Discord, PRI Edition

Today's gossipy political scandal: In an interview taped last month but not aired until yesterday, Miguel de la Madrid called Carlos Salinas corrupt and said he regretted choosing Salinas to succeed him. He also specified Salinas stole the partida (a PRI slush fund) and said that his brother Raul had contact with drug traffickers. There was nothing new in these allegations, but coming from another president in the same party, they were newsworthy. Then, in a letter carrying his name but sent by his son that arrived to media outlets yesterday, de la Madrid disowned his remarks, calling them lacking in "precision and validity", and chalking them up to ill health.

Carlos Loret reminds readers that while he may be in ill health, de la Madrid made similar comments in 2005:

--Did the earthquake have an impact on the election of '88? Did the people punish the PRI for it?

--No. I think the election in '88 reflected another series of phenomena such as the crisis that my government had to confront with austerity measures that tightened people's wallets; that was the reason the PRI lost the elections in '88.

That was the confession of the then president that Carlos Salinas had arrived at Los Pinos via electoral fraud. The fragment was broadcast on Televisa September 20th 2005.

Later I received a respectful telephone call from his son, Enrique de la Madrid, who explained that his dad had referred not to the election in Mexico but rather the results in DF, and that he was already showing signs of age. He promised that he would send a clarification, which was published, in which he articulated the point about DF, but which said nothing about the advanced illness.

This reporter never believed it: although he looked devastated, his narrative of events was punctual, his version two decades later coincided with his declarations when he occupied the [presidential] chair and with what was written in his memoirs: statistics, places, chronology, allies, and adversaries.