MEXICO — On February 5, 20,000 Mexicans celebrated the founding of the National Democratic Alliance. The Alliance, which will contest the elections on August 21, is the new left electoral body which brings together up to 15 diverse political formations including the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Democratic Forum (a split from the right-wing National Election Party) and the leftist Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT) which is affiliated to the Fourth International. HECTOR DE LA CUEVA, a leading member of the PRT and an Alliance candidate gives some background to the elections. He was interviewed for Green Left Weekly by ROBYN MARSHALL.
"The Alliance is really a united front for democracy. Its main aim is to defeat the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) government. The parties which form the Alliance do not have the same program but a few specific, concrete issues in commo. We have a declaration of general objectives to defeat corporatism and to begin to build social justice, but we don't discuss how to bring this about."
The first question in Mexican politics is not ideology but, the relationship a party has to the PRI. The PRI, in power for the last 65 years, has a massive bureaucracy which controls virtually everything. De la Cueva said that it even creates political parties to give the appearance of democracy. For instance, the PRI set up the Ecological Party, financed it, and gave it access to facilities. The Mexican Workers Party (PT) was another of its creations.
There will be nine presidential candidates from nine parties in the elections. However, the real fight is between the PRI and the PRD. According to de la Cueva, the position of a political party can be determined by whether or not it is financially independent of the government.
All political parties are in a crisis. After the 1988 elections most of the left dissolved into the new PRD. Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who had been a PRI state governor, left with other key leaders. He is now the PRD's presidential candidate.
Political defeats in Latin America and the collapse of the former Soviet Union has had it effect on the left; most groups have decreased in size and influence.
"The only left organisation that remained independent was the PRT," said de la Cueva. "We predicted a big social confrontation and we were right.
"We decided to propose a democratic alliance with Cardenas and the PRD. We also decided not to ask the government for legal recognition to run in the elections since this would mean accepting many of its corrupt practices."
This led to a split in the PRT; a minority section of peasant leaders decided to ask the government for legal recognition. This section, said de la Cueva, had become corrupt and, in the process, quite rich. The party, he said, was paying the price for sectarianism, opportunism and the lack of political education amongst its ranks.
Many people had become used to negotiating with the government to obtain money.
The PRT split-off organised its own campaign for recognition but in the end didn't get it. At the last moment they decided to support the Cardenas campaign. However, they called themselves PRT as well, which means that there are two PRTs in the Alliance.
"Cardenas and the PRD were defeated in the 1991 elections. The PRD was not the instrument to defeat the PRI. This election, the government will face a broad alliance of the social forces and left parties. We are also organising committees in the unions, amongst the peasants and the popular organisations. The election for senators, parliamentarians, etc doesn't matter. The main concern is the presidency as the president decides everything; he can veto any law made by the parliament."
According to de la Cueva, the uprising in the southern state of Chiapas this year has changed politics dramatically. "Everything moved to the left. The start of every political discussion now is how to win social justice and get democracy.
"There is a process of radicalisation in the country: in some sectors it is moving slowly, in others, such as the peasants, more rapidly. We have always had a radical peasant movement; the memory of [Emiliano] Zapata [the nationalist peasant leader] is still alive.
"The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) has deepened that radicalisation. They are not sectarian; they are very smart and very serious. There have been preparing this uprising for ten years. Some were involved in armed struggle in the 1970s and some of the leaders have more than 20 years of organising experience. They have a massive implantation amongst the indigenous people. Their leader, Sub-Commandante Marcos, said they could have chosen any time for the uprising but they were ready last January.
"They really hit President Salinas hard at the moment he was celebrating the [signing of the] North American Free Trade Agreement. Now all this has disintegrated. They are waiting to see who will be the next president. Their demands and their speeches have won them massive support and sympathy throughout the whole of Mexico."
The EZLN are not intervening directly in the election process. "The combination of the Zapatistas, the big social movements in the countryside and the social and non-government organisations in the cities will play a big role — more than the parties — in the elections," said de la Cueva.
"This country will change very rapidly in the next few months if Cardenas wins the election and the Zapatistas deepen the population's radicalisation. The EZLN are an armed guarantee that the government must respect the elections and ensure a democratic process takes place. Many things could happen and the US administration is very worried."
A third of the Mexican Army is sitting in Chiapas. But, according to do la Cueva, the government would pay a high political price to defeat the EZLN. "Sub-Commandante Marcos is not calling on people to take up arms but for everyone to take their place in the struggle in whatever way they can.
"The left has a big chance now. The Alliance wants to win electoral reform; there is massive fraud in the Mexican elections. What the PRI can't win by buying votes, they achieve through stuffing the ballot boxes. It is generally accepted that the PRD and Cardenas probably won the 1991 election but the boxes weren't officially counted until seven days after the election.
The PRD is pushing Congress for an independent electoral commission of non-party people but it's believed that the government won't agree. The push for international observers is likely to be accepted. However, just as in El Salvador, the fraud will be well-organised beforehand.
The Alliance is an electoral front, not a party. Cardenas made an important concession that the PRD would decide 50% of the candidates with the other 50% to be decided by the social forces involved in the Alliance.
De la Cueva believes he has a good chance of winning. While the Alliance's vote will depend on the extent of the fraud, nevertheless the result will be a signpost of the strength of the new left in Latin America.