Al Grito de Guerra: the Second Mexican Revolution

[rjd1997]

My god, it’s beautiful.

 

[galileo-034]

These rumors were soon dispelled, however, when the world found out exactly where Bartlett was and what had happened to him.

"Noriega, you have a new budy next door" - a prison guard in Miami some times later

 

[Lisowczycy]

Damn Mexico going to be a worst mess than before. And to think all it took was a embargo, harsh sanctions and two brave journalists. To bring the PRI down and for the army to refuse anymore orders from Bartlett.

I do wonder how the new president going to clean up the government and if he go after all the ex government members who stolen money. The purging of the ranks is going to be epic if the new boss decided everyone has to go.

 

[Rockydroid]

Talk about losing the Mandate of Heaven...is there such a thing as popular unsovereignty? It's also funny cause AMLO won with similar numbers but I'll hold my tongue on my opinions on that one.

 

[Allochronian]

By the last week of the campaign, it was clear to anyone with two eyes that a revolutionary change was coming, including, finally, President Bartlett. After weeks of resistance and denial, Bartlett had forced himself to accept that his party had practically no chance in a free and fair election. The thought genuinely terrified him. For all its shortcomings, Manuel Bartlett was earnestly convinced that the PRI was the only party which could carry out the principles of the First Mexican Revolution. To Bartlett, Mexico and the PRI were one and the same, and while he could understand why the people desired a change, he knew nevertheless in his heart of hearts that to transfer power to the opposition would only lead in the end to anarchy, bloodshed, and pseudo-fascism. For the good of the people and for the good of Mexico, the PRI simply had to remain in power. And so, on August 18, three days before the election, Bartlett took a step he had hoped he would never even need to imagine: with a voice of grave solemnity, he asked General Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, three-star general, hero of the Spring Campaign and the moral leader of the Army, to order his forces to take control of the country, impose martial law, postpone the election indefinitely, and save the people from themselves.

General Gutiérrez told Bartlett to go fuck his mother.

I honestly expected Bartlett to successfully cancel the election. Interesting how this part is very optimistic, by Mexican history standards.

View attachment 572168​

In the end, it wasn’t a landslide. It was a disgrace. By a margin of 75 percentage points, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo was the next President of Mexico. Not one single state remained loyal to the PRI, and Elba Esther Gordillo had barely captured more than 10% of the vote (to this day, the PRI’s successors occasionally grumble that Gordillo’s total would have been larger if not for voter suppression on the part of the Army, a claim which has been substantiated to a certain degree). TV Azteca’s first-ever election night special, featuring fancy computer graphics and snappy interviews with Sergio Aguayo, Julio Scherer, and other top political activists and analysts, turned out to be the most-watched television broadcast in Mexican history up to that point. For a few hours after the polls closed, Televisa pretended that the race was up in the air, but after Sinaloa—historically the most loyally green state in the country—gave only 32% of its vote to Gordillo, veteran anchorman Jacobo Zabludovsky announced that the Porfirio Muñoz Ledo had won a shutout victory. It wasn’t the first time that the PRI candidate had won fewer votes in a presidential election (as Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas could attest), but it was the first time that there was no one to lie about the results.

The Congressional elections were equally staggering. In 273 of 300 districts, opposition candidates for the Chamber of Deputies had triumphed over their PRI competitors. The other 200 seats, which were awarded by party-list proportional representation, had gone mostly to the PAN, with only 45 priístas making the cut. The Senate was similar story, with only seven of 64 PRI candidates winning their elections. The bill for seven decades of repression, corruption and economic mismanagement had come due, and the PRI had paid it with an electoral wipeout.

Insert LET'S GOOO meme

But that could wait a day or two. Right now, it was time to sing, not cry. And when a crowd of 22,000 demonstrators showed up outside Los Pinos on the morning of August 22—in the very spot in which twenty-five protesters had been fatally shot in September of 1988—and found that the Army detachment which Bartlett had employed to guard him had left their posts to join in the celebration, they decided to pay a call on their soon-to-be-ex-President, to wish him well in his future endeavors, and perhaps give him a hand in moving out of the official residence. But after looking under every desk, inside every closet and behind every curtain, the people were stunned to realized that Manuel Bartlett was nowhere to be found. The news quickly spread to the streets, where within hours, stories stories were circulating that Bartlett had been executed by the Army, had fled to Bermuda with a gold bar in each pocket, or had donned a fake beard and sunglasses and joined in the protests himself. These rumors were soon dispelled, however, when the world found out exactly where Bartlett was and what had happened to him.

​

Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man, oh, man...Suicide? Homicide (by the U.S./Mexican government)? We MUST know!

First reactions to the article were of disbelief. Even before the story broke, the American people had trusted the Mexican government about as much they trusted O.J. Simpson’s lawyer.

I have a question that's somewhat related to this: Did the 1992 L.A. Riots also occur ITTL?

Two more questions:
1) Why was the 1994 election held on August 21st, instead of the usual month in July?
2) I thought Muñoz Ledo was the PAN candidate?

 

[Jito]

I'm surprised the United States fully sanctioned Mexico. Wouldn't that be a massive blow to the American economy, especially with a recession imminent already?

 

[Prince Daemon Targaryen]

At this point, Lido has no choice but to crush the drug trade completely or continue to face complete sanction. I wonder how they're gonna do that while their economy is in the toilet

 

[Vinization]

I'm surprised the United States fully sanctioned Mexico. Wouldn't that be a massive blow to the American economy, especially with a recession imminent already?

I don't think Bush had a choice.

 

[Changundramon]

I wonder how much influence the rich will have over Ledo...

 

[Worffan101]

The irony of the USA sanctioning the hell out of Mexico right about the time of NAFTA is freaking hilarious, too.

Amazing levels of failure by the PRI. Let's hope the new guy isn't terrible...

 

[Bookmark1995]

Then the day finally arrived. Many observers had feared that election day would be pure chaos, but in fact the polling was relatively orderly and peaceful, mostly because the soldiers stationed outside polling places in most populous towns prevented any large-scale unrest from breaking out. And so, on August 21, under the faithful eye of Gil and Ovando’s poll-watching federation, 32 million Mexicans cast their votes as they saw fit. Enrique Krauze described the election of 1994 as “judgement day for the PRI and its sins; the rebirth of Mexico’s civic and political life”. Former Congressman Vicente Fox, ever the intellectual, declared in 2006 that “every chicken in Mexico was coming home to shit on Manuel Bartlett’s face”.

“And so, on August 18, three days before the election, Bartlett took a step he had hoped he would never even need to imagine: with a voice of grave solemnity, he asked General Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, three-star general, hero of the Spring Campaign and the moral leader of the Army, to order his forces to take control of the country, impose martial law, postpone the election indefinitely, and save the people from themselves.

General Gutiérrez told Bartlett to go fuck his mother. “
Damn what a chad. Mexico could only take so much, and when Bartlett added the final straw to
break it’s back, it kicked him out in glorious fashion.

Great chapter, as always.

Mexican people are gifted in the art of well-aimed profanity.

 

[Bookmark1995]

I'm surprised the United States fully sanctioned Mexico. Wouldn't that be a massive blow to the American economy, especially with a recession imminent already?

The recent disputes with China have taught me there is only so much American policymakers will tolerate.

Congress could tolerate a corrupt Mexico. They could not tolerate a man putting the drug dealers they despised into official positions of power. When you've loss a certain level of deniability, the powers that be will throw you out the door.

 

[Knightmare]

And this is why one keeps a firm hold of the keys of power. As in, don't piss off your bases, AND the military, AND your much larger neighbor.

Or keeps the Gulfstream fueled and ready to go.

 

[UlyssesCrab]

PLEASE let the second mexican revolution result in a revival of revolutionary socialism

 

[NorthTension]

PLEASE let the second mexican revolution result in a revival of revolutionary socialism

I've mentioned him before but the only Mexican state ITTL I'll accept is a Superbarrio Gómez led government. The mask stays on in Congress.

 

[NorthTension]

lmao apparently this was a real poster used by the EZLN at their convention in Aguascalientes in 1994

 

[UlyssesCrab]

I've mentioned him before but the only Mexican state ITTL I'll accept is a Superbarrio Gómez led government. The mask stays on in Congress.

The Red Caudillo Gómez of Mexico shall work on the principles of Land and Liberty!

 

[Steve Brinson]

Impressed by just how thoroughly Bartlett fucked up. It's hard being between a rock and a hard place when you're also mostly amoral and incredibly corrupt.
That said, I can't help but think about Ledo as being in a situation somewhat like (to borrow an analogy from @Yes) post-Emergency India, where the coalition against PRI is incredibly shaky, dealing with the widespread nature of corruption and narcotics trafficking will be a tough nut to crack (particularly seeing as Ledo himself has some skeletons in his closet), and it's not hard to see the prospect of a government too divided against itself to get anything done. Hopefully the scale of Ledo's majority provides him some leeway (certainly the fact that PRI couldn't pull off twelve percent, and the fact that clientelism only works if you can actually deliver, indicates that the PRI isn't coming back anytime soon the way Indira did - though, on the other hand, it wouldn't be surprising to see former high officials who were always working behind the scenes for Mexico, don't you know? coming back to power), and the fact that the problem needs dealt with keeps things together enough that problems can actually be dealt with. But at the very least, Mexico and Ledo are in for interesting times.

 

[naraht]

Infobox should have 1988 as prior election, not 1990.

 

[Zek Sora]

Very exciting; fantastic update and you can feel the victory in the air for the Mexican nation...even if it might turn out to be a bit more difficult than that. Ledo has quite a lot of debts to pay, and people he can't piss off, and those might be mutually exclusive with reform. Fascinated to see how he handles it.

Also, the following line:

the PRI’s successors occasionally grumble that Gordillo’s total would have been larger if not for voter suppression on the part of the Army

makes me think the PRI won't be surviving, but I'm interested to see what replaces it—and how.