Mexicans will not go to the polls to elect their next President for another nine months, but as of last week everyone knew who the winner would be. His name: Luis Echeverria Alvarez, 47, now Interior Minister under outgoing President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz. Endorsed last week by the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (P.R.I.), Echeverria is certain to be formally named the P.R.I.'s candidate during the party's convention next month. Because Mexico is virtually a one-party state, that nomination is equivalent to election to a six-year term. Since P.R.I.'s founding 41 years ago in the wake of Mexico's revolution, it has not lost a presidential vote.
Echeverria, an efficient administrator and decision maker, is following a well-trodden path. Eight of his nine most recent predecessors served as Interior Minister, the most important Cabinet post, before taking over the presidency. Diaz Ordaz and other P.R.I, chieftains expect little change in policies—with good reason, for Echeverria was selected as party candidate by the President himself, in concert with party leaders and the country's three living ex-Presidents.
Echeverria's major challenge will be to spur the growth of the underdeveloped rural economy; at least half of Mexico's 47 million people live in areas largely untouched by the prosperity that has brought forests of TV antennas, rows of private homes and traffic jams to the large cities. Party reform also ranks high on the list of priorities. Last year's pre-Olympic riots, during which police shot at least 33 people to death and wounded 500 others in Mexico City's Plaza de Las Tres Culturas, showed the depth of discontent and impatience among the young. The party's autocratic methods—demonstrated so effectively in its manner of choosing a new President —have been challenged by reformers.
A lawyer and political scientist who entered politics 23 years ago, the new presidential candidate defines his position as "neither to the right, nor to the left, nor in a static center, but onward and upward." Just how quickly Echeverria will move, however, remains in question. Stable leadership has given Mexico four decades of political and economic progress, while South American nations have suffered 40 coups since 1930. Recently, however, the party has displayed an increasing reluctance to stay in step with the times.