La Jornada: Arnaldo Cordova
Like others, the PAN is a party in crisis, and not because of its internal fights; all parties have them, but because of its political, intellectual and ideological functioning. It is a divided party, sometimes irreconcilably so, with opposing currents, with positions very different from each other. Likewise, there is the way it exercised power, which it just lost, and also how it relates to what is again the hegemonic force in Mexican politics, the PRI.
The relationship of PAN with the PRI has always weakened it. I think that is due to their being more similar than different. The PRI's rightward movement, notably beginning with the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid [1982 to 1988], had a toxic effect on the PAN, which could not quite explain why the PRI sought to look more and more like it. The PAN complained irritatedly that PRI was shamelessly taking over its most emblematic political demands and it only saw this as the work of pickpockets, which, for them, was what the PRI had always been.
Many saw in the PRI's rightward movement the direct effect of the exhaustion that, since the seventies, they had been postulating as the result of the depletion of the political system that emerged from the Mexican Revolution. The PRI had ceased to believe in revolutionary values and, in particular, in the principles of mass politics and the policy of nationalist development based on the mixed [State-private] economy, which until then, the government had followed. De la Madrid spoke of the "fat" State and began to hold down wages and limit spending on the rural sector and for social services.
To the PAN, it seemed that that the PRI intended to take over its doctrine of "subordination" of the State, which indicated the need for the State to reduce its size and limit itself to accompanying private initiative and assisting it in economic development. De la Madrid and Carlos Salinas [president, 1988-94], who followed him, expressed outright repudiation of revolutionary principles and postulated a State without an economic component. Thereafter, they started to auction off the property of the nation, delivering it to private owners. That stunned the PAN, who were unable to explain it.
All the constitutional and legislative reforms that PRI governments promoted aroused the PAN's suspicions, but it couldn´t answer with anything but that PRI was taking over its positions. Like many others, the PAN was blind to the changes that the conservative revolution was carrying out in the world beginning in the early seventies and, in particular, the devastating work undertaken by Reagan in the U.S. and Thatcher in Britain.
The PRI abandoned the principles of the Revolution and bluntly adopted the mechanisms put into action by the international right. This same dynamic led Salinas to propose the historic alliance of the PRI and PAN, which the PAN also didn't understand. While the PAN was grumbling that the PRI had stolen its doctrinal principles, the PRI brought them quietly into negotiations. That caused a new split in the ranks of the PAN. Many PAN members of the old lineage left because of the approach of their party to the PRI.
Nobody, including members of the PAN, understood this historic step as did their leader, Luis H. Alvarez. In his editorials for the official organ of the PAN, The Nation, every week he developed a doctrine that sought to explain the new era that the PAN had entered. The PAN, he said, is no longer an opposition party but is becoming a governing party. Alvarez did not say that because his party had won the governorship of Baja California in 1989. He said it, and he made it very clear, because in its new relationship with the PRI, the PAN came to acquire other responsibilities and other commitments.
PAN and PRI are, like all allies, dirty and evil traitors whenever they have the opportunity. But that's politics. It must be said, however, that on basic issues they have known enough to agree. There is nothing, for example, that separates them, if it is not who is more radical with regard to the so-called "structural" reforms. When the PAN was governing, they always received the support of the PRI, and PRI, in turn, enjoyed huge amounts of resources with which their governors became strong. Only [Roberto] Madrazo [PRI candidate for presidenet in 2006] was able to make them shake.
When the PRI came back to the Presidency of the Republic, it showed that it had been less traumatic than it was thought for it to have lost the presidency in 2000. Their governors were a great replacement for presidential authority, which prevented the disintegration of the PRI and even internal crises disolved, mantaining the party. The PRI reinvented itself during the PAN years and began to compete with advantage for the reconquest of the Presidency. Now it was the PAN's turn.
It could be seen that PAN was less equipped than its ally to support the loss of presidential power. It also lost very badly, ending in third place, which it knew to be the most ignominious disaster. It arrived at the election with the stigma of internal division, in which, to make matters worse, the president was involved. The PAN candidate never had the favor of Calderon and, apparently, the true candidate of the president was [Ernesto Javier] Cordero and not [Josefina] Vazquez. The defeat was made all the more bitter by the fact of having come in behind the leftist presidential candidate [López Obrador].
PAN's internal clashes have occurred without interruption. For many PAN members, the real culprit of the defeat was Calderon, who declined to support their candidate and, de facto, supported the PRI standard bearer [Peña Nieto]. [Gustavo] Madero, the party president, seems to be of that opinion. Apparently, there is a conflict between supporters and opponents of Calderon, the first led until recently by the Senate PAN coordinator, Cordero, and, the second by Madero himself. At least, that seems to be the touchstone of the internal division.
The recent removal of Cordero from being the coordinator of the PAN senators would be a first settling of accounts in favor of the pro-priístas. Soon we'll see if this analysis is correct. What can be seen is that PAN's relations with the PRI will continue to weaken it. Spanish original