Reconstructing the PRI

The PRD isn't the only party with deep flaws! Here's Ezra Shabot on the PRI:

The very political institutions of authoritarian regimes tend to disappear the moment that democracy arrives as the alternative of the present and the future. This affirmation applies in the examples of the European democratic transition, from the communist parties of the extinct USSR and the Soviet bloc, to the Franco-ist movement in Spain. In all of these cases, the ex-leaders and activists of these parties ended up creating new political options distanced from the past and from their totalitarian origins or, as in the of the communist parties of Eastern Europe, they transform into social democratic options of the left, hoping to conserve their ideals of social justice.

Nevertheless, this wasn't the case with the Mexican democratic transition. It's true that the one-party system in Mexico didn't have the repressive characteristics of totalitarianism, although it did utilize corporatism as an ironclad mechanism for political cooptation and control. In any case, Mexican democracy didn't dismantle this apparatus, but rather tolerated as one more form of political expression that now didn't have the force to completely manipulate elections, or individual political wills. In this sense, the PRI didn't assume the end of absolute presidentialism as the moment of rupture that implied abandoning its "revolutionary" concept and its transformation as a modern social option, but rather it waited patiently for better times.

Good point! But I'm not so sure about where his logic takes him next.

To continue saying that it is feasible to maintaining the structure and functions of the PRI, as if Mexican democracy didn't exist, is an extremely risky bet. Although this still corporatist PRI can win state elections and even federal elections in the medium term, the ghost of that authoritarian past will continue chasing it, in such a way that it will end up being highly difficult to win a presidential election with its present structure and leadership.

Shabot rejects the idea that the horrible showing in 2006 was merely a result of Madrazo's candidacy. I guess the question is whether that leadership is capable of nominating a candidate with wider appeal than Madrazo. If the PRI's authoritarian past means that the public face of the PRI will inevitably someone inextricably linked to the worst traditions of Mexican authoritarianism (a la Madrazo), then Shabot may be right. I'm just not sure that's correct; having learned from the 2006 campaign, it seems quite possible to me that Paredes, Gamboa, Beltrones and co. could unite behind a more superficially likeable candidate (although, I hasten to add, that Macario Schettino's criticism of Peña as a lightweight remains entirely unaddressed) with a pretty good shot at winning, despite the unrehabilitated party he represents.

Even beyond that, imagine a scenario in 2012 in which the presidential contest pits Paredes, Ebrard, AMLO, and Germán Martínez against one another. A million different things could happen to make my present perception of such a matchup irrelevant, but right now, Paredes would seem to have as good a chance as any of the rest. Whatever the case, an idealism-inspiring candidate who wins a solid mandate and effortlessly co-opts his or her opponents into a governing coalition seems less than likely at this point.