Nobel Laureate excoriates Mexico's PRI party: "disgusting, detestable, lawless"

An influential Peruvian born author who lives in Spain blasted Mexico's powerful and dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) yesterday, predicting that the perceived failure of president Felipe Calderón's five year old war against the drug cartels will pave the way for a PRI return to power in the 2012 presidential election. Calderón, who is the standard bearer of the National Action Party (PAN), was elected in 2006. His immediate predecessor, Vicente Fox, forged an alliance between PAN and another party to capture the presidency in 2000. For 70 years before that, PRI ran Mexico and controlled politics in this country.

The writer, Mario Vargas Llosa, won the Noble Prize for Literature in 2010. Speaking at a conference in Madrid, he praised Calderón's government for its "courage" in taking on organized crime, but said that the increasing levels of very public violence in Mexico will be regarded as proof that the anti-cartel offensive has been a failure. Conditions will be ripe for a return to power by the "disgusting, detestable PRI," said Vargas Llosa.

Regarding PRI's historic reign in Mexico, the author said, "It was a system based upon complete control from top to bottom, highly political and highly politicized, and the notion of a system of justice was simply irrelevant. Mexico in the hands of PRI was not a state based upon the rule of law, because the party favored and promoted government decentralization, placing power in local hands, awarding it to state and local governments, to governors and to mayors. They were bad people, who worked closely with connected and influential local politicians. In the face of Mexico's current (drug war) challenges, in its weakened condition, those same old forces hope to return to power."

Under PRI, in other words, Mexico was a "good ol' boy system" where one's connections were the order of the day, and much power was vested in regional political bosses. So argues Vargas Llosa.

Vargas Llosa also had some harsh words for Felipe Calderón, criticizing him for placing too much confidence in the ability of Mexico's army to defeat the drug cartels. He should have put equal emphasis on improving local police forces, contends Vargas Llosa, and on issues like money laundering, as well as on corruption within prisons and in the offices of the aduana. The aduana is a branch of the Mexican government which regulates the importation of foreign produced goods, among other things. It collects all import duties.

Vargas Llosa offered a dire prognosis for Mexico. When asked at the conference how the country could find its way through so many difficult challenges, the writer replied, "Well, history teaches us that every 100 years or so Mexico has to go through a violent revolution."

For a primer on Mexican politics and the upcoming 2012 election, click here: http://mexicogulfreporter-supplement.blogspot.com/2011/11/mexicos-2012-presidential-election-364.html