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CIAO DATE: 04/03
Chiapas Alert: Opposition Likely to Deliver Another Blow to the PRI
George Grayson *
Hemisphere Focus: 1998-2000
Series VIII, Issue 13
August 16, 2000
Overview
Overview of Chiapas
South Carolina-sized Chiapas boasts a population of 3,920,515 inhabitants, just over half of whom are registered voters. The state exhibits the nation's lowest per capita income (US$1,304), top illiteracy rate (26.03 percent), most dwellings without electricity (21.40 percent), and the number one index of "marginalization," as determined by Mexico's respected National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and Information (INEGI).
Chiapas, whose residents didn't vote to become part of Mexico until 1824, also embraces the country's biggest indigenous population, with descendants of the Mayans making up one-quarter of the state's population age five and older. Indian couples have an average of 5.1 babies compared with the 1.7 national figure. For many of the Indians, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and other derivatives of Mayan constitute their primary language. Guatemalans, who are ethnically similar to their Chiapan counterparts, often cross the border illegally to work for pitifully low wages in the coffee harvest and on ranches.
On January 1, 1994, the Zapatistas attracted international attention when they urged the overthrow of the ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) administration as "the only way to avoid dying of hunger under the insatiable ambition of a dictatorship of more than 70 years headed by a clique of traitors...." A cease-fire followed 12 days of fighting that consumed at least 150 lives, and the Mexican Army subsequently cordoned off the EZLN enclave that lies in the rain-forested northeast part of the state.
In addition to the Zapatistas' confrontation with the government, other conflicts pit landowners against peasants, Mexicans against Guatemalans, the PRI against its political foes, Evangelical Protestants against Catholics, and traditional Catholics against radical Catholics attracted to liberation theology advanced by Samuel Ruiz García, the ex-bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas, who for 40 years raised the consciousness of exploited Indians in his diocese. In addition, intramural conflicts beset most of the above-mentioned groups.
The PRI has used the carrot and the stick to achieve thumping electoral successes in the state. Carrots materialize in the form of 173 social programs—notably PROCAMPO (farm subsidies) and PROGRESA (health, education, and food benefits). Since the Zapatista uprising, the federal government has poured tens of millions of dollars into Chiapas to promote social order and respond to natural disasters. President Ernesto Zedillo has made more visits to Chiapas (34) than to any other state.
The stick looms large in the form of coercion, bribes, intimidation, and violence—with repression carried out by local police forces and paramilitary groups like Paz y Justicia, allegedly linked to the PRI. Traditionally, Chiapas governors have used their tenure to strengthen the hand of wealthy landowners vis-à-vis campesinos, while fattening their bank accounts. The arrogance and exploitative practices of revolutionary party politicians have sparked a decrease in PRI percentages in recent presidential elections: 1988 (89.9 percent), 1994 (48 percent), and 2000 (44.7 percent).
Candidates
Sami David David (PRI) was born April 5, 1950 in Acepetahua, Chiapas. He has one child, a degree in political science and public administration (UNAM), and has held posts in such federal agencies as CONASUPO, BANOBRAS, and ScyT. He joined the PRI in 1967 and has moved up the ranks from youth leader to director of the party's popular sector (CNOP), to state party president. His appointed and elective political positions include PRI delegate to a half-dozen states, federal deputy (1982-85; 1988-91), and senator (1994-2000). On February 26, 2000, party leaders handpicked him over Homero Díaz Córdova and César Augusto Santiago.
Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía (Alliance for Chiapas, composed of the PRD, PAN, PVEM, PT, PAS, PCD, PSN, and Convergence for Democracy/CD). He was born Aug. 9, 1954, in Solayó, Chiapas, and is married with three children. He holds a law degree (U. of Puebla) and is an attorney specializing in indigenous rights. He also served as lawyer for the Diocese of San Cristóbal. His appointive and elective posts include assistant state attorney general (1978-82), legal director of the state's Secretariat of Education and Culture (1983), executive board member of the state electoral institute (1993), state secretary of government (1994), and senator (1994-2000). The PRD recruited Salazar, a priísta until 1998, as a gubernatorial candidate—with the PAN and a half-dozen small parties following suit.
Salazar Will Likely Triumph
Several elements strongly point to Salazar's trouncing the PRI's Sami David David on Sunday.
1. In Chiapas, the PRI ran first in the presidential contest, won 11 of 12 directly elected federal deputies, and captured two senate seats. There were, however, a plethora of parties presenting candidates. In contrast, the gubernatorial election is essentially a two-man race. To his advantage, Salazar enjoys the backing of the PAN, the leftist-nationalist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), the Mexican Green Party (PVEM), and five smaller entities. On July 2, these eight parties that now form the Alliance for Chiapas collected 55.3 percent of the ballots cast. They show every indication of preserving, if not enlarging, this percentage.
2. Interim PRI governor Roberto Albores Guillén has careened from one fiasco to another. He flaunted the rules in the PRI's November 7, 1999, nominating primary by openly mobilizing state workers and resources on behalf of Francisco Labastida Ochoa. In spite of Alboresís partiality toward Labastida, Roberto Madrazo captured 7 of the 12 electoral districts in the state of Chiapas. Although Labastida captured the PRIís nomination, he proceeded to lose to Fox eight months later. During the general election campaign, Albores again deployed public resources for the PRI ticket, while attempting to prevent local newspapers from reporting Labastida's weak performance in an April 25 candidates' debate. In sum, Albores may himself be a liability for David.
While David has held important state posts—party president, federal deputy, and senator—he has spent at least half his career outside Chiapas. He is also a "straight-from-central-casting" priísta, who has cut deals and courted the elite to ascend the political ladder. No one accuses David of either being a statesman or demonstrating a vision of the state's future.
David's formal positions differ little from Salazar's. Thus, the PRI aspirant has relied on personal attacks on his opponent. First, he has tried to dissuade Roman Catholics from voting for Salazar, an Evangelical Protestant. Any chance that this tactic would work evaporated when the bishop of Tuxtla Gutiérrez stated that the church had no intention of "vetoing" any candidate, and harshly criticized attempts to spark a "holy war." Second, the PRI has alleged that Salazar, who has practiced as an attorney for more than two decades, lied about earning a law degree. This charge has precipitated a "he saidñyou said" donnybrook between the warring camps. Finally, David's entourage has blamed Salazar for provoking a savage stone-throwing assault on the PRI nominee in Salazar's hometown, Solayá, on August 4.
Such denunciations aside, Salazar appears to be gaining support. In contrast to David, he has developed deep roots in Chiapas, particularly with Indians and other poverty-stricken inhabitants. His parents were meagerly paid schoolteachers, who moved frequently. As a result, he became familiar with many parts of the state, as well as with the masses that exist in hardscrabble poverty. His work as attorney for the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas brought him into close contact with Bishop Ruiz and his quest to uplift the "have nots" and draw attention to their plight.
Salazar, whom the martyred PRI presidential nominee Luis Donaldo Colosio befriended, served for 100 days as government secretary for interim governor Javier López Moreno and witnessed the outbreak of the Zapatista rebellion first hand. He subsequently won a senate seat and formed part of the Commission on Conciliation and Peace (COCOPA), created to resolve the EZLNñgovernment conflict. When neither Zedillo nor the Congress would accept the 1996 "San Andrés accords" hammered out between COCOPA and the guerrillas, Salazar resigned from the PRI. The Democratic Revolutionary Party then recruited him as a gubernatorial candidate. PAN senators who had served with Salazar—current party president Luis Felipe Bravo Mena and Fox campaign chairman Rodolfo Elizondo Torres—recognized his qualities and persuaded National Action to align itself behind his candidacy. After all, the PAN didn't want the highly capable, independent-minded Salazar to be beholden to the PRD.
4. Fox believes it would be inappropriate for him as president-elect to campaign for Salazar or any other nominee. Still, the panista's victory last month has animated the opposition's campaign, even as Labastida's defeat has enervated and weakened the PRI.
Significance
The August 20 balloting in Chiapas will have profound consequences for the political system. First, should Salazar win as anticipated, the media will attribute the outcome—in part, at least—to the Fox coattail effect (efecto Fox); namely, the impact that Fox's stunning victory has on politics throughout the country. His team hopes that any political credit given to the president-elect will help him negotiate with the new, opposition-controlled Congress, which takes office on September 1, three months before Fox's inauguration.
Secondly, a triumph for the "Alliance for Chiapas" standard-bearer will stimulate the PAN to devote more attention to southern, rural areas. In the past, National Action's success in the South lay mainly in cities like Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mérida, and Oaxaca. Salazar's success on the heels of the July 2 results should convince PAN leaders that their party can indeed make broader inroads "outside the asphalt" and among the rural vote (voto verde).
Thirdly, Salazar's election will also hearten anti-PRI forces to work even harder in the gubernatorial and local contests in Veracruz (Sept. 3, local), Tabasco (Oct.15, gubernatorial and local), and Jalisco (Nov. 12, gubernatorial and local). Even though PRI nominee and Madrazo protegé Manuel Andrade Díaz is the odds-on favorite to attain the Tabasco statehouse, the PAN should easily hold on to the Jalisco governorship and, at worst, run a strong second in Veracruz. In addition, a Salazar triumph will boost the PAN's hopes of winning next year's governor's race in Yucatán. For its part, the PRD is already savoring the ouster of the PRI in Michoacán, the home state of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (third-place finisher in the presidential sweepstakes), whose son is likely to carry the party's gubernatorial torch in 2001.
Fourthly, Andrade's victory in Tabasco—juxtaposed with PRI defeats in Chiapas and Jalisco—will further loft Madrazo's star within the revolutionary party. Realizing that David is a probable loser, Madrazo has made only half-hearted, pro forma appearances on his behalf. David's campaign manager Efrén Leyva, a madracista who demanded Zedillo's expulsion from the PRI, has already begun to blame the likely blow-out in Chiapas on Mexico City. He has insisted that the president's neoliberal policies have alienated chiapanecos; that an anti-Albores campaign orchestrated by the center has sullied the image of a "popular and effective" governor; and that the revolutionary party's central committee has failed to throw its full support behind David, who is allowed to spend only 5 million pesos compared with the Alliance for Change's 9 million peso budget.
Such a fusillade against Zedillo and the national PRI resonates with rank-and-file militants, many of whom yearn for a scapegoat in the aftermath of the Labastida debacle. They will press for Madrazo to assume the reins of the PRI. Should this move fail, Madrazo loyalists have signaled the likelihood of forming a new party, possibly called "Patria Nueva."
Finally, Fox has named three outstanding panistas, Rodolfo Elizondo, Luis H. Alvarez, and Santiago Creel Miranda to explore solutions to the Chiapas impasse. The Zapatistas, though, have publicly excoriated President-elect Fox, who once asserted that he and EZLN leader Subcomandante Marcos could resolve the conflict in 15 minutes of discussions.
Salazar's winning on Sunday could breathe new life into the peace process. The Alliance for Chiapas nominee knows Marcos personally and has long championed the San Andrés accords, which—inter alia—would grant limited autonomy to certain of the state's 118 municipalities. With an eye to a governmental change in Chiapas, Fox said on August 11: "We want to reestablish the dialogue in search of solutions."
As part of any settlement, the Army would probably withdraw to the position it occupied on February 9, 1995. Salazar has also called for a reduction in the number of troops in the state. Whether a San Andrés-type pact would bring tranquility to the state or simply embolden the Zapatistas—and indigenous leaders in other regions—to escalate their demands remains to be seen.
George W. Grayson, the Class of 1938 Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary, has made fifty research trips to Mexico since 1976, and lectures regularly at the National Defense University and the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State. He is an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an associate scholar of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is also Senior Adviser on Mexican Affairs for the Washington D.C.-based Capital Insight Group. His recent works include, A Guide to the 2000 Mexican Presidential Election (CSIS, 2000); A Guide to the November 7, 1999 PRI Primary (1999, CSIS); A Guide to the July 4, 1999, Mexico State Gubernatorial Election, coauthored with Armand Peschard-Sverdrup (CSIS, 1999); Strange Bedfellows: NATO Marches East (University Press of America, 1999); Mexico Armed Forces: Factbook (CSIS, 1999); A Guide to the 1998 Mexican State Elections (CSIS, 1998); The North American Free Trade Agreement (University Press of America, 1995),;The North American Free Trade Agreement (Foreign Policy Association, 1993),;The Church in Contemporary Mexico (CSIS, 1992); and Oil and Mexican Foreign Policy (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988). Professor Grayson earned his Ph.D. at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University and his J.D. at the College of William & Mary. He has served as a member of the Virginia state legislature for twenty-five years. He belongs to Phi Beta Kappa and the Cosmos Club. Back.
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