The Decadence of the Elite
Just as the swine flu episode has begun to wind down, Mexican elites have been seized by another contagion: bloodying each other on the front pages of the newspapers. Actually, the target of most of the attacks has been Carlos Salinas, Mexico’s president between 1988 and 1994, a man already widely loathed for presumed corruption during his tenure.
The new allegations against Salinas, both by his predecessor and a businessman who himself has been deeply implicated in corruption, are unlikely to have any impact on Salinas’s reputation, which is already miserable. Which raises the question: why now? Why is all of this dirty laundry being aired about a man who was president fifteen years ago right at this particular moment?
One possibility is that it is election season in Mexico has just kicked off, and the party that is ahead in the polls is the Salinas’s PRI, the state-party that ruled Mexico for over seven decades. The PAN (the ruling party) in particular has been working hard to revive the PRI’s authoritarian past in order to prime voters to refuse to pull the lever for the party. Because Mexican politics and political parties tend to be dominated by powerful personalities, the more Mexicans associate the new PRI with Salinas, the harder it is to distinguish the new and old PRI.
Whatever the reason for the sudden interest in Salinas, the scandals are indicative of how much the past is still present in Mexican politics. And while Salinas may or may not be all that relevant for Mexico’s future, the decadence of the party in power, the PAN, surely is a matter of concern. That decadence is nowhere more visible than in the ruling party’s tie-ups with the old corporatist power brokers of the past, those same brokers that helped the PRI to consolidate power over so many decades.
The most egregious example of this until recently had been the PAN’s shameless courting of Elba Esther Gordillo, the authoritarian head of the powerful teachers’ union in Mexico. Through strategic appointments of Gordillo’s inner circle to government posts, through policy initiatives, and through alliances with her party, New Alliance, the PAN has sought to incorporate the old corporatist architecture of the PRI into its own governing structure.
This year, the party has gone a step further in its embrace of the old power structure by offering a highly-ranked seat on its party list for the upcoming elections to the head of the second most powerful union in Mexico, the social security workers’ union (the SNTSS, which represents IMSS). The PAN literally stole Valdemar Gutiérrez Fragoso away from the PRI, which had given him a top-ranked seat only a week earlier.
It would be nice if the incorporation of a leading health official into the PAN meant that the health sector was going to suddenly get more attention. As recent reports triggered by the swine flu outbreak have demonstrated, the Mexican health system is severely fragmented, under-staffed, under-resourced and suffers from high absenteeism among physicians. Fixing it requires more money, but also new and improved labor relations and a new professionalism on the part of health workers.
Unfortunately, Mexican-style corporatism likely will have the opposite result: in exchange for electoral support, the administration will take a hands-off approach to the sector, allowing union bosses to treat it as their personal fiefdom. The result will be more corruption and less professionalism. If so, the past is not only present in Mexico, but future as well.
Very good article, very usefull!!
Comment by Emerson — May 25, 2009 @ 6:45 pm
Althougth absolute power corrupts absolutely, the multi-party system has reduced corruption in Mexico from the days of the PRI and even the decades old drug powers are being challenged.
Although corruption for long-serving parties is almost inevitable, so far the PAN continues to push more than any other party for change in a responsible manner (without overspending that leads to economic catastrophy).
Therefore, I hope the PRD gets punished as predicted for their irresponsibilities, and the PAN and PRI continue to push for reforms. I hope the PRI does not get rewarded too much just for not being the party in power, since they’ve been dragging their feet on most major reforms of the last decade!
Comment by eljefejesus — June 13, 2009 @ 3:28 pm
I think i’ve seen this somewhere before…but it’s not bad at all
Comment by Derekp — June 24, 2009 @ 12:55 pm
Very interesting post about politics in Mexico. I this they should take this as a challenge and improve, especially in the heath care sector. The out break with influenza AH1N1 or swine flu was indeed a wake-up call to the government, health sector and it’s citizens to improve their services.
Comment by Cosmetic Dentist Arlington — July 2, 2009 @ 9:09 pm
really very interesting…
Comment by atasözleri — August 1, 2009 @ 5:58 am