Big cracks in the US's showcase of Latin American democracy
One of the most telling measures of the impact of Nicaragua's free elections is Richard J. Meislin's "News Analysis" of the Mexican elections for the New York Times Services. Meislin wrote "It was the type of election that had it occurred in El Salvador in 1983 or in Nicaragua in 1984 would have produced worldwide headlines declaiming fraud and would have led to grave questioning of the credibility of the elected governments there." (International Herald Tribune, July 17, 1985.)
Meislin went on to say that it was only "elections as usual" in Mexico. In one sense that is true. The country has what amounts to a bourgeois one-party system, where the official party has long maintained its power by gangster methods. But in another sense this massive fraud was an important event. It marked the failure of the Mexican bourgeoisie's attempt to clean up its act, to create a facade of respectability for its rule. As Meislin's comparison with Nicaragua
The outrageous fraud in the July 7 elections reflects the rapid erosion of the credibility of the official party in the face of the economic crisis. It is obviously afraid to leave any real space for legal opposition. In particular, the PRI government is afraid of revolutionists offering a national focus to the mass struggles against austerity and for democratic rights. So, it is already boasting that the PRT, the Mexican section of the Fourth International will lose its ballot status, getting under 1,5% of the vote.
However, unofficial tallies in Mexico City, where fraud is most difficult, credit the PRT with 3.5% of the vote in the country's main population center. The PRT vote has been estimated at even higher averages in some of the northern states of the Mexican union. It seems clear that a campaign will be necessary to defend the PRT's rights.
The following is an edited version of the PRT's statement summing up the experience of its campaign. It is from the July 14 issue of the party's paper, showed, it badly needed to do that.
With our country gripped by acute crisis on all levels - economic, political, and social — the political parties have had considerable difficulties in putting across their programs. In these conditions, although these elections are for the federal parliament, they have not focused the attention of the masses. Most of the population are concerned primarily with coping on a day-to day basis with the consequences of the crisis.
The official party, the PRI [Institutionalized Revolutionary Party] has only been able to hold a few rallies and has given priority to house-to-house canvassing. It has put all its energy into building an apparatus for rigging the elections, badly disguised as a campaign to get out the vote. For this purpose, it has utilized all the resources of the government agencies.
The PAN [National Action Party, the major bourgeois opposition party| has not waged as strong a campaign as you would think, to judge from its triumphalist tone. Sonora and Nuevo Leon are its main centers of support, especially the latter, where it has the backing of a major section of the bourgeoisie.
In Chihuahua, Eloy Vallina, one of the most powerful businessmen in this state, a previous backer of the PAN, went back to supporting the PRI. This indicates that some sections of the bourgeoisie have withdrawn their support from the PAN.
The PAN has worked out a strategy for giving the impression that it was going to win the July 7 elections, so that afterwards it would mount violent actions against the election fraud that the PRI is obviously preparing. This is
Bandera Socialista.
indicated by the preparations of shock groups and the training that the PAN is giving its poll watchers in the Top Security Commands (Comas) in Chihuahua.
On the left, it is the PRT that has most striven to mobilize sectors of the population. Using the opportunities offered by the election campaign, it has promoted the organization and independent struggle of the workers and peasants. The results are indicated by the March of the Bottom Dogs [named after Los de Abajo, a famous novel of the Mexican revolution that describes how the fighters were cheated of the fruits of their struggle]. This ended by bringing 30,000 people to the PRT's windup rally.
The PSUM (the Mexican CP) has basically devoted itself to holding forums using marketing techniques to project it. image over the media. Only in a few isolated cases has it called mobilizations.
The Mexican Workers Party (PMT), after making triumphalist statements that it was not competing with the left but was aiming for power, settled down to a routine campaign relying on advertising slogans.
The other so-called left parties fell back on arguing for support to the government. That is the case of the PST, the PARM, and the PPS, which offer only slight modifications in the PRI line.
In this campaign, the manipulation of the media has reached grotesque levels. The TV and the press only project the image of the PRI. The polls that are being played up in the media are also forms of manipulation.
In these circumstances the vote on July 7 will enable us, with all its limitations, to measure how much the two contending classes have politicalized the crisis and to what extent they identity with the various parties. We will see if the voters continue to identity with the PAN as a democratic alternative to the PRI, or if they are able to see that it stands at the head of the reactionary right. We will also be able to see to what extent the PRI's control has eroded.
One thing we are sure of now is that the votes cast for the red rectangle of worker-peasant unity presented by the PRT will be a vote for struggle, a vote for protest, a vote for independent organization.
Starting right now, we are calling for a broad movement in defense of honesty in the elections. We will defend the people's vote and first of all the vote for our party, not only against the PRI's fraud but also against all the parties that overtly or covertly are trying to push us out of our rightful place. We know that we can defend the vote if we prepare our forces and have the firm backing of all our allied organizations and of the sections of the population that have offered us their support.