Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 26, 1994 TAG: 9407260063
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE W. GRAYSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
At the vortex of this happening is Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, the hirsute, 53-year-old candidate of the pro-business, pro-Catholic National Action Party (PAN) in the August 21 presidential contest.
Until a mid-May debate that also featured PRI standard-bearer Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon and PRD candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, Fernandez was unknown to the vast majority of Mexico's 44.2 million registered voters. But then Fernandez, a quick-witted lawyer, came out punching. He lambasted the wooden, uninspiring Cardenas, 60, whom he despises, as a self-promoting, do-nothing governor when he ran Michoacan state from 1980 to 1986.
As for the professorial, banker-like Zedillo, 42, who holds a Yale Ph.D. in economics, Fernandez sneered: "We know that you've been a good boy and got high grades, but in a democracy, we sincerely believe you fail."
This was an acerbic reference to the PRI's 65 years of authoritarian, Tammany Hall-style rule in a nation whose government has spent $1 billion this year to sanitize the electoral process.
His hands-down victory in this country's first televised presidential debate vaulted Fernandez from obscurity to contender status. He grabbed the imagination of millions of Mexicans who thirst for a change from the PRI. "Peleador" (fighter), "Gallo (rooster), "cara nueva" (new face) - these were some of the terms applied to the feisty attorney. Some polls even show him running neck-and-neck with the bland but extremely intelligent Zedillo.
Surveys reveal that most people who heap praise on Fernandez know little about his patrician background. Although born in Mexico City, he grew up in a wealthy, landholding family in Queretero state. This upbringing gave rise to his unabashed devotion to church, family, honor, and traditional roles for women.
A haughty - some say, imperious - manner has earned him the sobriquet of "Jefe Diego," which is loosely translated as "Sir Diego." "He's an 18th-century man. He's not a leader," said political commentator Carlos Monsivais.
A flamboyant personality, kinetic energy, and verbal skills obscure Fernandez's anemic qualifications for president. He has never held an executive post; his pronouncements on economics embody slogans rather than rigorous analysis; and he is a babe in the woods on foreign policy. The last point worries diplomats and bankers who realize that Mexico's next chief executive must attract billions of investment dollars to build infrastructure, modernize factories and address the needs of the 50 percent of Mexicans whose poverty sparked the Jan. 1 Chiapas uprising.
To his credit, however, Jefe Diego proved extremely pragmatic and effective as the PAN's legislative whip. He negotiated deals on government initiatives to privatize state firms, restore the church's legal rights and revamp the country's electoral laws. He also championed the North American Free Trade Agreement. At least one journalist insists that retiring President Carlos Salinas de Gortari privately yearns for a Fernandez victory so that historians will remember Salinas as the man who brought both an economic opening and political change to his proud nation.
These considerations aside, Fernandez must overcome several obstacles to succeed Salinas in the Los Pinos presidential palace.
First, the PAN's strength is centered in the U.S.-oriented North and in urban areas, while the PRI boasts a nationwide presence. "Can Fernandez capture votes where there is no asphalt?" is a hotly debated question among political cognoscente.
Second, the decidedly middle- and upper middle-class PAN, whose national headquarters is a drab, converted house in Mexico City's Coyoacan section, lacks the political machinery to activate grassroots voters for its candidate. In contrast, the PRI enjoys the backing of thousands of swag-bellied ex-officeholders, as well as hundreds of campesino organizations and trade unions. While the influence of these "dinosaurs" is plummeting as Mexico modernizes, they may be able to mobilize the million votes or so that could prove the margin of victory in what will be a close contest. "Our people are working for Zedillo not because they are crazy about his liberal economic ideas, but because he will owe us big time if he wins," a confident labor leader and ex-congressman told me.
Finally, Fernandez may encounter problems with female voters who constitute 52 percent of the electorate. Mexico's equal-rights movement is minuscule compared to its U.S. counterpart, and many women resonate to Jefe Diego's distinctly macho style. An early July poll published in El Financiero found him (38%) leading Zedillo (35%) and Cardenas (27%) among women in Mexico City. Still, young women, college graduates and professionals may well resent the PAN candidate's overbearing, patronizing mien. He opposes abortion and the use of condoms, and recently referred to distaff voters as "nice old ladies." On a personal level, he forbids his wife to cut her long hair and his daughter to wear slacks, says PRI activist Roberta Lajous.
Should Fernandez come close but not snag the brass ring, what lies in his political future?
Scuttlebutt has it that Zedillo could offer him the attorney general's post in a coalition Cabinet embracing several other Panistas and independents. Proponents argue that such a move would kill two birds with one stone: It could co-opt PAN, while allowing the PRI to toss the hot potato of fighting corruption to an opposition party. After all, Jefe Diego's campaign slogan is: "For a Mexico Without Lies."
Fernandez would be a muckraker par excellence. His zeal in prosecuting wrongdoers, however, might extend to prominent members of the outgoing administration, who are rumored to have stashed away millions from the privatization of banks, the state telephone industry and other once-public firms. Doubtless, the blood pressure of some muckety-mucks returned to normal when the PAN paladin recently rejected the idea of entering a multiparty government.
If he manages to win by several percentage points as expected, Zedillo will need the help of Fernandez and the PAN to push initiatives through the 500-member Chamber of Deputies and 96-seat Senate, which - thanks to reforms - will have robust, aggressive opposition memberships. Even if unsuccessful this year, Jefe Diego could play a crucial role in helping Mexico consolidate its liberal economic reforms, while addressing the social needs of a rapidly growing peasant population that expects little from NAFTA except higher unemployment rates.
Yet his aficionados are not about to throw in the towel, especially when a sluggish economy and political violence have haunted Zedillo's well-financed but lackluster campaign. In the words of Martin Gomez Zepeda, 22, a business student at Mexico City's private, prestigious Iberoamerican University, "Fernandez offers a change of government without threatening Mexico's economic opening. I know he will win."
George W. Grayson, who teaches government at the College of William and Mary, has recently prepared "A Guide to the 1994 Mexican Presidential Election," published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
by CNB