PRI Candidate Selection, Mexico 1988-2000

Candidate Selection in Mexico’s PRI, 1988-2000

• Traditional literature on Mexico's PRI emphasizes the importance of informal rules in determining outcomes, such as the presidential candidate.

• Electoral competition allowed weaker actors to reform statutes, gaining decision-making power.

• This process was difficult; President Salinas overturned reforms, unlike President Zedillo.

• After losing presidential elections, internal mechanisms for distributing benefits became more important due to the loss of the once all-powerful president.

• The study examines evolutionary changes in Mexico's PRI between 1988 and 2000.

• It concentrates on how actors within the PRI negotiated new rules for nominations during periods of structural breakdown.

• The PRI, a corporatist party that dominated Mexican elections for over 60 years, remains a central actor.

• Electoral competition weakened the PRI's dominance and changed internal dynamics even before its historic election defeat in July 2000.

• Electoral competition from the center-left PRD and center-right PAN affected power relations within the PRI.

• Lower-level actors and groups within the Revolutionary Coalition attempted to strengthen their position against the president and national leadership by changing party statutes between 1988 and 2000.

• The quality and form of candidate selection became more important due to electoral competition. Disputes over formal rules laid groundwork for future changes.

• Statutory changes weren't always achieved automatically for the rank-and-file due to varying levels of presidential control. Unfavorable new rules remained only when the executive weakened relative to other groups.

• This weakness depended on structural attributes, especially electoral competition levels.

• President Carlos Salinas de Gortari overturned the 1990 decentralization attempt, but the 1996 PRI Assembly rules obligated President Ernesto Zedillo to radically change presidential nomination by devolving it to all registered voters.

• Before 2000, the president of Mexico was the PRI's de facto leader and enforcer of cooperation-promoting rules.

• Groups within the party were too weak to force the president to respect new statutes, greater electoral competition, and the presidency's institutional situation.

• Zedillo's administration explains why the 1996 statutes changed actor behavior and the presidential candidate selection method and remained in place.

• Salinas overturned the 1990 Assembly rule changes, but the 1996 Assembly changes held due to Zedillo's relative weakness, reluctance to enforce, and rising electoral competition.

• Traditionally, Mexican presidents directly appointed their successors, senators, and governors.

• The president had veto power over federal congressmen lists made by the Secretary of Gobernación, party president, or National Executive Committee (CEN) head, allowing discretion over the party and members' actions.

• Rising electoral competition changed the PRI’s internal structure, and incentive and opportunity structures for leaders/members.

• PRI leaders had greater incentives to place candidates acceptable to voters because the PRI had to win elections against serious opposition parties.

• Candidates capable of winning elections became more important after 1988, allowing them increasingly to make demands.

• Disgruntled PRI politicians can leave and run under another party's banner (mainly the PRD) because the party system is in flux.

• The PRI leadership didn't devolve decision-making capacity to lower party structures, activists, low-level leaders, or voters, in order to retain the ability to determine professional futures.

• Leaders had to reinvent the nomination process to choose better candidates without losing control.

• Electoral competition changed PRI internal dynamics, with groups taking advantage of new circumstances to change rules to strengthen position.

• These groups included:

  • Militant rank-and-file
  • Small group of governors
  • Group of leaders of the party apparatus.

• Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) attempted to re-work the territorial organization of the PRI to win elections.

• The 14th National Assembly in September 1990 aimed to weaken sectors' roles while avoiding transferring decision-making power.

• Activist delegates rebelled, radically changed statutes to allow nomination power at the lowest party level, but Salinas ignored the statutes and overturned them in 1992.

• Salinas developed National Solidarity, a new organization, to maintain party structures.

• Zedillo's administration saw a small governor group and leaders of the party apparatus reform formal rules during the party assembly to reduce president's power to impose his successor.

• Salinas ignored Zedillo who was unable to ignore new party statutes.

• Zedillo had to respect new statutes and organize the PRI's first presidential primary to avoid major party rupture before the 2000 elections.

• The 1996 reform assembly changes and Zedillo's failure to overturn them showed the importance of both the governors and party bureaucrats within the PRI and the Revolutionary Coalition and show weaker members use formal party rules to strengthen their position visa-a-vis the party leadership and president.

• Weakening the president's hold over nominations allowed actors to position themselves for the presidency.

• The reforms of the 1996 Assembly forced the president to configure a new nomination procedure with and open primary vote of all registered voters in November 1999, which forced potential candidates to create new types of alliances.

• Political parties are organizations of party leaders and militants that attempt to place their candidates in elected positions by winning votes in elections.

• The nomination system decides which candidates the party will put up for election and has implications for party organization.

• Elected officials often control public resources, policy-making, and advancement opportunities.

• Nominations allow the achievement of these means and the party organ determines relations of power within the party.

• Presidents had long understood the importamce of directly controlling nomination systems .

• A central issue is who makes the rules determining party members' access to public office and impacts of rules/procedures.

• The general literature on party organization notes that candidate selection methods that allow more participation help create parties that are less vertically controlled.

• Vertically controlled national leadership chosen parties led to hierarchical parties.

• The PRI had a vertical structure of command and control. The President of the Republic (de facto leader) imposed his choice as president of the National Executive Committee (CEN), almost single-handedly nominated candidates for governors/senators, and arbitrated interests for federal deputies.

• By solving action problems, all ambitious politicians wanted nomination, but internal battles would have made the party more vulnerable to opposition.

• The president solved this with the informal power to choose candidates, lack of external opportunities, and loyalty potentially rewarded.

• The most important interests within the party and the three corporatist associations; the Worker, the Peasant and the Popular sectors.

• Sectors organized Mexicans to vote and support policies in return for candidacies, especially in the lower house of congress governors had nominating power in their states and were able to hand-pick the leaders of the state party committees.

• Before turning to the statutes, it is necessary to sketch how the PRI was officially organized and structured around a corporatist base (Worker, Peasant, Popular) and a territorial structure (sections, municipal committees, election committees).

• The PRI was dominated by the three functional sectors, however after the 14th Assembly in 1990, the balance shifted to the territorial base, but the Worker and Peasant sectors are both dominated by one huge confederation and the CTM, or Mexican Workers' Confederation, is the bulwark of the Workers' sector, and the CNC , National Peasant Confederation is the largest organization by far in the Peasant sector.

• According to the 1978 statutes, Mexicans could only affiliate themselves with the PRI by being placed into one of the sectors based on his work activity.

• Before 1990, the territorial base of the party was weak but had electoral responsibilities.

• Sections were subdivisions of federal electoral districts and provided the electoral activity of the party outside sectors and the PRI was organized around mass-based, inclusive groups in the workplace and territories, however, there were those that had less power.

• Crucially, all candidates for federal deputies had to officially represent one of the three sectors.

• Within the PRI power could be measured as: how many seats in congress, how many state houses, and how many municipal presidents were held by each-sector.

• Understanding the CEN and President of Mexico’s ability to dominate via official statutes before electoral challenges.

• The statutes stipulated candidates were chosen in delegate conventions and the delegate selection was controlled by CEN or state party committees (CDEs), and governors and leader or sectors had power.

• The sectors, unlike the territorial organization had explicit, rule-based participation in nominations, which simply reflected a privilege of placing their members in elected positions, a right given to them by the PRI presidents.

• These rules were changed when the regime's leaders decided the sectors were no longer to be rewarded with elected positions.

• The convocatorias were the official rules of the nominating process. They dictated how delegates to the conventions were elected, and the voting method used once in the convention.

• Under the 1978 statutes, state party committees write governors.

• Even with the formal provisions for voting in the conventions, candidates for local deputies and municipal presidents were often chosen by forwarding a 'candidate of unity', and if there were no choice, the 'correct' candidate would be nominated.

• Added to its ability able to nominate candidates and to write the rules, the CEN also could name candidates to list for local and federal congress.

• President Luis Donaldo Colosio wrote about the need to convene a National Reform Assembly to meet growing threats of opposition and competition.

• President Salinas opened the public phase of initial preparations of the Assembly, saying that the candidates of the PRI must be elected from the votes of the militant base.

• The convocatoria written for the 14th National Assembly clearly indicated CEN's desire to to restructure the PRI around a territorial base and to weaken the sectors.

• However, this strategy failed because a rebellion againsed CEN as the election was launched by disgruntled PRI delegates.

• The 14th assembly in 1990 stated that, instead of conventions made up of the sectors, elections would come down to votes from democratially elected deligates.

• 3 changes stemming from this time:

  • First: The party would allow individual affiliation instead of forced membership in a sector one joining the party.

  • Second, the number of deligates from the sectors had to be equal to those from the territorial base

  • Third, State Councils were selected to advise state officials on ideology.