Interviews from Mexico, hosted by Laura Carlsen, goes straight to the source -- the men and women making news and making history in Mexico and throughout the region. Today our host interviews Arturo Rodriguez, a reporter for Proceso magazine and author of the new book The Authoritarian Return of the PRI. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) held power in Mexico from 1929 to 2000 and, despite widespread opposition, regained the presidency in 2012 with the victory of Enrique Peña Nieto. Why do I call it authoritarian? asks the author of the new book. Because we don’t really have a democracy, only a mask of democracy. The regime now, as in the past, is marked by repression and the concentration of power in the person of the presidency. The PRI, in collusion with the other major parties, which aren’t that much better as Rodriguez see it, is using its power to pass reforms imposed by the United States. He says the case of the disappeared Ayotzinapa students makes it clear that we are living in a country where severe human rights violations are occurring, and where these violations are carried out with impunity. A prime example is that Peña Nieto just appointed a major human rights violator to the Supreme Court and got away with it. In Mexico under PRI rule, we can definitely expect harsher repression, said the veteran journalist. No question about it. teleSUR
