Word: madrid
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...middle class, rather than the desperately poor, that De la Madrid must worry about. Public confidence in the country is sinking along with the economy. Mindful of Lopez Portillo's earlier promise of abundance, Mexicans, as one well-connected local lawyer put it, "feel deep bitterness at the deception." That, in turn, raises the specter of instability in Mexico, a matter of major concern to the U.S. Talk of a military coup is circulating on the dinner-party circuit in Mexico City. There is little likelihood of such a thing: the Mexican military has stayed removed from civilian affairs...
...Madrid must make tough decisions to help the floundering economy. He will have to continue the 17-point austerity program belatedly begun by the lame-duck Lopez Portillo administration. Among the targets: a reduction of the government's budget deficit from 15% of the G.D.P. to 3% by the end of 1985, import restrictions, government hiring freezes and probably a hike in Mexico's heavily subsidized energy prices. The current price of gasoline...
Somehow De la Madrid has escaped the controversy surrounding the outgoing administration even though, as Mexico's Secretary of Programming and Budget, he was responsible for Lopez Portillo's grandiose Global Plan for Development, a document that has now been discreetly shelved. One reason De la Madrid may have escaped criticism is his innocuous lifestyle. Highly disciplined and a deeply religious Roman Catholic, he is untouched by any hint of scandal. He likes to spend the weekend reading in his garden. Says one diplomat who has known De la Madrid for years: "He lives comfortably...
Rectitude is something that De la Madrid wants to bring back into fashion in Mexico. He has constantly stressed the theme of "moral renovation." De la Madrid set the tone for his campaign after he discovered a P.R.I, worker driving a Ferrari that had been given to him by the mayor of Mexico City, Carlos Hank Gonzalez. De la Madrid had the man fired and asked for his resignation from the party...
That kind of morality does not sit well with the old-line machine politicians in the P.R.I., who also resent the fact that De la Madrid is a technocrat who has always stood above the rough and tumble of local politics. There were rumblings of unrest within the party when De la Madrid's nomination was announced, particularly since the P.R.I.'s then president, Javier Garcia Paniagua, was not informed of the choice beforehand. Nonetheless the tug of party loyalty, along with some selective purges, has apparently got the machine pols into line, although major power struggles...