One-Party Democracy

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (P.R.I.), which has been the controlling force in Mexican politics for half a century, is anything but revolutionary. Nor is it a party in the sense generally understood in Western democracies. But the P.R.I, is an institution: since its organization in 1929, it has not lost a single presidential election. The President, the most influential man in the party, rules Mexico like a virtual monarch for six years. Then, after consulting with a few powerbrokers, he designates his heir. In a blitzkrieg campaign, the successor is paraded before the voters, who give him an overwhelming victory. Says a Western diplomat in Mexico City: "The only comparable party in the world is the Soviet Communist Party."

Mexico's durable one-party system emerged from the fratricidal Revolution of 1910, which toppled the 34-year rule of Dictator Porfirio Diaz. In the ensuing ten years, more than 1 million Mexicans died as one faction after another tried to wrest control of the country. Finally, to put an end to the bloodletting, outgoing President Plutarco Elias Calles founded what later became the P.R.I, as a coalition of military leaders, landholders and workers dedicated to the reforms called for in a constitution that had been drawn up in 1917 but was never respected. The party promised economic equality, universal education and the return of foreign holdings to Mexican ownership--all in the name of what was to be a permanent revolution.

Although all those ambitious goals have not been realized, the P.R.I.'s principal achievement is having brought political stability to Mexico. The cost, however, has been high. Innovation has generally been repressed, and genuine pluralism does not exist. The concentration of power in a single party has also created a vast system of patronage in which political debts are routinely paid off in cash or favors. The sweeping powers of the presidency, moreover, have led to the kind of abuses that became widespread under Jose Lopez Portillo. Although the P.R.I, enjoys the support of an estimated 13 million registered members and wins all national elections with a genuine majority, it routinely manipulates the results to increase the margin of victory. The P.R.I.'s defenders respond that the system is "evolutionary," indirectly reflecting the will of the majority through an internal party consensus. Still, many Mexicans are deeply cynical about the process. Says Pablo Gomez, secretary-general of the United Socialist Party of Mexico (P.S.U.M.), which won third place with 3.7% of the votes last July: "There are a million cracks in the P.R.I., and it is burning itself out."

If that is so, why does the P.R.I, retain such massive support? One reason is the fear of a return to political instability. Another is the party's permeation of daily life. Says a foreign analyst: "Every sector of society owes, and is owed to." Equally pervasive is a traditional respect for authority, which is channeled into support of the P.R.I. Despite the periodic calls for a truly competitive party system and the strains imposed by the current economic crisis, that combination of factors makes continued P.R.I, control one of the few sure things in Mexico's future.

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