A steady stream of negative media revelations about the PRI has kept the allegations fresh and ratcheted up pressure on Pena Nieto to deliver on his pledge of a new start if he wins … For the PAN, this is proof the PRI has allowed drug gangs to flourish in states it governs, fanning the violence in Mexico.
Watching democrats, dictators and revolutionaries come and go across Latin America while communism and fascism waxed and waned in Europe, Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party took a firm hold on power that lasted 71 years.
Once a socialist grouping that nationalized the oil industry and gave land to peasants, the party known as the PRI later swung to the right, privatizing much of the economy and forcing through free market reforms and ambitious trade deals.
The party rigged elections along the way and was widely reviled as a corrupt and anti-democratic tool of entrenched interests by the time it was ousted at the ballot box in 2000.
Yet just 12 years later, despite lingering misgivings about its record, the PRI is poised to recapture the presidency, pledging to inject new momentum into a misfiring economy and restore order in areas racked by horrific drug-fueled violence.
Fighting between drug cartels and their clashes with security forces has killed more than 55,000 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006, miring Mexico in a flood of gory images and grisly newspaper headlines.
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