Labastida Ochoa and the neoliberal rupture
Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero
Although he corresponds with the politicians associated with Miguel de la Madrid, the last candidate of the Hegemonic Party PRI, Labastida Ochoa, joins the moral crusades that seek to regenerate the old Official Party. He is a moderate politician who makes his appearance, probably demanding that the old PRI be purged of the current leader Alito Moreno.
The moderation and prudence of Francisco Labastida led him to be the weakest candidate of the PRI that would allow the triumph of Vicente Fox. Just as Miguel de la Madrid was a politician imposed from the White House and supported by the Mexican ultra-right that prepared the arrival of neoliberalism, Labastida submitted to Zedilloism to accept the North American conditions that demanded political alternation in Mexico. The attempts to break with Zedilloism are probably inscribed in the tune of breaking with neoliberalism and recovering some shreds of the traditional PRI. It is undeniable what the former governor of Sinaloa points out about the anti-PRIism that characterized President Ernesto Zedillo, but it is also true that Labastida and the Atlacomulco Group accepted it without any complaint, probably because the benefits had been important or the alternation was inevitable.
The far right, Atlacomulco and Tecnocracia became the Mexican version of South American military technocratic bureaucracy.
The government of Miguel de la Madrid was the preamble to neoliberalism, although Francisco Labastida pretends a break with Zedilloism, the truth is that they have more similarities than dissonances. Just as corruption is innate for Alito Moreno, nationalism is not a credible card for Francisco Labastida. However, that of English and computing was - and continues to be - a great need of Mexicans; Fox himself ended up granting it.
The signs about the healthy distance Zedillo from the PRI can be instructive for Claudia Sheinbaum and Morena; Nothing is more certain in the defeat of a party in control of the government than the separation between the Head of State and the party from which he comes.
One thing is clear, the PRI will be a satellite party of the ruling party and those who dare to manage the operational structure are proposing themselves to the Group in Power as the best intercessors. The PRI culture is undying, but the PRI is in an incredible and tragicomic agony. The memoirs of Francisco Labastida will be an incentive to structure the narrative that explains the PRI degeneration.