The dinosaur

Guatemalan author Augusto Monterroso wrote what might be the shortest story in Spanish language and even in all literature, “The dinosaur”: “When waking up, the dinosaur was still there” (“Cuando se despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba ahí”). It is its ambiguity what makes it so interesting. Who woke up? Is that person excited, alleviated, frightened or surprised? Was the dinosaur in the dream and it remained in vigil? Or was it before going to sleep? Is it a fantasy or a terror story? Did the person actually wake up? Is there a difference between vigil and sleep?

Yesterday, Enrique Peña Nieto was sworn as the new President of Mexico. He comes from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled for over 70 years establishing a rather unique authoritarian regime. Elections were never suspended, and every six years, as the Constitution establishes, a new President came into office. Opposition parties, except for the communists, were never banned. And the military were kept out of political life. But the PRI controlled the development of careers within the public administration, where the main criterion for ascending was loyalty to the party or to the boss. The system to rig elections is almost legendary. As a consequence, very close to 100% of the members of Congress (Chamber of Deputies and Senate) belonged to the party. The press was either co-opted by the government or, if some attempts for independence or real criticism were made, obstacles were set. The judiciary was anything but a check on decisions made. And independent protests were severely repressed.

Peña Nieto took oath inside the building of Congress, after which he gave his first address as President in the National Palace some blocks away from there. In front of each of those venues protests were taking place almost since dawn. The constant chant was “No to the imposition, Peña Nieto out.” The reference was the idea that the President was imposed by large companies, particularly the media, as he would protect their interests. The unusually detailed coverage of his activities as Governor of the State of Mexico by the television network Televisa largely contributed to create this image.

However, protests became increasingly violent (some of the demonstrators did not cede to this kind of behavior). Initially, the objective seemed to break the security perimeter established by the police. What would follow afterwards seemed not to be clear. Protestors, mainly people in their late teens and early twenties (later, the Mayor of Mexico City said they were “anarchists”), although there were also dissident factions of national unions, began throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails to the police. The response was tear gas. There were also later dismissed rumors about a dead protestor because he received in the face a plastic bullet from the police. Peña Nieto moved from location, followed by the protestors. Once in downtown area, they began looting all the shops and restaurants there. Again, when police arrived, they were met with stones and home-made bombs. Some of the protestors detained were beaten up by the police. In a newly-restored monument a scribbled graffiti sign read “Welcome Peña Nieto”. By afternoon, calm was back to Mexico City, over 100 people had been arrested, and the incident largely condemned.

It is not clear exactly what those protestors-turned-looters wanted. Maybe a confrontation with the police to show that the repressive trait of government in general, and of PRI in particular, has not left. For most Mexicans the idea of government repression immediately brings back the memory of the army shooting against students who were in a peaceful rally back in 1968 (this, as part of the Mexican version of the student protests that year), whose causes and final toll have not yet been known for sure. This episode is largely acknowledged to be the clearest example of the abuses the PRI could commit directly against its citizens. Other kind of abuses include institutional cronyism, corruption, inefficiency, and resistance to change, reasons for which the members of the party became to be known as “dinosaurs” in the 90s, when democratization began.

The PRI returns to power after twelve years of government of the National Action Party (PAN). During the first of those six-term governments, under President Vicente Fox, the trends of democratization took firm ground: plural Congress, independent judiciary, free press, etc. But perhaps because he wanted to finish off with the centralization of the political system around the President, many analysts mention that the presidential institution lost some, if not much, of its bargaining power. By the end of his term, Fox could not get his law proposals passed in Congress and had confrontations with the press, state governors and other political actors. The second PAN government under the outgoing President Felipe Calderón will almost certainly be remembered by two things, notwithstanding his own discourse or other achievements. First, maintaining marcoeconomic stability. High inflation, devaluation of the currency, international debt crises, and budget deficits were the trademarks of the last governments of the PRI. This no longer exists, although its benefits have not translated into poverty reduction, an increase of wages or a boosted economic productivity as measured by the GDP. Second, the war against drug trafficking organizations, which in six years cost the lives of 60,000 people.

The PRI does not find the same environment which allowed it to rule almost uncontested for 70 years. But the challenges it faces when it left office are somewhat similar: poverty and organized crime (a key difference in this latter point is that violence was not so high twelve years ago). Regardless of the expectations of the violent demonstrators and looters, authoritarianism is not likely to have returned. Otherwise said, the dinosaur is not there. At least, not in its previous form. In some states the PRI has not left office ever since the second quarter of the 20^th century. In most of those cases corruption, impunity, and cronyism remain. The dinosaur is still there. In the course of the following months we will see what the government does to it.