election day. We realized that it would be less blatant than in former times, and the government was banking on a low turnour. This was in the PRI's interests, since with only 35% of the votes they got the majority of the seats. Furthermore, the government can manipulate the abstention figures to produce new votes for the PRI.
In 1988 many opposition representatives went into the voting booths to observe the balloting and the count; this did not happen in 1991. The government took advantage of this fact to revert to its old ways, including: the "carrousel" ( a bus full of PRI partisans who go around all the voting stations in a particular city; voting tacos (whereby each member of a government union receives ten or 15 voting slips, but instead of putting them in one at a time they are all stuffed in folded together); election breakfasts (PRI members offer a substantial breakfast to whole districts and then take them to vote in a group).
The PRI also prevented opposition representatives from entering the voting stations and some people were prevented from voting. In the stations where there were no opposition representatives, the PRI took all the votes and shared them out with the "rump" parties. • So what was the real result of the election?3
We expected that the PRI would regain lost ground, above all because of the problems of the PRD and PAN. But the vote was so fraudulent that is practically impossible to discern the real votes. In any case, the PRI was able to get more than two thirds of the assembly seats. • Will this "overwhelming victory" for the PRI lead to the constitutional 1. In the July 1988 presidential elections, the PRI claimed more than 50% of the votes after unprecedented fraud. Cuauhtemoc Cardenas — a presidential candidate who had broken with the PRI — was officially credited with 31% of the vote. The results led to a significant movement of popular protest. In January 1989, Cardenas founded his own party, the PRD, pulling in the Mexican CP, far left organizations, some members of the PRT and many intellectuals. 2. Mother of a politically "disappeared" person, Rosario Ibarra de Piedra heads the Eureka Committee, which defends Mexican political prisoners, "disappeared", exiles and victims of harassment, as well as the National Front against Repression (FNCR). She was the first woman to be presented as a candidate in a Mexican presidential election, being the PRT's candidate in 1982 and 1988. 3. The official results are PRI, 61.5%: PAN, 17.7%: 17 PRD, 8.3%; PFCRN, 4.4%; PRT, 0.6%.
MEXICO changes that Salinas needs to facilitate his liberal economic reforms?
Changes to existing laws and the constitution are indispensable for the carrying through of the Free Trade Treaty between the USA and Canada. The composition of the parliament elected in 1988 obliged the PRI to negotiate with certain opposition groups in parliament, since the ruling party no longer had the two thirds of the deputies needed to introduce legislative and constitutional changes. Now they have enough deputies to pass what they want. • In the past year the cost of living has risen rapidly. Has this anything to do with the Free Trade Treaty?
The population's living standards had
Violent struggle for land ON June 30, 1991, Hector Montes Parra, a member of the General People's Worker and Peasant Union (UGOCP), and of the PRT (Mexican section of the Fourth International), was murdered by a group of hired killers at Nopaltepec in the state of Veracruz. It seems certain that the killers mistook their target, intending in fact to murder his brother Margarito Montes Parra, a national leader of the UGOCP and a member of the PRT's political committee, who has received many death threats.
This murder follows that of 10 other members and regional leaders of the UGOCP in the valley of Papaloapan since January 1991. In this region the organization has been conducting a bitter land struggle with occupations of large properties and demands for genuine land reform.
The big landowners, whose interests are threatened, have used murder as a way of discouraging the organization and the resistance of landless peasants. They are all the more violent since, given the coming into force of the Free Trade Treaty with the US and Canada, much is at stake in control already fallen significantly by the end of the reign of De La Madrid, but things have got even worse under Salinas. He has succeeded in halting runaway inflation, but only by making terrible cuts in social spending.
The Free Trade Accord is the foundation stone of Salinas' policy. In his view, Mexico will soon become a developed country, but to do this it must first expose itself fully to world competition and thus fully remove the customs and trade barriers that currently protect Mexican production. Of course this is a delusion. Our country cannot compete with the United States. Perhaps this treaty will make us part of the developed countries, but only in the sense in which Harlem or Puerto Rico are.
The only thing Mexico has to attract foreign capital is cheap labour, meaning the establishment of yet more maquiladoras which will compete with similar regions in Taiwan or Hong Kong. Salinas' team is gambling with the health and future of Mexicans, since they are allowing polluting factories, which would be forbidden in Canada and the USA, to be set up here.
To achieve its aims and get into the good books of imperialism, it is absolutely essential that the government modify the national labour law, thereby wiping out all the conquests of the trade unions and the wage workers, and suppress collective agreements and the few existing social benefits.
The Free Trade Treaty has already led to enterprise closures and factory bankruptcies owing to exposure to North American competition. Many nationalized enterprises have been privatized. All this plays a role in the unprecedented deterioration of the Mexican population's living standards, illustrated by the recent appearance of cholera here. • Why do you think that the PRI was able to win back even more votes than can be explained by fraud?
With the aim of re-establishing the consensus broken in 1988 and control over the population, the PRI government set up, after Salinas' election, a "solidarity of these fertile lands. * programme". This thing is a gigantic swindle.
Following IMF advice, the government's economic policy consists of reducing as much as possible public spending on sectors considered "unproductive" such as health, education, employment, housing and so on. At the same time as carrying out these brutal cuts, it has embarked on a programme which has a basically ideological function.
This is a programme for collaboration between the government and the population: the inhabitants of a neighbourhood put forward a project for building houses, fresh water supplies and so on and undertake to provide the labour and some of the funds. The government, under the so-called solidarity programme, comes up with the rest of the cash. However, the amount invested is far less than under the old social programmes.
The point of this programme is to polish up the state/PRI's image and to present it as paternalistic and all-powerful. The social needs are no longer considered as an obligation of the government to its people, but as a product of the government's goodness of heart. The radio and TV are full of spots on the solidarity programme with slogans of the type: "together we are stronger" and the like.
This was used by Salinas to obtain the legitimacy that he lacked when he took over as president. He used the programme to visit all corners of the country, giving out property titles, opening building sites and so on.
This gigantic propaganda effort -together with the inability of the opposition, above all the Cardenists, who were basing their hopes on false electoral calculations, and were incapable of mobilizing the population - meant that it was predictable that the PRI would regain ground. But the spectacular results of the PRI were for the most part dependent on fraud. • Will the government go as far as to privatize the Mexican oil industry, which is a symbol of Mexican nationalism?
The search for and exploitation of oil is constitutionally considered as a national right, protected from private interests. However, now anything can happen, including the complete abandonment of the last conquest of the Mexican revolution, the non-re-election of the president of the republic.
There have been rumours that Salinas' team is considering his re-election. However, this is a very sensitive question; it was one of the sparks for the Mexican revolution in 1905 when the dictator Porfirio Diaz refused to recognize his defeat at the hands of Francisco Madero. The mere fact that the Salinists can consider such a proposal is a sign of their confidence. However, in my view, if they try this there will be a huge scandal and probably a new split in the PRI. • How would the population react to the privatization of the oil industry?
A reaction is possible. However, the oil industry has given rise to one of the most powerful unions in the country, upon which rests one of the country's most corrupt and repressive union bureaucracies. One of the Salinas' government's first acts was to imprison these "rotten" leaders who had seemed above the law and then to destroy their power. This was a very popular battle and Salinas took advantage of the fact to inflict defeats on the union. The whole affair has undermined national pride in the oil industry, which has become identified with corruption and abuses of privilege by the union bureaucrats. • The supporters of Cardenas' PRD seem very demoralized by the result of the election in which they gained only 8% of the vote.
Even without the fraud, the PRD's vote has dropped. The July 1988 elections created a mirage; Cardenas believed that
International Viewpoint #213 • September 30, 1991
he could form a new party on the basis of the significant number of votes he got in that election. He did not understand that it was the fact that he represented a break with the PRD that led the majority of the voters to support the opposition, without feeling any strong positive attraction for this or that opposition party.
This had become clear as early as summer 1989 in the state of Lower California on the US frontier. In 1988 Cardenas' coalition, the National Democratic Front (FDN), defeated Salinas. Little more than a year later, the PRD was confident of winning the election for governor. The PRI did indeed lose, but it was the PAN that won, not the PRD.
This did not mean that the majority of voters had suddenly swung right. In 1988 people thought that the PRD was their best bet to overturn the PRI, while in 1989 they put their money on the PAN.
In 1988, with the exception of the PRT and a number of other small groups, the entire socialist left decided that it was necessary to take the electoral road to getting rid of the PRI and that, therefore, an alliance with Cardenas was indispensable.
The latter, meanwhile, believed that he could besiege the central government by winning local elections, the 1991 legislative elections and finally the 1994 presidential election. Many people also believed religiously in this perspective. However, in reality the votes for Cardenas in 1988 did not in any way represent voter support for the PRD as a party.
A whole series of local election results showed that the PRD was incapable of bringing out Cardenas' personal vote, even though Cardenas himself put a lot of energy into the election campaigns. Even where the PRD was set to win, the PRI held on by fraud. Rather than mobilizing its supporters, the PRD leaders made gentle noises of protest and then gave way, looking to do better in the next election. But in fact, the PRD has simply encountered setback upon setback.
Its low score on August 18, 1991, is the logical culmination of this process. There were intense discussions in the PRD about who would be the candidates in the districts where they won in 1988, and which they expected to hold onto without difficulty. In fact, they did not win any of the 300 districts. They do still have deputies, but, as with the left before 1988, only thanks to pooled votes and the workings of proportional representation. • Some PRD leaders continue to hold out the possibility of a joint candidate with the PAN in the presidential election in 1994. Others say that the PRD should abandon the electoral terrain, given the PRI's grip.
MEXICO
PRT and FES militants protested against the election fraud by removing their shirts, to show how they had been skinned by the PRI
There are two schools of thought in the PRD. One of them defends a continuation of the electoralist policy. They see an alliance of the whole opposition, including the PAN, as the only way to defeat the PRI.
An alliance of this kind has already been seen in the state of San Luis Potosi on August 18, 1991, during the election for governor. However, if the PAN is going to accept such a joint candidacy, the candidate will have to be nearer to the right than to the nationalist currents; that is, not Cardenas.
The latter has been sending out mixed signals. He has been proclaiming high and loud that there has just been the biggest electoral fraud in Mexico's history, even graver than the one that stole the election in 1988, and that it is impossible to continue to play a game with these rules. However, if he really meant what he says, then the PRD should boycott the Chamber of Deputies. This contradiction was also apparent in 1988; while Cardenas denounced the illegitimacy of Salinas' election, his supporters took their seats in parliament.
As in 1988 the PRT says that parliament should be boycotted. However, we are in a position of weakness since we did not win any seats. Even so, this is the only way to put an end to the vicious circle. • How did the PRT's own electoral campaign go?
The appearance of neo-Cardenism in 1988 was a real earthquake for the socialist left, which had left its mark on all the social movements from 1968 and 1988. Most of this left fell into line behind Cardenas. The opportunism and careerism that were running rampant on the left were the determining factors here. Between the end of 1988 and the start of 1989, most of the socialist groups dissolved in order to participate in the creation of the PRD, which is a nationalist party.
The PRT lost its civil registration in 1988 and thus had less possibilities to present itself as a socialist pole of reference on the national level.
Then new social struggles developed in which socialists took part or even led. But their political level has declined to the benefit of Cardenism and the PRD's "catch all" electoral image.
The PRT fought to get back its registration at the end of 1990. It wanted to recapture the ground lost by the socialist left, since it knew that the Cardenists were losing steam. Our party was concerned lest people who had got involved in the Cardenist project become demoralized in the absence of any clear left alternative. However, we knew that we were not strong enough to do this all by ourselves.
Our idea to solve this problem was the creation of the Socialist Electoral Front (FES), which aims to regroup all the militants of the socialist left, who had been dispersed at the end of 1988.
However this project encountered many prejudices and sectarian reflexes. Many people, above all from the PRD, were 4. See International Viewpoint, no. 208, June 10, 1991. 5. The maquiladoras are assembly plants set up in Mexico's free trade zones. See /V no. 196, December 10, 1990. 6. Lazaro Cardenas, father of Cuauhtemoc, was president of Mexico between 1934 and 1940. He presided over the nationalization of the oil industry. He strove to bring the major part of Mexican workers and peasant organizations into his Party of the Mexican Revolution (ancestor of the PRI). T. Registration is granted to political parties which have blained more than 15% of the votes. It gives 19 parties access to political subsidies.
MEXICO opposed to our effort to register, since they believed that this would adversely affect them.
However, it seems to me that we have experienced a certain success. The PRT got (according to the fraudulent official results), 140,000 votes this time, compared to 80,000 in 1988. In my view, without the fraud, we would have got the 1.5% needed to remain on the register.
We feel, on the basis of this experience, that it is possible to develop a radical socialist option and raise questions somewhat against the stream — putting up a prostitute as a candidate for the representative assembly in the federal district is not something which is specially likely to attract votes (see accompanying article), in difficult conditions, with little time and few resources.
The FES could certainly have done better. However, we only got our registration at the end of January 1991. Furthermore, many people needed to go through the experience of August 18, 1991 to get Cardenism out of their system and begin to once again consider the need to build a new socialist regroupment. • Who is involved in the FES apart • wno is involved in the res apart from the PRT?
The FES groups together militants who cannot be considered to be in the orbit of the PRT. These include members of three neighbourhood organizations formed after the 1985 earthquake in the popular districts to demand decent rehaucin o districts to demand decent rehousing.
There are also people with other political backgrounds, especially in the Mexican Socialist Party (PSM 1- the Communist Party). These are former CP leaders who, in 1989, opposed their party's dissolution into the PRD; they started up a magazine.
This current has much aided the FES' credibility, making it clear that there was a genuine coming together of different currents. Many former CP militants also took part in the campaign. Indeed some former CP members left the PRD to work in the FES campaign.
This was the case in Yucatan state were the whole PRD committee, except two people, came over to us and conducted an excellent campaign. The same thing was seen in less spectacular form in the states of Jalisco and Hidalgo.
From the beginning we were aware that there should be no attempt to hurry things along to the formation of a new party. First it was necessary to go through experiences of joint work. We have many questions to discuss with these comrades.
Furthermore, of course, between 1988 and 1991 the whole world situation has changed with an impact on the world socialist movement. We need to discuss all this and seek for new answers. They have abandoned Stalinism and are confronting the problem of the need for dem20 ocratic socialism.
This holds out the possibility for a fusion. For the moment we have reached agreement on the need for an independent working class voice in the face of the bourgeoisie.All the FES' members have expressed their belief in the need to continue joint work.
This will without doubt go beyond an
The prostit campaign on the Revolutionary Workers the Fourth International) slate, who has fought hard for contraception and abortion rights!, is also a prostitute to say.
AM 35 years old and have three children. I started working as a prostitute when I was a secretary at the social security, at a moment when I had big money problems during the illness of one of my children. I was working more than 12 hours a day at the office and, furthermore, was obliged to gratify the sexual desires of my boss to keep my job. I soon realized that I could make much more money as a prostitute.
Four and a half years ago I got involved in the struggle against AIDS; it was vital that the other girls should know about the causes and consequences of this terrible disease. This was very difficult work and we had no money since we had no institutional support. We founded the civil association Cuilotzin, which fights for health care and civil rights for prostitutes of both sexes as well as street children.
Cuilotzin organizes many information meetings about AIDS and its prevention; we work with the National Anti-AIDS Coordination (CONASIDA), which provides us with condoms which we distribute free to the prostitutes. Today the girls refuse to go with a client who will not agree to use a condom. We have achieved very positive results, and, as vice president of Cuilotzin, I have even received the visit of representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO).
International Viewpoint #213 • September 30, 1991 electoral front to form a political front seeking to develop a common line in the social struggles and the mass movement. Perhaps all this will end in a new party, but this is a long term process in which perhaps some steps have already been taken. ute's
Thanks to our efforts there is now a hospital which interests itself in the medical problems of prostitutes and examines them regularly, not only to detect the AIDS virus, but also hepatitis B and other contagious diseases. The hospital also carries out free gynecological and buccal tests for prostitutes; free operations are provided for them and their children. Cuilotzin also takes up the cause of domestic employees who suffer sexual harassment and violence at the ual harassment and violence at the hands of their bosses. We want to win the recognition of the rights of prostitutes and its legalization. Pushing it into clandestinity 5 is a proof of hypocrisy and "double standards" in society, and means that the girls are unscrupulously oppressed and exploited by officials. In Mexico, prostitution is controlled by laws passed 56 years ago which are completely obsolete. Prostitution is illegal and clandestine and that means that prostitutes have no rights.
It would be a much better situation for them to be legally recognized, even if they have to pay taxes on their earnings, than to be at the mercy of corrupt officials and police.
The legalization of prostitution would also permit a more effective control of AIDS. The current AIDS legislation is in fact the 1934 law on syphilis with that word replaced by AIDS throughout.
Following our denunciations, people who blackmail and exploit prostitutes can be punished or sacked, or even condemned to prison terms.
We have also won the right to nurseries for children of prostitutes who work during the day. In November 1990, after a meeting between prostitutes' representatives and members of the Health Ministry, the Provida? movement went and destroyed the two existing prostitutes nurseries. They continue to function, but now in places known only to prostitutes.
We are currently setting up a project for children living on the streets where they sell bits and pieces or do deals. They are especially vulnerable to prostitution and drugs. We do not want to shut them in inhuman orphanages; we are hoping to set