Mexico's PRI Party Seeks Makeover
MEXICO CITY, Nov 16, 2001 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Still shocked from the loss
of the presidency, the party that ran Mexico for seven decades will meet
Saturday in its first major convention as an opposition party to modernize and
map out a new ideology.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, will convene 11,700 delegates
simultaneously in five states to develop strategies on issues such as women's
rights and international affairs while hoping to avoid a battle for the party
leadership.
After last year's loss to President Vicente Fox of the National Action Party,
the gathering will be an opportunity to transform the PRI into "a more
democratic and inclusive party, linked to the interests of Mexican society in
the 21st century," PRI President Maria Dulce Sauri said recently.
In an effort to reach out to groups that have shunned the party in the past,
women will account for half of the delegates, and 30 percent of those attending
Saturday's gathering will be under the age of 30.
The one order of business indispensable to determining the party's future - the
election of a new leader - is not on the conference agenda however.
"A lot is at stake," said Jose Antonio Crespo, a political analyst and author of
a book about the PRI. "Whoever ends up with the PRI presidency is who will
determine how much the party will change."
The new president will help determine the PRI's ideology, act as the party's
lead negotiator, control a budget of about $43 million and have a powerful say
in choosing candidates.
The battle for the leadership has become so contentious that party officials
have twice postponed elections to avoid party fractures.
The assembly could elect a president at the closing ceremony on Tuesday but two
powerful party rivals, Francisco Labastida and Roberto Madrazo, have promised
they would not try to push candidates through.
Labastida crushed Madrazo in the party's first-ever primary in November 1999 but
went on to lose the presidential election - the first PRI leader to do so. He is
identified with technocrats such as Fox's predecessor, former President Ernesto
Zedillo, whose free-market policies are blamed by many PRI activists for the
party's loss.
Madrazo, accused of being an old-fashioned party boss while he was Tabasco state
governor, plans to make another bid for the party leadership, apparently as a
step toward the nation's presidency in 2006.
Crespo called the emerging battle between the party's two camps dangerous
"because it could strongly divide the party," damage the PRI's image and lead to
additional losses in midterm elections in 2003. "This could be the definitive
end of the PRI, or at best, it would leave it as a marginal party," Crespo said.
The fight appears to be more about power than ideology with both camps agreeing
that the party should move toward the center-left.
"It could be a huge centrist party," said political analyst Joy Langston. "But
they certainly can't redefine themselves if the party is spending all of its
time and energy fighting."
By LISA J. ADAMS
Associated Press Writer
Copyright 2001 Associated Press, All rights reserved |
