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Page 6 of 82
What to Make of Spoiled Parties
April 8, 2009
Democracies channel participation in politics and government through political parties. Parties are good because they can bring order to an inherently chaotic system of government. Parties are evil because they are easily hijacked by charismatic sociopaths and because they thrive on highlighting differences, thereby creating conflict (hence the word "partisan").
Parties can seek either ideological "purity" (a sort of fundamentalism), or they can open their doors to ideas and create what is known as a "big tent". In Mexico, political parties tend to avoid both of these extremes, being driven more by opportunism than by ideology. No matter what their views, candidates are often accepted based on their popularity (how many votes they bring), or on money (how much of it they have, or how much they can get from others). Candidates become "projects", where wealthy sponsors or organized interest groups coincide to achieve representation, power and/or a go at the public purse.
Until the 1990's Mexico was virtually a one-party system under the PRI. The genius of what Mario Vargas Llosa called "the perfect dictatorship" was that it balanced the interests of different actors in such a way that basic political stability was maintained. Unlike the rest of Latin America, Mexico has had peaceful transfers of presidential power every six years for nearly eight decades.
After its long democratic transition, Mexico created a party-dominated democracy. The fact that there is no reelection means that the best and worse politicians suffer the same fate at the end of their time in office: they are out of a job. Being human, legislators and mayors grow accustomed to the relatively high income and perks of holding office, so they worry incessantly about their future. Knowing that their next job depends on their party, they are more beholden to it than to their electors.
Ideally, parties should represent the legitimate interests of a majority of society. This is often the case. But parties in Mexico are too often dominated by families, strongmen, or others who come to "own" the franchise. Instead of "leveling the playing field", which is an important aim of Mexico's system of public financing, taxpayer money finds its way into the pockets of the ruling clique. The upshot is that private money is still an integral part of the political system, but unlike in the US, sources are not transparent.
There is actually a significant amount of money given to these organizations for "building" the party. Often, this money is spent on "institutes" that belong to allies, who then invoice for training ("sprinkling" to party leaders, as the saying goes). Hence, there is an astonishing variety of governing styles, even among politicians of the same party. Instead of training their members and enforcing quality control over their governments, parties are on to the next election as soon as the previous one is over. Further, given that administrators and legislators are, by law, novices, most end up spending most of their time learning before they have to start closing up shop and jockeying for their next job.
Meanwhile, the voters and the media are not much help. By insisting on seeing all politicians as corrupt, citizens demoralize all participants, making them cynical. In search of this "angle", the media destroys anyone who dares run for public office. Given the internal contradictions of both the written, and unwritten, rules of the political game, they easily find mistakes that they then blow out of proportion in order to benefit themselves, or the rival political group they represent. Compared to the hypocrisy of the media (print, radio, television and the Internet), cynical politicians are mere kindergarteners.
The upshot is that a lot of worthy, public-spirited people are repelled by politics. Worse, the only people who are left are those who have nothing to lose. They put up with character assassination because they don't have the skills to make anywhere near the amount of money that they can make as politicians. The fact that they are going to be singled out as corrupt is just par for the course.
No democracy is perfect (it is the worst of all systems, except for all the rest, according to Churchill), but they can be made more fair and more effective at bringing better people to power. For Mexico's democracy to improve, a president or a group of politicians will have to betray those that gave them their strength. They will have to play by the current rules in order to forge new ones. They will be seen as treacherous by their backers and as "more of the same" by the electorate. But, stakeholders in the status quo can relax. For the moment, there looks to be no party pooper in sight.
For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page
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