Latinnews Archive
Mexico & Nafta - 21 April 1994
What Colosio's killing means politically and economically
The murder of the PRI's presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, horrified Mexico. Until his killing, Mexicans had been rather relishing the antics of Colosio's defeated rival for the PRI nomination, Manuel Camacho Soils. He had been teasing the electorate about running as an independent. Camacho's unofficial campaign was putting Colosio's in the shade: Camacho seemed to be a man who could get things done (after all hadn't he brought peace to Chiapas?) and was not afraid of taking on the system.
The assassination of Colosio sobered people up. Opinion polls show that few Mexicans believe it did not have a political motive.
The selection of Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, Colosio's campaign manager, as the new PRI candidate, demonstrated that President Salinas de Gortari is still in charge of the PRI machine, That the President managed to get one of the traditional priistas, Fernando Ortiz Arana, the party's president, to announce Zedillo's candidacy underlined this. The traditional priistas had campaigned for the party to select the candidate, rather than the President. They wanted an extraordinary assembly.
For a time it seemed as though they were winning: the delay in naming a candidate pointed to a strong internal argument. Perhaps there was; but President Salinas routed his opponents.
Zedillo is a solid but hardly inspiring candidate. It seems that President Salinas had originally wanted Zedillo to be the candidate in 2000. Zedillo has no electoral experience and is a very poor public speaker. He lacks Colosio's common touch: Colosio often seemed to be happier listening to people than addressing them.
Initially at least the PRI is likely to unite around Zedillo, if only to honour Colosio's memory. The problem will come in about June or July, if things are still not going right.
There are three issues which could still split the party and make the election tight. The first is the investigation of the killing. There already seems to be a host of loose ends for the conspiracy theorists to tie together. The government's investigation has to be thorough and be seen to be so. The second issue is Chiapas and Camacho. Zedillo should not avoid confronting either, as Colosio very largely did. The third problem is the economy.
Zedillo is closely identified with the current economic policies. It looks as though the recovery of December and January has tailed off. The rise in US interest rates is not good news for Mexico. The economy is the issue where Zedillo should distance himself most from President Salinas.
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