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This
new Electronic Briefing Book on elections in Mexico is the fifth
to appear based on a collaboration between Proceso
magazine and the National Security Archive and
launched on March 2, 2003. The
collaboration grew out of a shared desire to publish and disseminate
to a wide audience newly-declassified documents about the United
States and Mexico. Each month, Proceso magazine will
publish an article by the Archive's Mexico Project director,
Kate Doyle, examining new documentary evidence on a chosen topic.
The series - called Archivos Abiertos (or, Open Archive),
will draw from U.S. and Mexican declassified records on a range
of issues that could include, for example: drug trafficking
and counternarcotics policy, Mexican presidential elections,
human rights cases, immigration, U.S. training of the Mexican
military, NAFTA negotiations, the role of the press, peso devaluations,
and state repression during Mexico's "dirty war." On the same
day that Proceso's article appears in Mexico, the National
Security Archive will post an Electronic Briefing Book on its
web site, containing an English-language version of the article,
a link to Proceso's
web site, and all of the declassified documents used
for the piece, reproduced in their entirety. |
Before Democracy: Memories of
Mexican Elections
by
Kate Doyle
Not so long ago, most Mexicans went to their polling places and
cast their votes in national, state and local elections knowing
in advance what the outcome would be: the candidates of the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) would once again be declared
the winners. Whether there was one name on the ballot or many,
whether the majority of voters were radical leftists, staunch
conservatives or somewhere in between, the result was a foregone
conclusion.
The United States knew this too, and U.S. officials in Washington
and in Mexico were kept well informed as to the nature of the
PRI political machine and the lengths to which it would go to
maintain power. Privately, they did not hesitate to discuss the
machinations of the Mexican elite and their effects on the country?s
political system.
In public they tread more carefully. But if one searches
the open historical record in vain for critical statements about
Mexican politics by American officials, declassified U.S. documents
about past elections in Mexico offer a bracingly honest account
of the years of scheming, fraud, sophisticated cooptation and
orchestrated violence that lay behind the hemisphere?s most ?perfect
dictatorship.?
Nothing that you are about to read will surprise you, dear
reader. But as Mexican voters go to the polls once more, Archivos
Abiertos provides you with the following snapshots of elections
gone by ? seen through the lens of the United States government
? as a reminder of how far the country has come in search of democracy.
The Dark Ages
Let?s go back to that not-so-distant era . . . a period long after the golden
age of the PRI ? when President Lázaro Cardenas nationalized
Mexico?s oil and became the champion of the campesinos ? but well
before the political reforms of the late 1970s that would finally
begin to loosen the PRI?s monopoly on power.
Secret U.S. assessments about the Mexican government?s political
legitimacy in those years could be astonishingly bald. In 1967,
the CIA?s Intelligence Directorate produced a critical review
of the Díaz Ordaz regime entitled Mexico: The Problems
of Progress. Although the agency praised the country?s record
of ?political stability,? it questioned the government?s unwillingness
to address mounting economic and social problems such as rural
poverty. The CIA laid the blame on the ruling party, which, it
claimed, had grown too comfortable with the status quo to want
to consider change of any kind.
?The PRI has been a highly effective instrument of the small clique
that has pre-empted political power while lavishly promoting the
trappings of partisan competition. Successful maintenance of a
benevolent dictatorship behind a façade of a federal republic
responsive to the popular will has depended on an uneducated,
backward ?electorate? resigned to unethical practices and political
bossism.?
In an analysis marked ?No Foreign Dissemination? (?This
document MUST NOT BE RELEASED TO FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS?), the CIA
described a regime unresponsive to Mexico?s growing middle class,
which was increasingly resentful of old style politics and had
begun to challenge them openly.
?A serious defiance of the dedazo practice, whereby Mexico
City chooses local and regional PRI candidates, occurred early
this year in the state of Sonora. Between February and May the
state was in a virtual condition of insurrection, with the citizenry
protesting the PRI?s choice for the governorship. Federal troops
restored calm, and electoral fraud delivered a PRI victory in
the 2 July election.?
The agency pointed out that Díaz Ordaz had introduced
some minor political reforms in effort to acknowledge increasing
popular pressure. ?These attempts, however, have created serious
strains in the party and have deeply antagonized those elements
whose power base would be diminished by the reforms envisioned.
The reaction makes it clear that the political moment has not
arrived when the PRI, as a united organization, can bear a really
significant step toward democratization.?
Jalisco 1967
On the ground in Mexico, U.S. embassy and consular officials witnessed the
operations of the political machine up close and described what
they saw in unequivocal terms. In the state of Jalisco in October
1967, for example, consulate officer R. B. Lane explained how
the system worked to choose PRI candidates for state deputies.
In those days, Jalisco was divided into 18 electoral districts;
the most important among them became spheres of influence, or
?cacicazgos? of powerful politicians ?who have, through
money, time, friendships, dispensation of favors, and in some
cases, use of force, created fiefdoms in which they select mayors,
city councilmen, state, and sometimes federal deputies.?
?Every effort is made to parcel out placebos to those factions
whose support is felt to be essential to the continued good health
of the Party. This is apparently done without regard to the wishes
of the people whose interests are theoretically furthered and
defended by their elected representatives. Consequently, candidates
are selected to represent regions of which they are not residents,
of which they have no specialized knowledge, and in which they
have, in many cases, no particular interest except furthering
their personal political careers. The only apparent criterion
is that they ?play ball? with the Governor and be acceptable to
the PRI State Executive Committee.?
The decisions were followed by nominating conventions held
in the headquarters of each electoral district. ?These meetings
were characterized by ?spontaneous? demonstrations of enthusiasm
for the candidates and ubiquitous placards proclaiming the candidates?
suitability, dedication to the Revolution, honesty, and so forth,
though the vast majority of those present had no voice whatsoever
in the selection of their standard bearers.?
The same Mr. Lane was even more frank in his assessment,
some six months later, of local government in Jalisco, in an airgram
that analyzed the political systems of three small Jaliscan municipalities:
La Barca, Ocotlán and Jamay. Lane described how the PRI
controlled the nomination of municipal presidents through continuismo
and political favor, choosing ?candidates? for their loyalty to
the system rather than their adeptness at the job. ?The State
Executive Committee of the PRI has, of late, tried to change the
image of the local caciques from that of blundering ignoramuses
to one more favorable. Nevertheless, most of the Presidentes are
not educated beyond the primary school level and a number are
actually illiterate. Understandably, they are in constant need
of ?advice? from Guadalajara.?
In rural communities, it was normally members of the PRI?s
agricultural sector who were selected. Such representatives were
not, however, peasant farmers but the large landowners who earned
their living from enormous properties farmed by campesinos. ?The
Presidentes selected from the campesino sector are in politics
primarily to see to it that the squatters (paracaidistas) make
no attempts to dispossess them of their lands, or if they try,
that the police power will be in friendly hands. In other words,
the leaders of the campesino sector are normally wealthy farmers
who have a vested interest in the political control of their communities.?
Yucatán 1969
In 1969, voters in the Yucatán went to the polls to elect a new governor.
The state had been in political turmoil since 1967, when the opposition
National Action Party (PAN) capitalized on growing popular discontent
with the PRI to win control of the mayoralty of Mérida,
the state capital, and two of nine deputy seats. The opposition?s
unprecedented victories prompted a backlash from the local PRI
apparatus; in September 1968, the American consulate documented
instances of the PRI bribing PAN city councilmen to resign in
exchange for tens of thousands of pesos.
As the election approached, the PRI?s pressure on the opposition
became more overt. Four months before the vote, U.S. officials
described an attack by PRI activists against a group of Panistas
outside the city of Tekax in southern Yucatán ? an attack,
according to one consulate source, deliberately provoked by hard-line
PRI members who were increasingly unhappy with the rural successes
of traveling PAN delegations. State PRI officials were less anxious
about the election; over lunch a few days later, party functionary
Luis Peraza told the reporting officer that he considered the
entire campaign irrelevant, ?since the PRI is going to win the
November election in any event. When asked why he was so certain,
Peraza smiled and replied, ?one third of Yucatán?s votes
are from Mérida, but the other two-thirds are from the
countryside ? and election results are easier to arrange there.??
Washington?s perspective on the election was upbeat. The
State Department?s intelligence branch viewed the gubernatorial
race as representative of growing disenchantment with the PRI
not just in the Yucatán but around the country, increasing
the pressure on the party to institute genuine political reforms.
Although the department was skeptical about the PAN?s chances
of winning, it averred that ?the myth of the Revolution is wearing
a bit thin,? and declared that ?The day when an opposition party
can mount a substantial challenge to the official party at a politically
significant level has arrived. . . . [O]ver the long run there
seems to be no alternative but to face the issue of growing dissatisfaction
with the status quo. The Yucatán elections may reveal the
PRI?s first response to this problem.?
And so it did. According to consulate reports, the election
took place amidst an onslaught of PRI-orchestrated ?fraud, irregularity
and outright theft?; on the day after the vote, the PRI candidate
for governor declared himself the victor by 90 percent. ?The non-violence
called for by the PRI throughout the campaign up to the last minute,?
wrote the reporting officer, ?clearly meant, as events have shown,
?be docile while we steal the election.? The PAN charge that there
was wholesale fraud is also beyond a doubt. . . .
?It has been a sordid spectacle.?
Veracruz 1970
Following the presidential elections in July 1970, the U.S. consulate in Veracruz
obtained the actual voting statistics for one district from the
state?s Federal Electoral Commission. In an airgram to Washington
entitled, ?Ballot Counting ? Veracruz Style,? the reporting officer
compared the real numbers with the ?official? ones, concluding
that while the declared results gave the PRI candidate Luis Echeverría
94 percent of the vote in that district, the actual total was
about 36 percent.
According to the U.S. official?s source inside the commission,
the published results were assigned by the PRI National Committee
to the State PRI Committee, ?which, in turn, assigned the final
vote totals for each of the 14 electoral districts in the State
of Veracruz.? As an indication of the indifference and disgust
of many citizens, ?a majority of the 108,931 registered voters
in Veracruz?s 11th District either abstained from voting or spoiled
their ballots. The total not voting or having their votes cancelled
was 72 percent of the eligible electorate.? Many of those whose
votes were annulled had written ?farce? on the bottom of their
ballots.
?Review of the vote totals by precincts shows that in several
precincts the vote total exceeded the number of registered voters.
While officials claim that this is the result of a number of people
shifting their residences since registration, this appears highly
doubtful. It is more likely a case of ?ballot-stuffing? by over-eager
PRI precinct chairmen or election observers.?
?There is no doubt,? continued the consulate, ?that the PRI won
the election in Veracruz?s 11th District. However, the PRI?s winning
margin was less than claimed in the public media. One questions
how long the PRI will be able to maintain this hypocrisy and continue
to deceive the public. . .?
How did these kind of field observations filter up to senior policy
makers in Washington? One month after the July 1970 presidential
election, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger prepared President
Richard Nixon for a farewell visit meeting with Díaz Ordaz
in Puerto Vallarta. Briefing his boss on Mexican domestic matters,
Kissinger commented on the victory of Luis Echeverría as
the country?s next president. ?Echeverría won almost 86
percent of the vote and the PRI slate won by a landslide. Although
there may have been some irregularities in the election, the results
probably are a relatively accurate indication of popular support
for the PRI, which will continue its monopoly of power in Mexico.?
Legitimacy vs. Stability
It is not surprising that American officials ? however much they knew about
the inner workings of the Mexico?s political machine ? were publicly
and consistently supportive of the government. After all, throughout
the Cold War at least, the bottom line for U.S. interests in Mexico
was national security and stability, not democracy. As one secret
briefing paper written for Secretary of State Kissinger stated
succinctly in 1972, "It is important to our security that there
be in Mexico a friendly, cooperative and politically stable government
and that no hostile power have access to the territory of Mexico."
There were other reasons for Washington to be silent on
the issue of democracy in Mexico. For one, U.S. officials knew
that blunt asseverations about the anti-democratic practices of
the government would provoke immediate outrage inside the country,
as sensitive as it was to any sign of interference from its powerful
neighbor. Indeed, when U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Joseph John Jova
rashly spoke his mind at a conference in Washington in 1976 ?
calling Mexico?s political system ?monarchical? ? he was treated
to a torrent of indignation and anger within Mexico from government
officials and leftist intellectuals alike, according to a New
York Times article written about the incident.
A more complicated factor may also have been at play ? what
scholar Jacqueline Mazza called ?implicit policymaking? in her
recent book on U.S. attitudes toward Mexican democracy (Don?t
Disturb the Neighbors: The United States and Democracy in Mexico,
1980-95. New York: Routledge, 2001.) Mazza discovered through
interviews with senior American officials and an analysis of the
public record that there was what amounted to an unspoken agreement
within Washington to avoid public criticism of Mexican political
practices altogether. For U.S. purposes, Mexico was a successful
regime, so why create trouble by alienating friends?
According to the declassified documents, some U.S. officials recognized
that Washington?s silence on the issue could reflect poorly on
the United States. Writing in 1969, Ambassador Robert McBride
worried that ?repeated affirmations of excellent relations between
our two countries, our known preoccupation with problems of security,
and the disposition of many Mexicans to believe that our only
other foreign policy concern is the protection of U.S. investments,
lead some persons currently in opposition or dissent to view the
U.S. Government as the chief bulwark of the political status quo
in Mexico.?
But in the end, the core legitimacy of the Mexican regime was
irrelevant to the United States given the unshakeable political
?stability? that it achieved. In its 1972 ?Country Analysis and
Strategy Paper? ? an annual document which examined the issues
at stake in the U.S.-Mexican relationship ? the American embassy
flatly stated that a key objective in Mexico was to ?Preserve
the stability of the Mexican political system.? According to its
own reporting that year, the system to be preserved was one that
relied on fraudulent elections, political manipulation and control
of opposition parties at the federal, state and local levels,
repression of dissent, and indifference and inaction toward fundamental
problems such as rural poverty, unemployment and an alarming population
increase.
A historical review of Mexico?s political system makes the inability
of the present government to capture the public?s imagination
and convince citizens to participate in today?s election all the
more disheartening. As this article goes to press, political analysts
are predicting that fully half of Mexico?s registered voters,
some 32 million people, will not go to the polls on Sunday. This
staggering abstentionism ? just three years after the triumph
of Vicente Fox that heralded the country?s long-awaited democratic
transition ? reflects not only a disenchantment with the failure
of Fox and the PAN to transform Mexican politics on a national
level. It is also a sign that the public?s long-standing skepticism
about the country?s political system endures.
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view.
Documents
Document 1:
10/20/1967
Mexico: The Problems of Progress
CIA, secret intelligence report
Less than a year before Mexican student discontent would erupt into
mass demonstrations and the massacre by federal troops at Tlatelolco, the
CIA offers dire warnings of growing political disillusionment throughout
Mexico's urban and rural sectors. Persistent rural poverty has undermined
the traditional support for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI) among campesinos, while an increasingly prosperous and educated urban
middle class is growing resentful of Mexico's monopoly on political power.
"Successful maintenance of the benevolent dictatorship behind a façade
of a federal republic responsive to the popular will has depended on an
uneducated, backward 'electorate' resigned to unethical practices and political
bossism." The report argues that real reform appears unacceptable to many
key sectors of the PRI and thus peace will continue to be maintained by
an army "which is both brutally effective and politically astute."
Source: Lyndon B. Johnson Library, National Security Files
CO-Mexico, Vol. 3, Box 60, "3/67-11/67 (1 of 3)"
Document 2:
10/30/1967
Political/Economic Report for the Month of October
U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara, confidential airgram
As Mexico's ruling party begins to select its candidates for local and
state elections in Jalisco, the American consulate in Guadalajara analyzes
the process, providing a vivid glimpse into the workings of local PRI machine
politics. "Every effort is made to parcel out placebos to those factions
whose support is felt to be essential to the continued good health of the
Party. This is apparently done without regard to the wishes of the people
whose interests are theoretically furthered and defended by their elected
representatives. Consequently, candidates are selected to represent regions
of which they are not residents, of which they have no specialized knowledge
and in which they have, in many cases, no particular interest except furthering
their personal political careers."
Source: National Archives, RG 59, 1967-1969
Pol 2 Mex, Box 2337
Document 3:
4/28/68
Municipal Government in Jalisco: 1968
U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara, limited official use airgram
A frank examination of the inner workings of Mexican politics at the
most local level, the "municipio." The American consulate officer explains
how local and state PRI officials conspire to choose municipal leaders
who will guarantee fealty to the party over the interests of their constituents.
Although opposition to the system exists, the consulate officer writes,
"it can reasonably be concluded that, for the immediate future, the system
herein examined is unlikely to change dramatically. The reasons are manifold
and ubiquitous; widespread ignorance and illiteracy, political apathy,
lack of tradition of resistance to authority, the realities of economic
power available to the Caciques, and fear of the unknown. The PRI, by political
sophistry in some instances and enlightened benevolence in others, manages
to stay a few steps ahead of real difficulty."
Source: National Archives, RG 59, 1967-69
Pol 18 Mex, Box 2342
Document 4:
9/23/1968
PRI Tries to Buy out the PAN Municipal Government
U.S. Consulate in Mérida, confidential airgram
After an unexpected 1967 victory by the PAN (Partido Acción Nacional)
in Mérida, capital of Yucatán state, the city becomes a crucial
symbolic battleground with both state and national implications for the
PRI. In September 1968, the American consulate reports on a particularly
egregious instance of political corruption involving efforts by the state
PRI organization trying (successfully) to bribe PAN city councilmen in
exchange for their resignations. The scheme was apparently hatched by PRI
Governor Luis Torres Mesías "to save his demolished political career
by regaining Mérida for the PRI. . . . If four out of seven regidores
could be induced to resign, the constitution would permit the governor
to name a commission (PRI, of course) to rule the city."
Source: National Archives, RG 59, 1967-69
Pol 18 Mex, Box 2342
Document 5:
2/17/1969
FY 1971 Country Analysis and Strategy Paper for Mexico
U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, confidential airgram (extract)
This extract of the U.S. embassy's annual Country Analysis and Strategy
Paper (CASP) for 1971 reiterates previous warnings of growing discontent
about Mexico's political system. The United States, argues the embassy,
should encourage reform or "adaptations" that might increase political
participation by Mexicans. Nevertheless, "we should recognize that the
present system has provided a political framework for stability and progress
on a broad front. Hence, we should encourage adaptations only at a pace
determined by developments in Mexico and in consonance with the views of
those in command . . ."
Source: National Archives, RG 59, 1967-69
Pol 1 Mex, Box 2344
Document 6:
7/31/1969
Armed Clash Highlights Pre-Election Campaign
U.S. Consulate in Mérida, confidential airgram
As key state elections draw nearer in the Yucatan, PRI functionaries
block a PAN delegation's path to the city of Tekax, ultimately provoking
a shootout between members of the two political parties. "The Consulate
believes that the PRI has decided to with the State gubernatorial election
at almost any cost. Given the pro-PAN sentiment in the state, this means
force and pressure rather than persuasion."
Source: National Archives, RG 59, 1967-69
Pol 23-8 Mex, Box 2343
Document 7:
8/19/69
The Political Situation in Yucatán
U.S. Embassy in Mexico, confidential airgram
Amidst the pre-election buzz of rumors and rising tensions in the Yucatán,
the U.S. embassy in Mexico City provides a detailed analysis of the political
situation there. Local PAN successes in 1967 have turned the 1969 governor's
race into a crucial battleground for the PRI, almost a litmus test of their
continuing rule nationwide. While a "rigged PRI victory" is not a certainty,
the embassy does not discount such an outcome. "This might involve the
blatant falsification of votes, the arbitrary determination of a PRI victory
regardless of the contents of the voting boxes, or (as happened in Baja
California last year) the throwing out of election results favorable to
the PAN-i.e. the annulment of the election."
Source: National Archives, RG 59, 1967-69
Pol 18 Mex, Box 2342
Document 8:
11/7/1969
Mexico: Ruling Party Faces Challenge in State Elections
Department of State, confidential research memorandum
Analysis from the State Department on the impending Yucatecan elections
emphasizes the importance of the governor's race within the national political
context. "One-party dominance by the PRI has served Mexico well, but the
PRI's claim to represent the basic sectors of Mexican society becomes open
to question if it is repudiated by substantial numbers of voters whose
interest it is theoretically designed to represent. Regardless of the outcome
of the election, a strong showing by the opposition may well lead some
PRI leaders to reexamine their party's role."
Source: National Archives, RG 59, 1967-69
Pol 12 Mex, Box 2340
Document 9:
11/24/69
Political Change in Mexico
U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, confidential airgram
In another long analysis of the Mexican national political scene, the
U.S. Embassy presciently predicts that the clash between growing discontent
and dogged resistance to change will result in the "overt use of force
in support of and against the established political system" during the
early 1970s. At the same time the report details the tricky position in
which the United States will find itself, with conservative elements blaming
demands for change on U.S. influence and more radical elements linking
establishment reaction to Washington's "known preoccupation with problems
of security, and the disposition of many Mexicans to believe that our only
other foreign policy concern is the protection of U.S. investments."
Source: National Archives, RG 59, 1967-69
Pol 2 Mex, Box 2337
Document 10:
11/25/1969
Election in Yucatan
U.S. Consulate in Mérida, confidential airgram
In the wake of the gubernatorial elections in the Yucatan, the American
Consul in Mérida reports that events have proved " a sordid spectacle."
Violence and widespread allegations of fraud by the PRI, "all probably
true," mar the outcome of this crucial election. "The PRI charge that the
violent incidents were started by the panistas is probably true?.The non-violence
called for by the PRI throughout the campaign up to the last minute clearly
meant, as events have shown, 'be docile while we steal the election.'"
Source: National Archives, RG 59, 1967-69
Pol 18 Mex, Box 2342
Document 11:
7/30/70
Ballot Counting-Veracruz Style
U.S. Consulate in Veracruz, confidential airgram
Following the 1970 Mexican presidential elections, the American consul
in Veracruz provides analysis of the official results which were doctored
by the PRI to provide overwhelming victory for Luis Echeverría.
Less typical were an extraordinarily large number of "spoiled" ballots.
"The high percentage of annulled votes may have been a result, as several
residents commented, of their having written 'farce' on the bottom of their
ballots. This action was a protest against the PRI and its complete control
of the Mexican system of government. Since the total of the annulled votes
cast was higher than the vote for the PAN in the City of Veracruz, it appears
that the Veracruz voters did not accept the PAN as an alternate governing
party."
Source: National Archives, RG 59, 1970-73
Pol 15 Mex, Box 2475
Document 12:
3/11/1972
Country Analysis and Strategy Paper FY 1973 and 1974
U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, secret airgram (extract)
While the embassy's analysis of political developments in Mexico suggests
that the PRI might very gradually begin to open up the political system
over the coming years, it also argues that the U.S. should avoid pressuring
Mexico in this direction as there is very little positive influence the
U.S. can have in these matters. "The [United States Government's] overall
low level of concern for the Political Development of Mexico is based on
the lack of any direct or immediate threat to U.S. interests, the lack
of opportunity to affect internal political developments of Mexico, and
the inadvisability of unilateral U.S. action within basic U.S. policy of
non-intervention."
Source: National Archives, RG 59, 1970-73
Pol 1 Mex-US, Box 2477
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