The rising level of discord and disturbances in Mexico led international capital, and the United States government which acts as its agent in Mexico, to understand that the Institutional Revolutionary Party's seventy-year old regime had exhausted itself and no longer served to keep things in order. So things would have to change.
Top leaders of the PRI also perceived that their ability to control the old system was breaking down. Despite enormous repression--like the killing 500 PRD activists between 1989 and 1997 and the militarisation of several state--the PRI was losing its grip.
Bankers and businessmen, the U.S. government, and the PRI came to the conclusion separately and together that the time had come for a new political system in Mexico. The PRI would have to give up its one-party rule in Mexico, not in order to bring about democracy, but in order to protect capital.
The National Action Party (PAN), a junior partner to the PRI during the Salinas years, had lost the credibility which might have made it the primary benefactor of political power sharing. So, the PRI had no choice but to include Cárdenas and the PRD. [DLB] *
Low intensity war has had a terrible effect on the people of Chiapas. According to La Estación Norte, a non-governmental mission in Chiapas, "over the last two years, more than 4,000 people have become displaced. About 300 people have died, and 100 have been imprisoned. The number of beatings and injuries cannot be estimated."
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), through its Subcomandante Marcos, announced that its members and supporters in Chiapas would not vote because of the continued military occupation of the area; on-going attacks by "white guards" who beat, rape and murder indigenous activists; and the failure of the government to fulfil earlier agreements.
In many areas protesters made it impossible for the National Electoral Institute (IFE) to put up voting booths. Out of 3,520 voting booths to be installed, only 2,910 were installed in Chiapas. About 35% of the electorate either did not or could not vote.
In the rest of Chiapas, the Civic Alliance (Alianza Civica) which engaged in election watching confirmed "serious violations of voters' rights." According to Subcomandante Marcos, the EZLN called for a boycott, but would "respect the decision of those who did vote."
Nevertheless, and despite the real problem of landlord violence, a large number of social organisations led by Zapatista and PRD supporters decided to participate in the elections, usually calling for a vote for the PRD.
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ResEarcH aNd EducaTIon
Populism in Latin America
Adolfo Gilly, Helena Hirata, Carlos M. Vilas and the PRT (Argentina) [40 pages]
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