JULY/AUGUST 2009 taking note

Mexico’s Ironic Democracy

By Fred Rosen

n e a r l y m a y , w h i l e t h e international m e d i a ’s Then, soon after the memoir’s publication, ex- concern for fixated on the swine president Miguel de la Madrid gave a radio in- I flu, two events heightened political ten- terview in which he accused Salinas, his chosen sions in the country, as July’s legislative and lo- successor, of criminal activity while in office. De la cal elections began to draw near. First, a tell-all Madrid, of the once hegemonic Institutional Revo- memoir called Derecho a réplica (Right of Reply), lutionary Party (PRI), claimed that Salinas had mis- written by a small-time swindler named Carlos appropriated a substantial part of the president’s Ahumada, credibly implicated much of Mexico’s “secret fund” for his personal use; that he had tol- political class in fraud, deceit, and venality. erated the Swiss bank accounts and criminal con- Ahumada, once a public works contractor nections of his brother Raúl; and that his family and occasional fundraiser for the center-left fortune was closely linked to drug trafficking. Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), An hour after the interview aired, one of De la ran into trouble in 2003, when it was found Madrid’s sons delivered a hand-written note from that his companies were earning handsome De la Madrid to the interviewer in which the for- profits for work they never completed, and in mer president disowned what he had just said be- some cases never started. In 2004 he had him- cause he was old, confused, and unable to separate self videotaped delivering cash to two well- fact from fantasy. Something similar had occurred known PRDistas, presumably in 2005, after De la Madrid casually told a reporter for contractual favors. Both of the entrapped that the PRI had lost the 1988 elections (in which politicians had close political connections to Salinas came to power in a generally acknowl- Mexico City’s mayor, Andrés Manuel López edged fraud); a different son delivered the same Obrador, who would later run for president retraction to the reporter. in the highly contested 2006 election. In any case, no one has emerged smelling The entrapment and taping, Ahumada now sweet—not Fox, who was willing to grant im- claims, were masterminded and funded by the punity to an accused murderer in order to keep an ubiquitous former president Carlos Salinas, who enemy from the presidency; nor López Obrador, traded the tapes to then president of whose city government apparently did a lucrative the National Action Party (PAN) in exchange for business with the corrupt, and corrupting, Ahu- the pardon and release from prison of Salinas’s mada; nor Salinas, who apparently organized Ahu- brother, who was being held on murder (and mada’s entrapments and, if De la Madrid’s radio many other) charges. Fox, Ahumada claims, interview is to be believed, represents the pinnacle then arranged for the tapes to be strategically of corruption at the highest level of government. disseminated. Salinas got his brother out of jail, No wonder attitudes about corruption in Mex- while Fox boosted the PAN’s chances of beating ico’s public life oscillate between outrage and the PRD in the 2006 election. resignation. Sometimes it’s hard to tell one from López Obrador responded to Derecho a réplica the other, and they merge into irony. In the poll- immediately, claiming that Ahumada’s story vin- ing leading up to the July elections, about 25% dicated his claim of having been a victim of a of respondents said they intended to vote only in right-wing “mafia” that was determined to keep order to nullify their ballot—an official alterna- him from winning the presidency. He sees the tive in Mexican elections, not counted as absten- whole affair as a simple personal vendetta. tion and presumably not signaling a withdrawal “The objective of the Salinas-Fox alliance,” he from democratic citizenship. It is nonetheless a Fred Rosen is told the daily paper El Universal, “has been to sign of deep resignation in the face of a thoroughly NACLA’s senior destroy me politically.” debased political culture. analyst. 3