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| THE FIRST PRIMARY | |
 November 8, 1999 
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Mexico's ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), held its first presidential primary in history. After a background report, Ray Suarez leads a discussion.
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RAY SUAREZ: For more on Mexico's primary election, we turn to Jose Carreno, Washington correspondent for Mexico City's daily newspaper, El Universal, and George Grayson, professor of government at the College of William and Mary and fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's just back from Mexico City, where he served as an international observer monitoring yesterday's elections. Well, Mr. Grayson, was it a clean vote? |
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clean vote |
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RAY SUAREZ: Well, this was an election that had been seen in the polls as pretty close, yet it was one overwhelmingly by the man perceived as the establishment candidate. Will that open up accusations of irregularity?
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| New political methods | ||||||||||||||||||||
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JOSE CARRENO: It is even worse because it is the first time. We're not used to seeing that kind of things in Mexican elections. The point I believe, and I think Mr. Grayson will agree with me is that a lot of people including myself would be a lot happier if this were the second or the third primary instead of the first. RAY SUAREZ: But you only have your elections once every six years so it takes a little while to get that going.
RAY SUAREZ: But does the PRI come out of this primary election in a stronger opposition, able to present a unified face to the country saying, look, we gave you the chance to choose our candidate? JOSE CARRENO: Well, I think that they've come out well at this point
but I think they still have to go through some internal negotiation
especially between Mr. Labastida and the defeated candidates. Again,
we do not know if Mr. Madrazo for saying something obtained 20 or 30
or 40 percent of the votes of the polistas, so that number, that percentage
may give him a very strong position for negotiation. GEORGE GRAYSON: It was, Ray, but I wouldn't bet the rent money that we have accurate figures there any more than we have in the United States, because there was an avalanche of pesos spent in this campaign, and as was mentioned earlier, U.S. and other foreign as well as Mexican political consultants were involved, and the emphasis was really on extremely negative, venomous, demeaning TV and radio commercials which I'm not sure added to the luster of Sunday's voting. In addition, one had the impression that public opinion pollsters were really setting the agenda for the top candidates, and therefore, we often heard ear pleasing but rather vacuous comments about how to spur economic growth, create jobs and to fight crime. |
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RAY SUAREZ: There is, Jose Carreno, a difficult position for the PRI, is there not? I mean, the only way they can prove they're really running a clean election is by allowing themselves to lose?
RAY SUAREZ: Two big national names in Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and Vicente Fox. JOSE CARRENO: Correct, but many people, many people including Professor Grayson have pointed out that the next election could be the second election where the president may have the biggest minority, not the simple majority. RAY SUAREZ: So does this in your view, George Grayson, set the table well for a Mexican election next summer?
RAY SUAREZ: Do you agree?
RAY SUAREZ: Jose Carreno, thank you. George Grayson good to talk to you. GEORGE GRAYSON: Thank you. |
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GEORGE
GRAYSON: I think it was, Ray. It used to be said that democracy existed
in Mexico 364 days a year. It was only missing on election day. But
yesterday, some 10 million people went to the polls and there were remarkably
few irregularities, and so I think it really is an important triumph
for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has so often been associated
with fraud and vote stealing. 
GEORGE
GRAYSON: Well, there were lists today, Ray, in the local papers with
regard to the number of protests that had come in from around the country.
And they were remarkably few in number. The State of Coahila, for example,
which has long been a fiefdom of corruption, reported something like
12 irregularities and some of those were just having posters of candidates
near the voting places. And so I think this is really an election that
PRI can take pride in, in terms of having a good structure, having in
most cases, plenty of ballots for people to use, and making sure that
the process was transparent. 
RAY
SUAREZ: But Jose Carreno, we've come along way from laying a finger
on someone, anointing them as the party's nominee to this latest election
which was full of rancor, tough attack ads and very rough language used
in some of these debates. 
JOSE
CARRENO: That is correct. You pointed out about the, this disparity
of numbers, but I think that it's important to note that the disparity
of numbers at this point has been in the number of districts that have
been assigned, and we do not know yet the amount of votes that each
candidate obtained. The difference might have something to say and some
meaning later, in later negotiations. 
RAY
SUAREZ: Mr. Grayson, there is every evidence that the accounting was
pretty open and above board. Candidates tried to report how much they
were spending and where they were getting the money from. Was this also
a new feature? 
JOSE
CARRENO: Well, that is the position that they have been put on, but
I believe that they are inventing themselves very successfully up to
now. They are -- I mean the -- nobody imposed on them the primary --
they decided the primary on their own -- OK because of pressure of the
borders because of the pressure of trying to put themselves to date.
So, politically I think that they are the most nimble of the parties
in Mexico at this point. Now, the other side is that as was said before,
the position parties are sort of divided themselves. They are not in
their best moment nor the PRI -- the left; the PRD --the center-left;
nor the PAN -- center-right; seem to be in the best moment although
they can field very strong candidates, or what they look -- as very
strong candidates. 
JOSE
CARRENO: Absolutely. In the worst-case scenario they seem like the biggest
minority -- if not the largest, the biggest minority. And they are too
nimble to the parties the way they are.