Former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari threatened to launch a protest hunger strike Friday as he attempted to clear his name after a tumultuous week in which his brother was jailed and the ex-president came under attack for an escalating national economic crisis.
Salinas later agreed to postpone the strike pending unspecified negotiations with President Ernesto Zedillo's government. Salinas said he was prepared to launch a "total fast" as he demanded clarification by the Zedillo administration of recent allegations that Salinas had covered up evidence in a major political assassination last year.The ex-president also sought retraction of recent statements implying that he was responsible for an economic collapse that followed the Dec. 20 devaluation of the Mexican peso.
Although the threat, made on television Thursday night, represented a dramatic escalation in a week-old public confrontation between Salinas and Zedillo, the resort to such an unusual public display also demonstrated how rapidly the former president has seen his power base diminish since his Dec. 1 departure from office. Today Salinas finds himself isolated and vilified while Zedillo's approval ratings have skyrocketed since he began a series of attacks on his predecessor.
"I must insist that this is a question of personal honor," Salinas said in his announcement. "The most valuable thing I have is life, and I am ready to give it up in exchange for the truth."
Salinas hand-picked Zedillo last year as candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which is tantamount to naming his successor, since the PRI has not lost a presidential election since 1928. This anointing process has led to an unwritten code of nonaggression, until now, among sitting and former presidents.
"It's clear that Zedillo hit him where it hurt the most: his international image," said Mexican political scientist Denise Dresser. "Salinas worked so hard to construct this image as a world leader and reformer, and now it's all gone."