Party of the Right

For years Sinarquistas had been a power in the Mexican countryside. They met, under their own Nazi-style red-white-green party flags, at the command of secret leaders. Around Mexico City they could rally 30,000 illiterate "soldiers" at a few hours's notice. There would be a big parade, then speakers would mount a platform in the plaza and call for cheers -- cheers for Christ the King, cheers for the Virgin of Guadalupe. When the speaker shouted: "Who robs Mexico of its oil?" the crowd would answer: "The U.S." "Who takes the products of Mexico's mines?" "The U.S." "Who keeps Mexico poor?" "The U.S." For a long time the semi-fascist, ultra-nationalist Sinarquistas had spent most of their energies on religious revivalism and vague talk of a corporate state based on the Fuehrer principle. But last week, by presenting the names of 46,270 members, they qualified as a Mexican political party under the name of Fuerza Popular (Popular Force). For the moment, they were the only other permanently registered legal political party besides the government's Partido Revolucionario Institutional (P.R.I.). Other opposition parties--the conservative Accion Nacional, Lombardo Toledano's Partido Popular, and the Communists--were trying to corral enough signatures to qualify for the June 30 permanent registration deadline.

New Tactics. Sinarquistas are as dead set as ever against the anticlerical ideas of the Mexican revolution. But their tactics have changed. The little clique of lawyers who run the movement has begun to translate its strength into political power. Whether this is due to the new party's energetic young president, Schoolmaster Seferino Sanchez Hidalgo, or to two key leaders, Enrique Marfin and Hidalgo Gonzalez (now conferring with Falangist chiefs in Spain), is not clear.

In any event, the movement's leaders have now given concrete form to the earlier primitive mysticism. To boost their new party in the overcrowded upland states, they war on the ejido (communal land) politicos who often tyrannize the lives of the farmers; they promise the farmers absolute title to their little plots of ejido land. They also incite their fanatical followers to demonstrate against the smalltime grafting political bosses who rule many a village and town. In Leon, Tapachula and Oaxaca such demonstrations led to street fighting and the death of Sinarquistas. When, over the past 18 months, the Aleman administration fired three governors and a raft of local officeholders, the Sinarquistas claimed the credit.

New Future? The Sinarquistas do best where the campesinos are backward and land-poor. Along the coasts, where people have more modern ideas and organization, they find the going tougher. But authoritative Mexican sources today give them half a million followers, 135,000 votes. Along with the more sophisticated, city-educated Accion Nacional, they add up to a potent conservative force. If the official P.R.I, should ever lose its grip, they might well rule Mexico.

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