beyondbrics

This is the 10th in a series - 12 for 2012 – on key emerging market topics for the new year.

By Jorge Zepeda Patterson

After losing power in 2000 there is a very real possibility that Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, will return to the presidency in 2012’s elections. Opinion polls suggest that Enrique Peña Nieto, the candidate of the “old party”, commands a 20-point lead over his rivals and, with a little more than six months to go, there is no sign yet that his opponents are closing the gap.

Against that backdrop, the question on everyone’s minds is whether a return of the PRI would mean going back to the old regime following 12 years of a fragile and defective democracy. It is an important question – not least because the PRI has changed very little or not at all.

The two administrations of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), headed by Vicente Fox between 2000 and 2006 and by Felipe Calderón from 2006 to the present, have left so many dashed hopes and frustrations that many voters appear ready to give the PRI another chance.

Neither Fox nor Calderón progressed in the fight against corruption, social inequality or the reduction of power and privileges of the country’s big business monopolies, which stymie the economy. Mexico has the smallest growth of the big economies of Latin America – among other reasons because of its excessive dependence on the North American economy.

The weakening of the presidential system in Mexico, in which political power was always concentrated in the figure of the president, did not, as so many people had hoped and expected, give way to a strengthening of the institutional fabric capable of driving democracy forward.

On the contrary, the vacuum that the old regime left behind was rapidly occupied by the expansion of de facto powers – legal and illegal. The drugs cartels increased their presence, the country fragmented into semi-feudal spaces thanks to the power acquired by local governors operating beyond the federation’s control. The country’s multi-millionaires ascended the Forbes rich list like bubbles in champagne. The elites within the political parties took over Congress.

With all the defects of the old system, the president was the arbiter who kept all powers in check and allowed for decision-making that the country needed over the long term.

For many Mexicans, the transition to democracy since 2000 has become a synonym for political paralysis. The actors lack incentives beyond those that drive their own short-term interests. Faced with a growing disenchantment with the results of this imperfect democracy, nostalgia for the past has taken on a romantic appearance. “They may have been corrupt, but they knew how to govern” is a phrase that you now often hear over dinner table in homes throughout Mexico.

That nostalgia for the past has positioned the PRI as the favourite for the elections without its so much as having to wash its face. There is no talk of renovation, not even in rhetorical or demagogical terms. There is no need. The PRI is not saying, “we are returning as an improved party after the defeat in 2000”.

In fact, its attitude is very different: “the failure of the PAN shows that we should never have left power; the PRI is the best option for Mexico.” All that was required to turn the party into the overwhelming favourite to retake power was a young and attractive face in the form of Peña Nieto, a disciplined politician with clumsy improvisation.

The PRI has not changed – the burning question is whether the country has changed enough to block the “old party” from reinstating the old regime if it wins.

Some analysts predict a sort of return of the presidential system, along the lines of Putin’s Russia, capable of making all of today’s independent de facto powers fall into line. Others think that 12 years of alternating power has forever changed citizens’ attitudes, strengthened some institutions and shaken up the de facto powers – all sufficiently to make it difficult to return to an authoritarian regime.

And it is true that there have been changes. Public opinion is certainly more critical than it used to be, social networks and the press are more independent, the political opposition is articulated in strong parties (with the PAN on the right and the Democratic Revolution Party or PRD on the left). There are even some important pro-democracy institutions.

The result of the 2012 elections will push one way or the other. If the PRI wins with such a big margin that it ends up controlling Congress, the temptation for Peña Nieto to become a Mexican Putin will be immense. The public’s yearning for a crack-down on organised crime will only encourage him further. The deterioration of the security situation in Mexico is a tailor-made alibi for an authoritarian government and a big win would look like a blank cheque sent directly from the people.

But a narrow victory would leave Congress divided and would force the new administration to negotiate its agenda with the opposition. That would make the emergence of an all-powerful government much more difficult.

The PAN and the PRD, the two opposition parties, are fighting not, perhaps, to win but rather to come out with a discreet loss. In essence, they are competing to maintain democracy.

The triumph of the PRI in 2012 could mean a dramatic reversal in the difficult task of implementing democracy in Mexico. That would be a historic reversal and one that would be hard to recover from. Or the PRI’s return could simply mean yet another incident on a long road in which the various parties alternate power. July’s election will signal which of the two it is.

Jorge Zepeda Patterson is a political analyst and director of www.sinembargo.mx. He is a former director of newspapers El Universal and Siglo 21

Related reading:
Series: 12 for 2012
Mexico: politics as usual, beyondbrics
Mexico presidential hopeful steps aside, FT
Peña Nieto treads warily on path to presidency, FT