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the unwritten rules Chapter 6 Mexican presidents wielded the authority to avert economic crisis in the 1950s and 1960s. But what gave them that authority in those decades , and why did they lose it in subsequent decades? To put it another way, aside from powers that the president had throughout the era of the PRI—aside from the legacy of concentrated rule under the Aztecs and Spain, the constitutional powers of the executive, the apparatus of party and corporatist sectors, and the threat of the secret police—what additional leverage might presidents have controlled before about 1970 and lost thereafter? What did the power consist of that allowed presidents in the 1950s and 1960s to marshal the whole panoply of state to make economic policies stick, take away the Ministry of the Presidency’s budget oversight even if it existed on paper, require all ministries to solicit the signature of Finance’s notorious Señor Caamaño on each spending request , and force state enterprises to make earnings and expenses transparent by passing them through that most rigorous of accountants, the Bank of Mexico? What critical requisite did the political system have so it did not need to abuse political expenditure to buy compliance? Two unwritten rules of elite cooperation constituted the critical requisite , giving the president exceptional authority in the 1950s and 1960s. The first rule prohibited grupos from openly mobilizing their own members or, worse, mobilizing civil society to challenge the president. Any grupo that did so had to be destroyed because otherwise it could destroy the political system. This rule held almost throughout the period from 1929, when the PRI was founded under an earlier name (the National Revolutionary Party), until 2000, when the old political system collapsed . Grupos almost always obeyed; they very rarely mobilized openly. And those that dared to mobilize were indeed destroyed. The sole exception was the Democratic Current that split from the PRI in 1987 and ran Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas as its presidential candidate. And it did set the political machine on a course toward its destruction. 118 palace politics The second unwritten rule only obtained in full force during the 1950s and 1960s: as long as grupos did not openly challenge the president’s authority , he promised them political survival in exchange. They were allowed to pitch proposals to the president, criticize alternatives, subtly support favored candidates, and impugn opponents—but only covertly, behind the screen hiding the political elite’s inner sanctum, and in the end they had to accept the president’s authority. As long as grupos did accept his authority during the 1950s and 1960s, the president was able to promise their political survival. This promise gave him the leverage to require ministers’ cooperation, limit their reach, and curtail their spending . It was the coin more precious than the peso itself in buying loyalty. These rules of elite cooperation are recognized by scholars such as Roderic Camp, Joy Langston, and Francisco Suárez Farías,1 as well as by former officials. There were two means to control conflict under the old regime, says Jorge Gamboa de Buen, ex-director of Mexico City development : “One was the absolute power of the president. The incumbent president decided, and that was that. The other was that, as long as you behaved well, were loyal to the system, and maintained discipline, you were guaranteed a political post.” The story now turns to how the unwritten rules of elite cooperation were consolidated during the dangerous 1951–52 presidential succession and sustained through the 1950s and 1960s. The 1951–52 succession threatened to blow the PRI system apart, but at the last minute, negotiations within the political elite established the rules to solidify the regime . As long as those rules remained in force over the next two decades, the Mexican state worked, and worked well, however undemocratically. consolidating the unwritten rules The unwritten rule assuring grupos political survival in return for eschewing societal mobilization was consolidated during the 1951–52 presidential succession. Miguel Alemán, president from 1946 to 1952, had marginalized two important and overlapping political currents: Revolutionary generals and the left. The portion of military men in national political office had declined from about 30 percent in the 1930s to 19 percent in the early 1940s, but Alemán slashed it to a mere 8 percent.2 This was close to a bare minimum since military officers had to run the ministries of Defense and Navy. Alemán filled his...

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