Two Dubious Assertions about the Salinas-de la Madrid Dustup

Courtesy of José Fernández Santillán, here's the first:

To find a parallel of this caliber in the history of Mexico's political elites we have to go back to the '20s, when the Sonora Group, headed by Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles, turned its back on Venustiano Carranza.

I suspect one year from now, the Salinas-De la Madrid affair will be a distant memory with little lingering significance. Even if I'm wrong, and it fundamentally changes the way the PRI operates and how Mexico deals with its ex-presidents, it's unlikely to fundamentally change the course of Mexico for close to a century and lead to the assassination of a president, which was of course the outcome of the Carranza-Sonora split.

And here's the second:

Thanks to the Aristegui-De la Madrid interview it was uncovered who is really in control of the country: Carlos Salinas Gortari.

I know that his adversaries like to see him as ten feet tall, and I don't doubt that Salinas weilds enormous influence in certain PRI circles, but he runs the country? Really, all this episode showed is that Salinas and his clique exercise power over Miguel de la Madrid's sons.