The fall of the System (1982-1988)
The awaited
day finally came and, as usual, care was found at the inauguration of Miguel de
la Madrid Hurtado. Lopez Portillo handed over the presidential sash and
everyone breathed, relieved. As soon as he could went to Rome with his son José
Ramon, who had arranged a high placed in FAO, the UN Organization for
agriculture and food.
In his speech of capture of possession, De la Madrid it got excited
painting a distressing as astringent panorama for the very rigid plan of
austerity that it prescribed later. "Live in an emergency situation",
he said, with dramatic tone. "I cannot allow that homeland we dispose in
their hands," he added. From their point of view, the situation was so
serious that he was called into question the continuity of the development
process and even "the viability of the country as an independent
nation".
To the end of 1982 the numbers were stark: the gross domestic product
(GDP) had fallen 0.5, inflation rose to an inconceivable 100 per cent; the foreign
debt exceeded the chilling number of hundred billion dollars, not counting
interest and service at high rates. Oil prices continued downward and not
already offered hopes of salvation, as six years earlier. On the other hand, in
Exchange for five billion dollars the International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposed
us draconian conditions that De la Madrid presented as a lesser evil and
painful but necessary medicine that required the sacrifice of all the people.
At the beginning of six years technocrats even spoke of mixed economy,
steering role of the State and revolutionary nationalism, but although not they
proclaim it proudly as they would shortly thereafter, proposed change to the
country and integrate it into the mystical neoliberal of Margaret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagan. However, in the least, they wanted to change the political
system, since the authoritarian presidentialism facilitated them their
projects, although, of course, they used to say otherwise.
De la Madrid Government ensured that one of the structural causes of the
crisis was the corruption extended all over the country and in all social
classes. Of the Madrid campaign slogan was "for the moral renewal of
society", and repeatedly promised that it head-on combat notorious Mexican
corruption. Since he was candidate Francisco Rojas commissioned to prepare
studies and then sent him to address the General Contralaria of the Federation.
On the other hand, moral renewal yes was
useful for the fall of several scapegoats who went to jail accused of fraud,
embezzlement or any other form of corruption. One of the first to fall was
Miguel Lerma Candelaria, former Deputy Director of the Banrurel, Advisor of the
Madrid and federal Deputy, who was accused of fraud, tax evasion and bribery by
almost 40 billion pesos.
They were not times for the left side. The flaming
Socialist party Unified of Mexico (PSUM) had remained paralyzed before the
crisis.
Actually all that was the frame for the complete
liberalization of prices that it was required to the International Monetary
Fund. It was supposed that 300 products were subject to control, but this one
was not applying itself because there was no sufficient personnel to monitor
it, or at least, it was pretexting the Secretariat of Trade and Industrial
Promotion (Secofin). This way it is that, for practical ends, liberalization of
prices was treating itself about a virtue. It is not of surprising then that
the English magazine Euromoney was granting the title of The Secretary of
Finance of the Year to Jesus Silva Herzog, which was read as pats in the head
to the docility of Mexico was satisfying the requirements of the IMF.
Anyhow, the equipment salinista of Programming and Budget
announced his National Plan of Development (PND), scion of which the same
equipment had written in 1979, which of entry he repeated that in the short
term material bases did not exist to achieve the improvement of the standards
of living of the population and that the royal behavior of the economy had been
far much from the foreseen. The reasons of the crisis, it was insisted, they
were structural: insufficient of internal saving, lack of competitiveness of
the productive national device and imbalances in the boss of development
between the agriculture, industry and trade. Since it prescribes these males of
the PND a new model of development proposed with the commercial unilateral
opening and the reduction of the participation of the State in the economy.
The privatization was a fundamental part of the project
delamadridista. It was representing to slimming to the State to reduce it to
the propositions adapted to a free market. For the government of De la Madrid
in addition it was meaning to obtain income simultaneously that was getting rid
of the maintenance costs of numerous companies.
For your part, The United States was aiming conscious
blows to Mexico. In 1983 it provoked a substantial fall in the price of the
Mexican gas and in addition it diminished his purchases to the half. Later,
with impunity, he practised the protectionism that he was not tolerating in
other countries and prevented the imports of several national products,
principally meat and citrus fruits. Then there came the law Simpson-Mazzoli,
which was a real blow to our country. And, finally, in less than six months
four times increased the rates of interest, with which billion dollars had to
be paid extras for the debt. Nevertheless, if the Mexicans were thinking about having
seen everything, still it was necessary to them to contemplate the furies that
the Americans would arm because of Enrique Camarena's murder.
In January, 1984, the Secretariat of Manuel Bartlett's
Government elaborated the National Plan of Public Security, which one was
proposing the moralizing and the modernization of the police bodies, the
coordination of the policemen's numerous varieties and the incorporation of the
citizens in the planeación of the public safety. But all that stayed in good
intentions, the delinquency continued growing and the police also.
Little by little, the
small and medium trades of the big cities installed metallic grids or thick
wired to be protected from the endless robberies, and this urban landscape
became habitual. The police were amusing itself very much doing juvenile
roundups, but also in opposition to the smugglers, since the fayuca and the
consequent ambulantaje was growing rapidly.
The education was presenting a depressing panorama. To
begin, the governmental expense in this field was one of the lowest of the
budget, for what Kings Heroles he was saying: " Now the secretaries of
Education we are the beggars of the office ". Due to the shortage of
resources the facilities of the schools were terrible and had terrible lacks in
the educational equipment. They were so small the money that many official
schools flatly were receiving, with what there languished the gratuitousness of
the basic education. In addition, the education was very low and one was giving
a high desertion in all the educational stages.
There were dramatic
differences between the urban education and the rural one, which was situated
tragic and strategically more backward. The nurseries were insufficient,
especially of secondary up, and increasingly difficultly to accede to the
university education.
By: Dulce María Prisco Hernández
