CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

146 Syndromes of Corruption
De la Madrid, elected in 1982, began to roll back state ownership of
enterprises, cut taxes while improving collections, reduced reglamentismo –
the culture of rules, licenses, and political interference that had long
marked PRI economic policy – and opened up the economy to foreign
investors and enterprises. Privatization gathered pace during the 1980s;
remaining state enterprises saw subsidies and favored market positions
restricted or eliminated. Within a few years Mexico moved from a closed
economy to one of the world’s most open (Tornell, 2002: 127).
De la Madrid was in many ways a typical PRI president, and his familia
feliz (‘‘happy family’’) – a network of relatives, politicians, and business
associates – fit the Elite Cartel pattern. Like some of his predecessors he
promised a crusade against the corruption of past presidencies. He
amended the important, but deeply flawed, Law of Responsibilities defining
the obligations of public servants, and an anti-corruption campaign debuted
to much fanfare and early optimism. But high-level abuses carried on as
usual. The familia extended its empire on several levels, acquiring legitimate
businesses and joining with drug traffickers. Particularly profitable was
narcotics-related money laundering, for which legitimate real-estate and
banana businesses provided useful cover. Electoral fraud, the murder of at
least one critical journalist, official theft in the region of tens of millions of
dollars, and police torture and corruption also marked the later years of de la
Madrid’s presidency (Morris, 1991:98,ch.3;Jordan,1999: 152–154).
Economic liberalization was long overdue and won considerable international
favor, but it deprived the PRI of carrots and sticks useful in
controlling business and channeling benefits to its mass constituency.
The changes cut off some sources of illicit revenues for the party and its
top figures, or at least made such funds harder to collect and conceal.
Technocrats increasingly displaced PRI operatives in important administrative
posts, weakening both the party’s hold on policy implementation
and its control over jobs. By some accounts the technocrats were not
much less corrupt than those they replaced; now, however, corruption
was less tightly controlled from above (Morris, 1991: 125). Other problems
were ideological: a party that had long manifested public hostility
to business – an offshoot of nationalism dating from times when most
major firms were foreign-owned (Morris, 1991: 52–53) – was recasting
itself as business-friendly and open to the world economy. The most basic
threat, however, was structural: a party that had maintained dominance
by monopolizing channels of social mobility (Morris, 1991) was now
committed to policies that would weaken its hold on existing opportunities
and create new paths of advancement beyond its control.
As long as it controlled elections, however, the PRI would retain power,
and for many years that was easy. Electoral fraud was frequent and