A return of Mexico's 'perfect dictatorship'?

A return of Mexico's 'perfect dictatorship'?
Once dominant party is poised for a comeback in upcoming elections, but critics say it would mean return of graft.
Chris Arsenault Last Modified: 27 Jun 2012 15:47

Mexico City - Selling newspapers from a small stand in Mexico's capital, Alejandro Garcia doesn't seem like a foot solider for a political dynasty. But he and thousands of other workers across this country want the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) back in power and they're ready to mobilise on behalf of what Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa considered the "perfect dictatorship".

"I think he (PRI presidential hopeful Enrique Pena Nieto) is the best candidate," Garcia told Al Jazeera ahead of the country's presidential and general elections. "The PRI are good leaders, things have gotten worse without them." Newspaper vendors like Garcia are members of the CTM (Confederation of Mexican Workers), a powerful trade union supporting the PRI. Men like him will be called out in force to vote on July 1 by the party that governed Mexico for 71 years.

During its heyday, the PRI employed a corporatist structure or "big tent" including farmers' groups, national business associations, trade unions and basically anyone who wanted to be close to power.

'We will go backwards'

Standing beside a monument to Mexico's 1910-1919 revolution, government employee Manuel Villareal said he once worked under a PRI administration, and it wasn't a pleasant experience. "We will go backwards with corruption and repression," he told Al Jazeera. "They drew money from public sources to garner votes."

More:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/06/201262772020197675.html