-
Chapter 8. Struggle
- University of Texas Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
struggle Chapter 8 Increasingly after 1970, elite struggle permeated the heart of the Mexican state. Policy disputes merged into conflicts over political succession, succession conflicts grew more virulent, and—the defining characteristic of struggle—grupos came to fear for their very political survival. Luis Echeverría initially undermined the cooperative system and provoked struggle when, in his anxiety to bring about change, he intensified the broader Latin American climate of ideological escalation and, worse, sought to extend his grip on power beyond his constitutional term, relentlessly firing and replacing officials. After Echeverría, elite struggle only worsened. Perhaps this progressive deterioration was not inevitable. The problem was partly individual presidents’ obsessions and errors. President José López Portillo (1976–82) almost intentionally provoked cabinet conflict, relishing debates between “thesis” and “antithesis” so he could, as he put it, forge a “synthesis”—repeatedly dismissing losers, on both left and right, along the way. President Miguel de la Madrid (1982–88) cared more about imposing the free-market “Washington Consensus” on Mexico—not just moving toward a more liberal economy but forcing that move at any cost—than about the fracture of the political elite that, it became increasingly clear, his economic program was provoking. President Carlos Salinas (1988–94) manipulated everyone and everything in order to found a dynasty and, in his failure, tore the ruling party asunder. But struggle was also cumulative, and, once provoked by Echeverría, struggle bred worse struggle. As officials saw that losers in policy debates and succession conflicts were ousted, they very reasonably feared being ousted and reached for increasingly dangerous expedients to win. To build tacit support for their presidential candidate, grupos surreptitiously deployed public spending, manipulated the economy, and deceived the president. The president ignored these transgressions because the more inflated the economy as the moment neared when he would “uncover” his successor, the less likely it was that the perilous succession struggle 158 palace politics would tear the political system apart. Elites who feared they might lose the succession could not split from the party and mobilize an opposition because, in that political moment, all seemed well. As soon as the dauphin was named, all the party luminaries, especially the rivals who had lost, were obliged to congratulate him in the traditional cargada, or cavalry charge. Now, any grupo that split off would be a mere band of discontents facing a united front. The inflated economy might wind up in crisis—it always did—but, at least for the moment, the political system held. the great organizer Unlike Echeverría, who sought to shake up the political system, López Portillo sought in some real measure to restore order. When he took office in 1976, it looked as if he might relegate the acrimony of Echeverría’s presidency to a disagreeable hiatus. Ex-presidents Miguel Alemán and Gustavo Díaz Ordaz welcomed the new president’s inaugural address extending an olive branch to all sides. Where Echeverría had sidelined his own generation of the political elite, born in the 1920s, a generation that by conventional rights expected to move into power with him, and had favored a new generation of “youth” born in the 1930s, López Portillo brought the older generation back into office.1 He also found room for his former rivals in the Echeverría administration: former Labor Secretary Porfirio Muñoz Ledo became education secretary; former Agrarian Reform Secretary Augusto Gómez Villanueva became leader of the Chamber of Deputies; and former Secretary of the Presidency Hugo Cervantes del Río became director general of the Federal Electricity Commission (the position that had launched López Portillo’s meteoric rise). The new president reached out to diverse grupos, says Peter Smith in his study of the political elite, expressing “the continuity and harmony of postrevolutionary politics.”2 López Portillo likewise mended bridges with business and the middle class; both had been infuriated by Echeverría’s aggressive leftist rhetoric and economic debacle.3 The private sector spokesman Juan Sánchez Navarro, head of the Grupo Modelo, welcomed the new president’s inaugural address criticizing Echeverría and proposing “much more liberal positions with great success.” López Portillo promised to stop printing money to cover deficits.4 The administration signed an “Alliance for Production” with private sector groups, committing both sides to increased investment, and capital began returning to Mexico.5 [54.208.168.232] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:12 GMT) struggle...