by Gustavo Rodríguez
Only a few hours after the elections were over, the various political tendencies conceded to the Institutional Revolutionary Party [PRI, the party which has held power in México for over 65 years—trans.], with just under 50% of the vote. They were followed by the National Action Party [PAN, conservative challengers—trans.] and the Democratic Revolutionary Party [PRD, which the capitalist press calls the "center-left" party, an outgrowth of the PRI—trans.], with very little difference in the polls.
It is indisputable that there was fraud. There has always been and there will always be fraud, only this time the fraud was not the usual theft and alteration of ballots (although we did still see these practices that many had thought were overcome). This time, it was a matter of cybernetic fraud. Now, things were much more centered on the manipulation of the voting public by means of computerized technology.
The old practices of the "carrousel," the "full car" and the "pregnant ballot box" [practices whereby people vote more than once or votes are added to the boxes, common in previous Mexican elections—trans.] were surpassed this time by technology: the corner telephone, feeding by electronic mail, and the secret computers that favored Zedillo [candidate for the PRI]. In addition, there was a shortage of ballots at the special polling booths—an incredible blow that was dealt to the opposition parties—and there was substitution of officials at polling booths.
But the great victory of the dictator party (now with Zedillo at its head) was not due to the usual fraud. It was not due to the enormous resources of the PRI-government, the access to public funds, the workers threatened with being fired, the thousands of electoral violations committed by the municipal presidents, governors and federal and public functionaries. It was not due to the power of the broadcast mass-media (especially TV), sold-out and handed to the system. NO, A THOUSAND TIMES, NO! The great victory of the state party was due to the complicity of the so-called "opposition"; to the treachery of all those who put out the call to vote; to the treachery of all of those individuals, organizations, and parties who called for "electoral struggle" and for "ballots, not bullets"; it is due to those who mediated and destroyed a possible social revolution that had never been possible. It is they and those who reaffirmed the system through the dictatorship of the vote who bear the responsibility for the great victory of the state party.
They wanted society to speak up. Who now can say that it hasn't? Only now many don't want to know what it has said.