CNN
September 9, 1999
 
 
Ruling-party primary candidates debate in a Mexico first


                  MEXICO CITY (AP) -- In a break from the ruling-party's intensely
                  private traditions, the four candidates for the party's presidential primary
                  attacked one another in public in the first primary debate of the party's
                  70-year rule.

                  Calling one another by first names, the real sparks Wednesday night flew
                  between the two leading candidates, former Interior Minister Francisco
                  Labastida and former Tabasco Gov. Roberto Madrazo.

                  Madrazo repeatedly referred to Labastida as "the official candidate" --
                  linking him to the current president, who set the primary in motion by
                  pledging to end the party's tradition of having the president name the
                  candidate to succeed him.

                  He also blamed Labastida for failing, as interior minister, to end a crime
                  wave that has seized Mexico.

                  "I'm sure that the official candidate wants to continue with more of the same.
                  That's normal," Madrazo said. " ... It gives me great sadness to see that in
                  your long career, you've never gotten your hands dirty."

                  Labastida lashed right back: "Roberto, you're telling another of your lies. ... I
                  sincerely think you have two faces."

                  The debate had little substance. All four candidates made pledges to
                  improve the lives of ordinary Mexicans, to control the crime wave, to
                  improve the economy. Few specifics were offered _ although there was little
                  time to offer them -- and little but rhetoric was left.

                  "I don't just want to talk about changes. I want to make them. That's why I
                  repeat: I want to make changes," Labastida said. " ... I propose a deep
                  change: That we use power to serve people."

                  According to preliminary results of a phone survey of Mexicans who had
                  watched the debate on television, 37.7 percent thought Madrazo had won,
                  to 29.1 percent for Labastida. The two other contenders, Manuel Bartlett
                  and Humberto Roque, got 14.8 and 10.0 percent, respectively.

                  The phone survey, carried out by the Indemerc Louis Harris firm among 800
                  viewers, had a margin of error of 5 percent.

                  The mere fact that the debate was held -- and that the candidates were
                  willing to attack one another -- made it historic. The ruling Institutional
                  Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has long been fiercely private about its
                  differences, resolving them internally before presenting a united public front.

                  The candidates seemed to realize that.

                  "This is a day that is making history in Mexico," Labastida said.

                  The PRI is facing an unprecedented challenge from the prospect of an
                  opposition alliance. The most likely opposition candidate, Vicente Fox of the
                  center-right National Action Party, is running close to or above the PRI
                  candidates in polls.

                  In part because of the challenge, President Ernesto Zedillo said he wouldn't
                  name the candidate to succeed him, and the party decided on a Nov. 7
                  primary to pick its candidate for the July 2000 elections. Mexican presidents
                  are limited to one six-year term.

                  The primary battles have led to an early election season -- and to a level and
                  style of campaigning unheard of in Mexico. Most of the candidates have
                  appeared on television comedy programs, cracking jokes in a way that
                  startles many Mexicans used to revering stone-faced presidents.

                  "The debate of the PRI members gives us choices," said Francisco Ruiz
                  Martinez, a university professor watching the debate at a local bar. "For
                  more than 70 years, we've put up with the president's choice, and now the
                  PRI is opening up to the citizens."

                  But although the debate excited some Mexicans about their newfound
                  power to choose, it seemed to do little to diminish their overwhelming
                  cynicism about the political process, which most see as corrupt and
                  self-serving.

                  "It was more of the same," said Fausto Martinez Rodriguez, a 35-year-old
                  factory worker. "We citizens can see the four candidates. Some of them
                  might look ridiculous, others might be caught in big lies, but at least now we
                  can choose the best one."

                    Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.