was the lot of the peasants and the urban masses,
the high birth rate undermining efforts to raise
living standards. Mexico too had seen extensive
migration from country to city. In ten years, from
1970 to 1980, Mexico City increased its popula-
tion by 7 million to 15 million, with a huge mar-
ginalised population living in shanty slums. The
population of the country as a whole grew from
25.8 million in 1950 to 34.9 million in 1960, to
84.6 million in 1989 (by which year the gross
per-capita income was US $2,010).
The Mexican state is a conglomeration of ele-
ments of socialism, state planning and a constitu-
tional electoral process. Mexico enjoys a surfeit of
elections for mayors, governors, assemblies and
the president; some opposition parties are toler-
ated and compete. Presidential elections have
occurred every six years, and the presidency has
always changed hands peacefully, so the spoils are
regularly redistributed. But only one party, the
PRI, dominates and has decided the outcome
of national and presidential elections. Miguel de
la Madrid Hurtado, candidate of the PRI, was
elected president in 1982 with a vote of over 74
per cent.
Distribution of land to the campesinos, the
peasant owners of smallholdings, and revolution-
ary rhetoric kept the majority of peasants quiet as
the 1990s began, engaged in trying to make a
subsistence living. The seasonal and illegal exodus
across the 2000-mile border into the United
States provided a safety valve for tens of thou-
sands of the poor. Even so, in urban areas where
most Mexicans live, there was massive unemploy-
ment. The well-to-do were surrounded by mass
poverty. The middle classes enjoyed the high
standard of living which the growth and diversi-
fication of the Mexican economy had made pos-
sible, while the spoils of office were used to
ensure a faithful following for the incumbent
president and the dominant PRI party. There was
more freedom in Mexico than in many Latin
American states, but it was carefully controlled.
Most sections of the population tended to accept
their lack of political influence. In any case the
state had a special security police, which, accord-
ing to Amnesty reports, in the early 1990s con-
tinued to employ torture and murder against
anyone considered to disturb Mexico’s political
order. In Mexico too, hundreds ‘disappeared’,
but repression was not on the same vast scale as
Argentina or Chile experienced. Mexican stability
rested for four decades on a revolutionary myth
and authoritarian conservative control.
Below the surface, the rapid economic changes
caused dissatisfaction with the authoritarian style
of government to grow. During the Olympic
Games in 1968, widespread student protest led
to the killings of hundreds in Mexico City and
attracted worldwide attention. In the early 1970s
guerrilla bands appeared but were suppressed by
the security services. With the enormous increases
in oil prices engineered by OPEC (of which
Mexico was not a member) and new oil discov-
eries, export earnings after 1975 increased ten
times to US$20 billion. But lavish expenditure
and ambitious development resulted in high
inflation. The end of the oil boom in the 1980s
and worldwide economic stagnation burst the
Mexican bubble. Heavy foreign borrowing and
austerity programmes drastically reduced stan-
dards of living, while the birth rate, if it contin-
ued unabated, would double the population every
twenty years; and half the population was under
sixteen years of age. Mexico was saddled with one
of the largest foreign debts in the world, whose
payment had to be periodically rescheduled; the
bankers demanded austerity and Mexico found
itself caught between trying to satisfy inter-
national financiers by making economies, while
trying to prevent internal unrest as a result of
policies imposed externally. The inability of the
regime to cope effectively with the catastrophic
earthquake that hit Mexico City in September
1985 added to a loss of credibility, which was
compounded by Mexico’s economic crises. The
stability maintained by the political system began
to look increasingly fragile. The right-wing oppo-
sition Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN) claim-
ed massive electoral fraud, but the ruling PRI
made few concessions. Despite misgivings about
the undemocratic nature of Mexican politics,
Washington saw a greater danger in further desta-
bilising Mexico and provided financial support. In
the 1988 presidential elections the PRI candidate,
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, claimed to have won.