Latinnews Archive
Caribbean & Central America - 12 May 1994
Zedillo picks his team; Embarrassed by Hank Gonzalez's ads
Even Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon admitted, in his inaugural speech, that he was not the party's best man. He ceded that distinction to his predecessor in the post, Luis Donaldo Colosio, assassinated on 23 March. In that same speech Zedillo mentioned Colosio's name 37 times. It was hardly an auspicious start for someone who is facing probably the toughest political campaign in Mexico's history.
Zedillo is generally considered to have a brilliant mind. Everyone knows, however, that he is no politician. Few doubt that he would make a good President, but many question his ability to get there.
In the past, his political inexperience and shy demeanour would not have been a major obstacle. His party, the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), would have guaranteed him victory anyway. Things are different in Mexico nowadays, however. Even Zedillo knows that the PRI may not get away with another fraudulent victory, given the country's present political condition.
Why
President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's decision to choose Zedillo as the ruling party's presidential candidate was clearly controversial. Many powerful members of the party believed that an open convention, or at least a consultation, perhaps behind closed doors, should have replaced the traditional presidential dedazo. Priistas are sure that Zedillo would never have been chosen if party members had had the final say.
So inevitably, what Zedillo has been trying to do since his nomination is to forge alliances with the party's traditional groups. His campaign team, in fact, draws on several of these groups: they have responded by quickly pledging fealty that Colosio took longer to earn.
The first major decision by Zedillo was to keep Fernando Ortiz Arana as the party's chairman. Ortiz Arana had been touted as a possible presidential candidate after Colosio's assassination. Many priistas thought that the main touter was Ortiz Arana himself. Ortiz Arana represents the best link Zedillo has to the old 'dinosaurs' (machine politicians) that have been the PRI's backbone for decades.
Zedillo, however, did get rid of the party's secretary general, Jose Luis Lamadrid Sauza, whom he replaced with Ignacio Pichardo Pagaza, a former governor of the state of Mexico. Tradition says that, in an electoral year, the party's chairman is designated by the President, who then keeps formal control of the party, while the candidate gets to designate the secretary general.
Pichardo, however, was not known to be close to Zedillo. Rather he belongs to the Atlacomulco group, an old alliance of politicians from the state of Mexico that is now headed by the powerful agriculture minister Carlos Hank Gonzilez.
Hank Gonzilez
Hank Gonzalez is one of the old guard priistas. He has a controversial reputation. He is widely known for his acute sense of the right time to buy and sell. His record as a public administrator is rather more patchy.
When he was in charge of the government's food distributor, he studded the country with grain silos which were rarely used. He has also been governor of the state of Mexico, mayor of Mexico city and tourism minister.
Hank Gonzcilez caused a bit of a stir last month when he ignored the recently approved reforms to the electoral legislation and spent public money on pro-Zedillo advertisements. The advertisements, in passing, also pointed out Hank Gonzalez's impressive political credentials: obviously worthy of senatorial rank (a position that, coincidentally, he happened to be seeking).
The pro-Zedillo advertisement was endorsed by 57 former ministers. Apparently Hank Gonzilez had sent out letters to 100. This is just one indication of how deeply split the PRI has become. The advertisement, which appeared in all the Mexico city newspapers on 12 April, contained a text that said that the undersigned wanted to express their 'sincere and cordial' support for Zedillo's candidacy.
Among the notable absentees were: Manuel Camacho Solis, the Chiapas peace commissioner, and the two previous interior ministers, Patrocinio Gonzalez Garrido and Fernando Gutierrez Barrios.
The former governors
This advertisement embarrassed Zedillo. It also prompted the main opposition weekly magazine, Proceso, to point out that Colosio had taken a much stronger line against the 'dinosaurs' than Zedillo is taking.
The magazine recalled that on the day of his death, Colosio railed against the former governors of states, saying that he would clean them out of congress. He also discouraged former governors from attending his election meetings and even ordered a former governor of Coahuila off his campaign bus when it was due to visit the governor's home town. The former governor, Eliseo Mendoza Berrueto, ran rather a chequered administration but he was looking forward to basking in the reflected glory of the PRI candidate's visit to his home town. Colosio's snub is one reason why conspiracy theories about his assassination have such credence.
Close supporters
In a surprise move, Zedillo designated Esteban Moctezuma Barragan, a former under-secretary of educational planning, as the party's deputy secretary general (a position that did not exist before). Moctezuma Barragan also got the added post of campaign coordinator. He is obviously a man with a future. He remains the closest political confidant of Zedillo's and his main troubleshooter. Remember Luis Donaldo Colosio was Salinas's campaign manager and Zedillo was Colosio's.
Gurria's inexorable rise
Jose Angel Gurria has occupied a series of positions in the financial side of the administration over the past few months. After being for years (since the beginning of the Miguel de la Madrid administration in 1982) the government's chief foreign debt negotiator (first as director general of foreign credit and later as under-secretary of state for international affairs), he was sent as general director to the Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior in 1992, when his under-secretariat of state was abolished (there was no foreign debt to renegotiate). In late 1993 he moved on to Nacional Financiera. On 14 April, however, he was surprisingly designated the PRI's secretary of foreign affairs.
Gurria is considered to be a political protege of finance minister Pedro Aspe, and thus his appointment is probably an attempt by Zedillo to gain the support of another major power-broker in the administration.
Gurria will be in charge of maintaining the PRI's links with foreign parties and governments. One of his main tasks will be to convince foreigners of the legitimacy of the electoral process.
Emilio O Rabasa, a scholarly former foreign secretary, was at the same time appointed chairman of a previously non-existent party commission on international relations. Both Rabasa and Gurria are likely to get top appointments in the country's foreign service if Zedillo is elected President.
And continuity
In another surprising move, Liebano Saenz, the party's secretary of information under Colosio, became Zedillo's private secretary. Hector Morales Corrales, who had been Zedillo's communications director at the Secretaria de Educacion Publica, was appointed to a new position, general coordinator of information and propaganda, replacing Scienz.
Zedillo, however, has kept much of the party apparatus previously established by Colosio. That is understandable. After all, as campaign manager, Zedillo was in charge of putting together much of the team that backed up Colosio.
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