MEXICO'S PRI PONDERS A PERILOUS FUTURE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MEXICO 000695

SIPDIS

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/10/2017
TAGS: PGOV PINR MX
SUBJECT: MEXICO'S PRI PONDERS A PERILOUS FUTURE

REF: A. 2005 MEXICO 6181

B. 2005 MEXICO 6403

C. MEXICO 544

Classified By: POLITICAL MINISTER-COUNSELOR CHARLES V. BARCLAY, REASONS
: 1.4(B/D).


1. (C) Summary: A divided and debilitated Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) will conduct internal elections on
February 18 to select a new party President and
Secretary-General. While five slates of candidates are

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contending for the party leadership, only two have any real
chance of victory: those led by former Tlaxcala Governor
Beatriz Paredes and former Senate President Enrique Jackson.
The shrewd, charismatic Paredes is universally seen as the
front-runner, in large part because of her skill in sewing up
the support of most of the party's power brokers. Whoever
prevails will face the difficult task of forging party unity,
defining a clear party identity and ideology, and positioning
the party for upcoming state races as well as the 2009
midterm elections. Unless the new party leadership succeeds,
the once invincible PRI risks sliding towards irrelevance, if
not outright oblivion. End summary.
.

Party of the Past Voting For Its Future
--------------


2. (U) On February 18, the PRI's approximately 17,700
national political counselors will turn out at polling places
across the nation to cast their secret ballot for the party's
new President and Secretary-General, replacing outgoing
President Mariano Palacios and Secretary-General (and
Senator) Rosario Green. The five presidential candidates are
Beatriz Paredes Rangel, a former Tlaxcala Governor, Senator,
Deputy, and PRI Secretary General; Enrique Jackson Ramirez of
Sinaloa, a former Senate President and federal Deputy; Sergio
Martinez Chaverria, a former Deputy and aide to
ex-presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo; Javier Oliva
Posada, an academic and former Madrazo chief of staff; and
the little-known Alejandro Garate Uruchirtu.
.


3. (C) Only Paredes and Jackson are considered serious
candidates. In fact, with one week until the balloting, both
the polls and the pundits suggest that Paredes enjoys a clear
advantage. A Mitofsky poll, published January 31, revealed
that 31% of PRI counselors favor Paredes, to 13% for Jackson,
with less than 1 percent for the three minor candidates
combined. Virtually all of our PRI contacts concur that
Paredes, and her running-mate, former Hidalgo Governor Jesus
Murillo Karam, has the race all but won. Dark horse
candidate Martinez told poloff that the momentum was clearly
with Paredes, who enjoyed both the political and financial
support of most of the 17 PRI state governors. PRI Senator
Eloy Cantu agreed, telling poloff that Senate President
Manlio Fabio Beltrones, former President Carlos Salinas, and
former presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo all supported
Paredes, as did approximately one dozen of the party's 17
governors, including the all-important Governor of Mexico
State, Enrique Pena Nieto. He said that at most 4 of the 17
governors supported Jackson, as would Chamber of Deputies
leader Emilio Gamboa, and the ever influential head of the
national teachers' union, Elba Esther Gordillo. (Note:
Gordillo herself was expelled from the PRI last year but
retains influence over the large number of teachers' union
members who remain party members. End note.) Cantu added
that most PRI-affiliated labor organizations and corporatist
sectors favored Paredes.
.
A House Divided
--------------


4. (C) Even if neither Martinez nor Posada stand a chance of
winning, their candidacies send a clear message about the
level of discord within the party. Both are longtime PRI
apparatchiks who built their careers by diligently working
within the system and supporting the party's leaders. They
represent competing members of a younger generation of
PRIistas which feels shut out of the party's higher ranks,
and who argue that the party will only be able to restore its
electoral luster through the leadership of younger,
untarnished leaders. Indeed, with Martinez having served as
Madrazo's presidential campaign spokesperson and Posada as

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his chief of staff, both feel aggrieved that having worked
hard for the party's former leader and presidential nominee,
they were not even offered spots on the party's legislative
lists. With the party holding ever fewer offices, the
younger generation sees little hope of succeeding party
old-timers in the near future.
.

Either Way a Pragmatist Wins
--------------


5. (C) Although the competition between Paredes and Jackson
is hard fought, they do not offer strikingly different
options, with both representing the generation of 50 year
pragmatists that have held power in the party for years. For
her part, Paredes cultivates an iconoclastic image: the scion
of a mestizo political family, she dresses in indigenous
attire, creating the impression that she hews to the PRI's
populist, rural-oriented left flank. Appearances aside, she
is very much a mainstream, establishment politician, skilled
at working within the system: it is widely believed that
President Calderon offered her a cabinet position, but that
she turned it down, considering it an insufficiently
prominent position. Jackson is considered to represent the
more pro-business, northern wing of the party. Many see him
as a relatively mild-mannered conciliator: Maria Elena
Orantes, a Senator from Chiapas, told poloff that she
believed Jackson would be more able to achieve party unity
than the sometimes abrasive Paredes. She also characterized
him as more independent, having struck fewer deals in
exchange for support in this campaign. Others, however, have
criticized Jackson as devoid of ideas and initiatives. Both
are seen as politicians who would be willing to do business
with the Calderon administration: while Jackson may be
ideologically closer to the President, Paredes is personally
closer.
.

But What Will They Win?
--------------


6. (C) While Paredes appears poised to win the party
presidency, the question remains whether the position is a
prize worth winning. In the 2006 national election, the
party fell further than many thought possible, with its
presidential candidate, Roberto Madrazo, finishing a distant
third with only 22% of the vote. In congressional races, the
party did slightly better, narrowly beating the PRD in the
Senate, winning 25% of seats, and finishing third in the
Chamber of Deputies with 21% of seats. While it continues to
hold a majority of Mexico's 32 state houses, Mexican
governors' terms are six years long and more than half of the
PRI's 17 were won three or more years ago, at a time when the
party's fortunes were far higher. This year will bring
gubernatorial races in two states currently held by the PAN,
Baja California and Yucatan, which would give the PRI the
chance to show renewed support, although we would caution
that personal factors often outweigh partisan ones in Mexican
gubernatorial races.
.

Patronage Not Principle
--------------


7. (C) Undoubtedly, the single greatest reason underlying
the PRI's current woes is its reputation, after 70 years in
power, for corruption and cronyism, a long-entrenched
reputation that has proven difficult to shake. Indeed, the
scandal involving Arturo Montiel, the PRI former governor of
Mexico state (ref B),and the recent troubles in PRI-ruled
Oaxaca (ref C),served only to remind many voters of what
they liked least about the party. Moreover, while the
party's most prominent legislative officials, Senate
President Manlio Fabio Beltrones and Chamber of Deputies
leader Emilio Gamboa Patron, are politically astute, both are
seen as old-fashioned, back room politicians.


8. (C) More broadly, the PRI may be suffering the
consequences of having developed over decades as a party of
power rather than as a party of principle. Unlike the PAN
and the PRD, which were founded on fairly clear philosophies
-- even if not all of their factions are equally committed to
the party orthodoxy -- the PRI's adherence to its founding,
left-of-center philosophy is increasingly weak. Over time,

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many in the PRI abandoned the party's traditional,
nationalist/statist approach, and gravitated to the free
market-oriented technocratic policies of former Presidents
Salinas and Zedillo. Without a clear ideology to unify its
factions, perhaps the one force that kept the party together
was political patronage, its ability to reward loyalists with
political plums. As the party's fortunes decline, however,
it's ability to reward loyalists -- particularly rising young
stars -- has declined as well. Party loyalty alone will
increasingly be inadequate to attract and keep promising
young leaders in its ranks. During the 2006 campaign, two
up-and-coming PRIistas who were excluded from the party's
legislative lists told us that the PAN and PRD had offered
them positions on their lists. While both turned those
offers down, they admitted that it would be difficult to
remain permanently loyal to a party that did not reward their
efforts.
.
Playing a Poor Hand Well
--------------


9. (C) Notwithstanding the party's current travails, PRI
congressional leaders have played their relatively poor hand
skillfully. Although the party is the third force there, the
Calderon administration depends on its support to achieve a
legislative majority. PRI congressional leaders -- including
Senate President Manlio Fabio Beltrones -- have told us they
are willing to do business with the Calderon administration,
for a political price. Nevertheless, scoring concessions
from the Calderon administration will hardly give the PRI a
record it can take to the voters in the 2009 midterm
elections.


10. (C) Moreover, PRI insider David Penchyna told poloff
that the PRI's congressional leaders may find it difficult to
enforce party discipline within their faction, as individual
legislators are far more beholden to their state governors
than to the faction leadership. Penchyna asserted that
within the ranks of the PRI's congressional faction, many see
their leadership as interested primarily in their personal
(and even pecuniary) benefit, not in the long-term well-being
of the party. He added that as the PRI governors enjoy
tremendous authority within their states, they have little
personal interest in the emergence of a powerful national
leadership, whether in the Congress or in the party's
national hierarchy.
.
Prisoner of Its Adversaries
--------------


11. (C) To a large extent, the PRI's future is dependent
upon that of the PRD and the PAN, particularly the former.
The PRD's second place finish in last year's national
election came largely at the expense of PRI. If the PRI is
to aspire even to second place in the 2009 midterm elections,
it must recapture those former PRI voters who defected to the
PRD. The PRI can consider itself lucky that to date, the PRD
has managed to squander its best-ever electoral performance
by supporting Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's controversial
post-electoral tactics. Having won over in 2006 many middle
class Mexicans who were voting for change, the PRD's radical
tilt may be scaring off those voters. Indeed, Senate Vice
President Arroyo told poloff that a recent poll showed the
PRI having climbed to a second place, 32% finish in public
preferences, with the PAN enjoying 35% support and the PRD
having slipped to a third place 29%. In that sense, the
PRI's fortunes may turn in part on the success of the efforts
of PRD moderates to bring their party back towards the center
(septel),as well as upon the success of the Calderon
administration.
.
Comment: How The Mighty Have Fallen
--------------


12. (C) It is certainly too soon to write the PRI's
post-mortem and either Paredes or Jackson would be far better
for the party than its current ineffectual leadership.
Nevertheless, the incoming party leader will face the
difficult task of rebuilding a strong national party when
many key players, in particular, the largely autonomous PRI
governors, have little personal interest -- at least in the
short-term -- in seeing a strong national leadership emerge.
Ultimately, the PRI's best chance for long-term political
survival will depend upon its success in shedding its corrupt

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past and positioning itself as a responsible party of the
center-left -- much like Chile's Concertacion faction -- to
balance out what many Mexicans perceive as the PRD's
irresponsible radicalism and the PAN's myopia when it comes
to the twin issues of poverty and inequality. Whether the
PRI succeeds in doing so will depend as much as on whether
the PRD continues to cede it the center-left, as whether the
PRI's new leader can curb the conflicting personal ambitions
of its cupola.


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