Mexico's ruling party expects first-ever primary to boost image

 By JANE BUSSEY

 MEXICO CITY -- Mexicans on Sunday will choose one of four contenders in the
 first-ever primary elections of the party that has ruled Mexico for seven decades.

 The vote is far from overhauling a system that has refused to relinquish
 presidential power for 70 years, but it has given an entire new modern and
 reformist image to the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

 If the party had not appeared to change, in tune with the new reformist demands
 of Mexican voters, it risked continuing its downward spiral. As a result, the
 primary will have a decisive impact to help the party stay in power for at least
 another six years.

 ``The PRI will be around for a very, very long time,'' said the party's president Jose
 Antonio Gonzalez Fernandez as he pronounced himself satisfied over an electoral
 process that so far has avoided the pitfalls of past party ruptures that threatened
 the PRI's grip on power.

 Never before did party leaders feel the necessity of giving the appearance that it
 was the party and not the outgoing Mexican president who chose his successor.
 But never before did the PRI ever feel the disaster of electoral defeat so close as
 after the 1997 midterm elections when it lost both Mexico City and the National
 Congress after a third of its voters deserted to opposition parties.

 IMPROVED CHANCES

 The PRI's chances will be boosted next year by the failure of the left and right
 opposition to form an alliance.

 Democracy and change have become the buzzwords of the moment, on the lips
 of Mexicans who are tired of economic hardship and corruption; and from leaders
 in Washington and other world capitals who are anxious that Mexico combine
 political modernization with its economic transformation to a free-market
 economy.

 The PRI has responded with the outward change of holding a primary vote open to
 all registered voters.

 Eight months and numerous potential upsets lie between now and the presidential
 elections next July, but for the moment, the PRI has left the opposition standing
 on the sidelines -- capturing air time and even taking over the criticism of the
 opposition itself.

 The Mexican public has been treated to the previously unseen spectacle of
 candidates trading verbal insults, airing negative campaign ads and attacking their
 own party and government policies.

 The formal dedazo, the tap of the finger when the president chose his successor,
 is gone. But the man widely expected to win the presidential nomination,
 Francisco Labastida Ochoa, formerly interior minister, is known to be the favorite
 of President Ernesto Zedillo. As such, he has been the beneficiary of
 considerable support from the official PRI party apparatus.

 OPPONENT'S VIEW

 ``The spending has been scandalous, the weight of the party has been
 overbearing, the use of party resources has been denounced in vain,'' charged one
 of Labastida's trailing opponents, Manuel Bartlett, in his final speech to PRI
 loyalists in the party's Plutarco Elias Calles Auditorium.

 The surprise of the contest has been the campaign success of the governor of the
 southeastern state of Tabasco, Roberto Madrazo, who defied Zedillo's attempts to
 oust him in 1995 over a campaign finance scandal. Madrazo, highly popular with
 the party's rank and file, has lashed out at Labastida as a creature of a corrupt
 system and lambasted the government's free-market economic policies.

 ``The old vices and party errors'' of the government had brought ``more inequality
 and more poverty,'' Madrazo said in a speech that could have been a reprise of
 the anti-PRI speeches given by the party's 1988 break-away candidate
 Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who many Mexicans believe won the presidential race.

 PICKED WITHOUT VOTE

 Cardenas is again the left's presidential candidate for the July 2000 elections,
 along with Vicente Fox, candidate of the conservative National Action Party. Both
 were selected without a vote of their party rank and file.

 Madrazo's strong campaign has given the internal PRI race badly needed
 credibility and legitimacy.

 But late Wednesday, when Madrazo took his turn with the other candidates at the
 Plutarco Elias Calles Auditorium, he delivered a mild speech, steering clear of
 criticism of the electoral process and the PRI. His subdued tone led Mexican
 political analysts to suggest that Madrazo has negotiated a deal for a future
 political post that guarantees he will not be prosecuted for campaign finance
 irregularities or other problems.

 Despite the widespread skepticism, political analysts have little doubt that the
 PRI will be under pressure for more changes now that it has exposed its
 previously secret internal disputes and power struggles to the public.

 `NOTHING NEW'

 ``People refer to the `new PRI,' '' said Mexican historian Lorenzo Meyer. ``There is
 nothing new here, but they have removed the cover over the PRI. Before,
 everything was done in the dark.''

 The Madrazo strategy could also backfire against the powerful party, especially if
 open rebellion is seen to reap rewards for Madrazo, Meyer said.

 ``This is going to be like kryptonite against Superman,'' Meyer said.