Foes Jeer De la Madrid’s Last ‘State of Nation’ Talk

MEXICO CITY —  A chaotic scene unparalleled in Mexico’s political history erupted in Congress on Thursday as President Miguel de la Madrid delivered his final “State of the Nation” address amid repeated shouts of “Fraud!” and an opposition walkout.

De la Madrid was interrupted more than 10 times by protesters from both the left and right, who charge that the government committed widespread fraud in the July 6 election, in which ruling-party candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari was officially declared the winner.

Near the end of the three-hour speech, scores of deputies from the leftist National Democratic Front walked out while members of the long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party screamed at them “Judas!” and “Get out, you traitors!”

At the same time, members of the rightist National Action Party waved in the air charred and rumpled ballots from the intensely contested election.

The demonstrations provide the most significant sign yet that the PRI, as the ruling party is known, is losing its 60-year lock on power and that the era of the imperial presidency is coming to an end in Mexico. The annual speech in the past has been a solemn occasion, and it has been unheard of for the political opposition to challenge the president in public.

“Do not to break the protocol that Mexico has respected for so many years,” Miguel Montes Garcia, president of the Congress and a PRI member, implored. “. . . Do not transform this solemn act into a political protest.”

Following the Democratic Front’s walkout, De la Madrid departed from the text of his speech and called for tolerance “even in the face of insults by our political adversaries.”

Even as the president strode to the podium, controversy already was evident. PRI lawmakers, who still hold the majority of seats in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, gave him a standing ovation, while opposition deputies remained seated, many with arms crossed deliberately.

De la Madrid’s address chiefly was a defense of his administration’s unpopular economic policies, considered largely responsible for the PRI’s worst showing ever in the polls. Salinas, who received 50.36% of the vote in the official tally, broke with tradition by not attending Thursday’s ceremony.

After Democratic Front members repeatedly prevented De la Madrid from speaking by shouting “Mr. President, a question,” Montes told them: “You have no right to interrupt. This session of Congress was convened to listen to the president’s speech.”

But the Front deputies stood and shook their fingers at the podium, declaring: “Let us speak. This is the Congress.”

And when De la Madrid lauded the July elections, pandemonium broke out as Front lawmakers leaped to their feet chanting “Fraud! Fraud!” and flashing V-for-victory signs on behalf of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who was Salinas’ closest rival in the voting. In response, PRI members clapped their hands and tried to outshout them with “Mexico! Mexico!”

Notably, the military high command and scores of uniformed officers chimed in with applause for the PRI. The military traditionally stays out of the limelight in Mexican politics.

De la Madrid, whose six-year term ends Nov. 30, gave his speech to a Congress that is the first of its kind in Mexico. Nearly half the 500 seats in the lower house are now held by the opposition, and four of the 64 Senate seats belong to the Democratic Front coalition. Never before had the government recognized loss of any seats in the Senate.

But Congress was barely installed in time for De la Madrid’s speech as the PRI and opposition deputies battled for two weeks to certify the results of their own election. They finished their canvass late Wednesday.

Unlike most triumphant sixth-year speeches, De la Madrid’s address was generally defensive: He said he inherited an economy in ruins and that he restructured it so that it may recover. Moreover, he said, he paid interest on the nation’s $102-billion foreign debt, refusing “rhetorical confrontations that would have . . . impaired the country’s credit-worthiness.”

De la Madrid added that he boosted tourism and lowered unemployment and brought down triple-digit inflation, but he acknowledged that the majority of the poor and lower-paid workers have borne the brunt of his economic program.

After leading the walkout, one senator, Porfirio Munoz Ledo, a former PRI member and now one of Cardenas’ closest advisers, said, “I just wanted to ask the president, respectfully, if he would demand that Congress (respect) the law in the qualification of the presidential election.”

PRI leaders denounced the opposition’s actions. “This has never happened before because there has never been such a stupid opposition,” declared Fidel Velazquez, the octogenarian leader of the PRI’s labor confederation.