Two decades have passed since Luis Donaldo Colosio, then PRI’s Presidential candidate, was assassinated during an electoral campaign event in Tijuana on March 23rd of 1994. The aforementioned party’s leadership organized several acts to commemorate his memory, hailing Colosio as a figure that set a precedent in both Mexican politics as well as PRI’s inner structure. Beyond entering a discussion about an individual who was also happened to be one of the most influential contemporary politicians, the time seems right to reflect upon how much PRI has changed since then.
While delivering a speech about the twentieth anniversary of Colosio’s death, César Camacho – who, by the way, was one of the former’s predecessors as PRI leader – wanted to mark the legacy of the deceased as the beginning of a radical change in the ways and means of the so-called “new PRI”. Nevertheless, the return of this party to power didn’t occur due to a popular acknowledgement of a democratic and self-critical approach but, in the best of cases, because of the image it projected as an experimented political group which could handle Mexico’s governance – lest we forget, with a collective oblivion – and also, adding the backlash against PAN, the latter’s mistakes while in office as well as its incapacity to effectively communicate its achievements. Now that it has reached power, PRI has sought to build a renewed foundation myth, one in which Colosio plays a key role in purifying.
It is clear that PRI has put an effort in presenting a different image that will differentiate itself from past mistakes of the so-called “perfect dictatorship”, Colosio being the first link on a chain of events that will embody a “modernizing” and “reforming” party. PRI attempts to believe the idea that, had the deceased candidate arrived at the Presidency, the party would have radically changed its ways to transform itself in favor of democracy. Given the fact that this is a counter-factual event, which by definition is impossible to assess, it will be better to make an analysis that is based on reality. Lucky enough for PRI, rules of the political scenario did not suffer any radical changes during PAN’s interregnum; this can be explained to the latter’s lack of experience and will. As time went by, PAN was left in an unsuitable position within government and PRI was getting closer to its long desired journey “back home”. Thus, if PRI has changed, it cannot be attributed to a prodigious continuum but to the the traumatic event of losing power, the natural habitat within a political system created, nurtured and, at the time, worn out by the party that occupied the Presidency for over seven decades.
The argument of having the manners within a political system unaltered rather than “democratized”, that is to say, that all political parties have exercised (tried) power (as well as its pros and cons) should be changed with the following question: has PRI found the need to change? In order to provide an answer, it is essential to take into account a key factor that is widely linked with politics: the social environment. Undoubtedly, society has obtained a more active role in decision-making, though it is still at a preliminary stage. That way, PRI has found – though it is still not keen on recognizing or accepting – a different environment than the one that existed fifteen years ago, when it was on the verge of losing the Presidency. It is undeniable. Regardless, the experience of its first months in this new phase in power has come to show tendencies such as reestablishing a centralized control over several stakeholders – Governors, Congressmen, opposition parties, business interests – using the allocation of resources, discretion of controlling hot-button areas, and discretionary approach towards justice procurement (as it was shown with the pragmatic actions undertaken with the Elba Esther Gordillo apprehension), among others. There is indeed a different social environment but practices from the past are still kept thus, the “change” within PRI appears to be the restoration of one of the traits that kept the party in power for such a long time: its ability to adapt. In the end, as it always occurs in history, Colosio will end up being nothing more than a convenient legitimacy tool.
CIDAC
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