IS ZEDILLO SUFFERING A MELTDOWN?

By JOHN MANNERS

The kindest thing many people in Mexico call Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon these days is pobrecito--poor little thing. The sobriquet refers not only to the President's bad luck in facing a financial meltdown just three weeks after taking office but also to his demonstrated lack of the political savvy he may need to navigate the rest of his six-year term. For even with a $50 billion international bailout to bolster him, the austerity Zedillo must impose will generate opposition from practically every quarter.

The bailout is already controversial with the public. In a poll released Feb. 1, 62% said they were convinced the last-minute loan arrangement compromised Mexico's sovereignty. At the news conference announcing the package, reporters badgered Finance Minister Guillermo Ortiz with repeated questions about any promises he might have made as a quid pro quo to the U.S.; Ortiz denied any such thing. Even newspapers that welcomed the bailout gave little credit to Zedillo's team for its round-the-clock efforts in helping put the rescue agreement together. The afternoon daily Ovaciones hailed the deal with the headline viva clinton--and no reference to the Mexican President.

As Zedillo showed during the crisis, his own personality does not help. He dithered over firing his original Finance Minister, Jaime Serra Puche, who promised the peso would not be devalued just 10 days before it went into free fall, and later antagonized Wall Street by dismissing complaints about his handling of the crisis. Zedillo also delayed for days in announcing the austerity measures that would compensate for the peso collapse, compounding the sense of chaos.

The President hesitated again last month before firing Education Minister Fausto Alzati, a close collaborator, after revelations that he lied about receiving a doctorate from Harvard University. Then two weeks ago, the Mexico City daily Reforma revealed that two Cabinet secretaries and three undersecretaries had also faked their degrees. So far Zedillo has not removed them because, aides say, another shake-up would be too disruptive.

Almost as damaging to Zedillo's image is his inability to inspire confidence in the government's upper echelons. A high-ranking official complained openly to about the naive technocrats surrounding the President. ``They're in over their heads,'' he said, ``and they don't even know it.'' Unlike previous administrations, a number of factions in the Zedillo government have emerged semipublicly to backstab each other and compete for powerful positions.

The fledgling leader still has plenty of time to get back on course. What he needs most, says Roderic Ai Camp, a Mexico specialist at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, is to ``exude confidence. He needs to make his decisions and stick to them.'' Most analysts believe he is on the right track in planning to consolidate political and judicial reform in Mexico, where the Institutional Revolutionary Party has had a 65-year stranglehold on power. The next test of his mettle is expected on Feb. 12, with elections in the central state of Jalisco. Last week two polls showed the opposition National Action Party (pan) with a comfortable lead over the p.r.i. If Zedillo is to keep his vow to create a ``new Mexican democracy,'' he needs to keep those elections free and fair--meaning that he may have to submit to yet another demonstration of his government's unpopularity.

With reporting by Laura Lopez/Mexico City