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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2006 
Mexico's PRI Hopeful Slipping in Fight for Party Comeback
 S. Lynne Walker - Union-Tribune Copley
| | Mexican presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo, at a campaign rally Tuesday in Frontera in his home state of Tabasco, is running third in the polls. (Luis J. Jimenez/Copley News Service |
Frontera, Mexico – Roberto Madrazo pumped his fists in the air, jubilant as he introduced himself as the presidential candidate for the most powerful political party Mexico has ever known.
It was the goal he had been striving for all his life. A broad smile crossed his face, he flashed a thumbs-up sign and he shouted to his cheering supporters, “We are going to win!”
But even as Madrazo stood before the crowd in this Gulf Coast town Tuesday, his lifelong goal was slipping from his grasp. He is third in the polls, a stunning setback for the candidate from the party that governed Mexico for 71 years.
A decade ago, it would have been unthinkable that the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, would be in third place in a presidential race. The PRI's firm grip on the presidency was legendary – it was the longest-ruling party in the world.
But Mexico broke the stranglehold of one-party rule in 2000 when it elected Vicente Fox to the presidency. And now Madrazo, whose entire political career has been driven by the singular ambition of becoming Mexico's president, is struggling to return the party to power.
In the final days before the July 2 election, he is crisscrossing the country at a breakneck pace, stopping in obscure pueblos and big cities to drum up support.
He flings himself into the crowd, pressing sweaty flesh and promising voters what they want the most: more jobs, less crime, less poverty.
His government will create 9 million jobs during his six-year term, he pledges. His government will serve 25 million hot breakfasts to poor children across the country. His government will propose life sentences for kidnappers and rapists.
By reaching out to the PRI's traditional base in the countryside, Madrazo has narrowed the gap with the second-place candidate, conservative Felipe Calderón.
After dropping to about 20 percent in public opinion surveys, Madrazo has edged up to 26 percent, according to a poll published Friday in the Mexico City newspaper El Universal.
Calderón, of Fox's National Action Party, is ahead of Madrazo with 34 percent of the vote, the poll showed. Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party, leads with 36 percent.
Madrazo has carefully positioned himself as a moderate who has avoided the mudslinging that has marred the campaigns of his opponents.
After waging a dirty fight within his own party to win the presidential nomination, he has taken on the role of conciliator.
“Andrés Manuel and Felipe have polarized the country,” Madrazo said in a recent interview with Copley News Service. “The issues facing Mexico transcend a debate between candidates or who is ahead in the polls. This is not a beauty contest. This is not an oratory contest. The question that Mexicans are asking is who can govern the country.”
In a country fearful of postelection violence, Madrazo's plea for harmony is reaching voters.
“There has been a lot of fighting between Calderón and López Obrador. They are at war,” said Mariflor Velázquez, a homemaker in Jalpa de Mendez, a town in Madrazo's home state of Tabasco. “Roberto Madrazo is the candidate of peace. That is why I think he will be triumphant.”
That many Mexicans see Madrazo as a peaceful force in the presidential race is a credit to his remarkable ability to reshape his image.
The fierce battles he waged to win his party's presidency and, later, the presidential nomination, splintered the already weakened PRI.
“He destroys his enemies,” said Federico Berrueto, a pollster who served as political adviser to former President Ernesto Zedillo. “He thought he could ignore the principles of democracy and nothing would happen. What he ended up with is a very divided party.”
Madrazo, 53, has been relentless in his quest for political power. He was just 24 when he was first elected to the nation's Congress.
In the tradition-bound PRI, Madrazo earned a reputation as a rebel. He relished taking political risks and savored the victories they often brought.
Even now, as he trails in third place, Madrazo exudes confidence.
“I am sure that I am going to win,” he said in a soft, rasping voice that makes him sound like Marlon Brando in “The Godfather.”
“People are already motivated. What I have done is give them the enthusiasm to vote.”
That confidence, combined with his ruthless political style, won Madrazo the party's nomination.
He fought an effort by moderates in his party to force a competitive primary aimed at selecting the PRI's presidential candidate. Arturo Montiel, the former governor of Mexico state, dropped out of the race amid allegations of improper property and bank transactions involving millions of dollars. A bitter Montiel accused Madrazo of leaking the information.
The national teacher's union, Mexico's largest labor organization and a longtime PRI supporter, immediately withdrew its support for Madrazo. And the union's powerful leader, Elba Esther Gordillo, made national headlines by launching her own candidate, Roberto Campa, for president.
On a national radio program, Gordillo likened Madrazo to a snake. Then she fired a salvo that has haunted him throughout the campaign. “Do you believe Madrazo? I don't either,” she said.
Questions about Madrazo's credibility will follow him to the ballot box, political observers said.
“The biggest problem Madrazo has is that people don't believe him,” said Arturo Núñez, a veteran Tabasco politician who resigned from the PRI in September and is now running for senator on the PRD ticket. “Everybody complains that Madrazo doesn't keep his word.”
His image problems are likely to spill over into congressional races, which will also be decided in this election. The PRI is expected to lose seats in the lower House and the Senate, according to a poll published in the newspaper Excelsior.
“Madrazo is going to suffer a very costly defeat,” pollster Berrueto predicted. “On the night of July 2, many people will see Madrazo not only as a failure, but possibly as a traitor because he sank the ship of the PRI.”
S. Lynne Walker: slwalker@prodigy.net.mx |
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