Technocrats & mexico

Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey

ITESM

Society and Development of Mexico

Luis Alejandro Salinas
915777

“Technocrats and Mexico’s political elite”
-Juan D. Lindau

Technocrats and Mexico’s political elite by Juan D. Lindau, is more likely a comparison between the politician and the now so controversial technocrats,and what is attribute to them, either negative or positive, and how its seen compared to the political ideology. The reading with an specially emphasis in Mexico’s Executive office in the 1980s and 1990s, with Miguel de la Madrid, Carlos Salinas and Ernesto Zedillo, and the linking of their actions to the whole political carrier of Mexico, particularly in the similarities of this technocraticadministrations with the last 50 years administrations.

The reading is divide in to topics of comparison between the technocrats and politicians in all the directions that the technocrats are accused off practicing or non practicing actions, policies and ideologies, that make them a wrong turn in the Mexico’s democracy process.

The first topic that Juan Lindau makes comparison of is theTechnocrats and the accusation of them of being authoritarian and how they are more prone to use force and repression against opposition that politicians were. But Juan Lindau gives excellent references of how the politicians used more the authoritarism and the repression that the technocrats have made. The first reference Juan use is the labor and peasant opposition, and how the railway workersrebellion in 1958 and how Adolfo Ruiz Cortinez deal with it, then in 1973 the landless peasant invasion and President Luis Echeverria use of military force, both of them being politicians used more force and repression than any of the technocrats and their administration. The other point Juan use to demonstrate how technocrats use less or at most the same repression and authoritarisim as the politicians,is how do they manage the electoral opposition, he gave example of the 1940 presidential elections, and the succession of Lazaro Cardenas and Miguel Avila Camacho as the electoral candidate, as well in the succession of Miguel Aleman in 1952 and Adolfo Ruiz Coritnez as the successor of the Administration. Both of the situations were involve with series of violence and crushing any oppositionclaiming electoral fraud.
This only can be compared with the Technocratic succession of Miguel de La Madrid and the electoral campaigns in 1988 with Cuahutemoc Cardenas and Carlos Salinas de Gortari, a very close election were leftist Cuahutemoc Cardenas declared that anomalies and fraudulent events occurred during the count up of the votes, leading to violence and jailing for the supporters of theleft who manifest their unconformity and in consequence government action occurred.

So as Juan Lindau presents, non of the events that happen in the technocratic administrations demonstrate a much stronger electoral opposition as it had happen in the past, it might be many different things that cause the reduction of repression against opposition, maybe the voters consciousness and demands oftransparency, maybe non governmental organization monitoring the election. But stills as Juan Lindau said, there isn’t any fact that made electoral opposition stronger within the Technocrats.

Juan Lindau brought out as well within the authoritarian subject the student movements, with two extraordinary examples that prove the point of the less authoritarian profile a technocrat have against theprofile a politician have. The example Juan gives is the well known Tlatelolco student movement in 1968 where thousands of students took the streets demanding several political demands, and the former president Diaz Ordaz dealing with the problem with a tremendous demonstration of military brutality against the students, that lead to hundreds of students and several hundred arrested. If this is...