DMN/ Mexico party taps shadowy police official 


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05/20/99

Mexico party taps shadowy police official
PRI picks ex-governor to run historic primary

By Laurence Iliff / The Dallas Morning News

MEXICO CITY - To guide its first ever presidential primary, Mexico's
ruling party has picked a man associated more with the shadowy world of
secret police and the old authoritarian system than with the nation's
fledgling democracy, analysts say. 

Fernando Gutierrez Barrios, a former governor and longtime intelligence
chief, was chosen this week to run the historic primary to be held by the
ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, after 70 years of
presidents hand-picking their successors. 

Considered a party "dinosaur," or hard-liner opposed to Mexico's
democratic opening this decade, Mr. Gutierrez may seem a strange choice to
deliver the PRI into a new era of intense political competition. 

But experts in Mexico's Byzantine political scene say he is one of the few
political figures who can keep PRI hopefuls in line and try to prevent a
split in the party. 

"He was brought in to tell the [candidates] . . . to behave themselves and
maintain discipline," said Lorenzo Meyer, a prominent Mexican historian
now on sabbatical at Stanford University in California. 

"He is the closest thing to the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover that we have in
Mexico. Like Hoover knew so much about [John F.] Kennedy and every other
politician, [Mr. Gutierrez] . . . is dangerous for everyone, even for the
president, because of what he knows," Mr. Meyer said. 

To be sure, many in the PRI and in the international intelligence
community hold Mr. Gutierrez in awe. 

"He's one of the few Mexican intelligence agents I ever met who knew what
he was doing. He's Mexico's super-sleuth," said a former CIA official who
was based in Mexico City. 

And, in his own words, Mr. Gutierrez said he came out of retirement from
politics in order to see the party through a key moment of its
development. 

"I think it's important to attend to the demands of the rank-and-file and
establish conditions for a credible process," he told reporters on Monday
after being named director of the PRI committee that will oversee the
primary. 

But opposition parties and some political analysts see the choice of Mr.
Gutierrez as a sign that despite the open primary planned for Nov. 7,
President Ernesto Zedillo intends to control the process with the help of
a master political operator. 

Mr. Gutierrez, after all, served his last public post as interior
minister, where he oversaw national politics and controlled federal
agencies that oversee elections. He retired in 1993. 

Skeptics of the primary's openness say the events of the last few days
point toward a stacked deck for one candidate thought to be close to Mr.
Zedillo. 

On Tuesday, Francisco Labastida Ochoa, Mr. Zedillo's interior minister,
announced he would participate in the primary and quickly became the
undisputed front-runner. 

On Wednesday, Veracruz state Gov. Miguel Aleman Velasco, who is the son of
a former president, bowed out of the race, as did Social Development
Minister Esteban Moctezuma. 

That left Mr. Labastida to face far more controversial candidates,
including former Puebla state Gov. Manuel Bartlett and Tabasco Gov.
Roberto Madrazo. 

Under the rules adopted by the PRI on Monday, all candidates must fund
their own campaigns without party help and cannot use paid political
advertising until the official primary season begins on Aug. 1. 

The winner will be determined by the candidate who garners the greatest
number of the nation's 300 electoral districts and not necessarily the
greatest percentage of the popular vote. All registered voters can
participate in the primary. 

Mr. Gutierrez's toughest challenge may be not so much organizing the
election as limiting potentially damaging infighting in the PRI, which has
been racked with growing ideological differences. 

For example, Mr. Bartlett has harshly criticized the government's
market-oriented economic policies, once considered taboo in the highly
disciplined PRI. And Mr. Madrazo has spent millions of dollars in taxpayer
money to promote his candidacy on national TV, drawing fire from Mr.
Zedillo. 

Staff writer Tracey Eaton in Mexico City contributed to this report. 
 
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