By John Cross
The American University in Cairo
Cross@auc-acs.eun.eg (September 15, 1995)
In late August, over 3,000 "granaderos", Mexico's riot police, were deployed in the Historical Center of Mexico City. Were they sent to contain a riot or control an angry mob? No, they were sent to remove thousands of street vendors who have defied the city's orders that the center be "vendor-free" as part of the program of construction of "commercial plazas" for the relocation of vendors in the area. But this show of public force, which can only offer a temporary palliative to the presence of vendors in the area, only shows the weakness of the government's policies and augments the danger that they may result in a radicalization of street vendor organizations in opposition to the government.
As if to underscore this danger, on September 11, 2000 granaderos were again called out to quash a protest now by established merchants against the presence of street vendors. The growing level of protest, counter-protest and violence surrounding this issue seems to demonstrate the inability of the political system in Mexico to undertake its historic role as a mediator between opposing social interest groups that was accomplished through the process of coopting potentially rebellious groups within the PRI by providing proceedures by which their grievances could be taken account of. But, as this article will argue, the process by which the city administration has relocated vendors into new "commercial plazas" in the Historical Center has violated this process, leading to a weakening of the government's ability to govern at a crucial juncture in Mexican history.
Historically, street vending has grown consistently in Mexico City since the late 1960s, after an energetic program of market construction and street vendor repression carried out by the "Regent of Iron", Ernesto P. Uruchurtu, was replaced by attempts to limit the growth of street vending by restricting new permits to vendors who form or join street vendor unions that affiliated with the "popular sector" of the governing Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). Later, after the explosion of the economic crisis of the early 1980s, the city attempted to further limit growth by prohibiting new permits and ordering that new unions would not be recognized after 1984. Nevertheless, in the following 6 years the number of street vendors doubled in the city as new unions continued to be recognized and vendors without permits were officially "tolerated" by the administration.
Street vendor leaders were fairly easily able to thwart the administrative limits by combining protests aimed at administrative offices with appeals for assistance from politicians and ambitious bureaucrats within the PRI for whom they offered the support of their members at rallies and during elections. At the same time, efforts to remove or relocate vendors into markets were stymied by the competitive structure of relations between the unions. If one group agreed to give up a prime selling area, they faced the prospect of other groups taking over those same areas over time. As a result, they would refuse to move, or reinvade themselves as soon as conditions allowed, sometimes keeping both old and new areas. At the same time, the constant flux of officials and policies allowed unions to grow during lax regimes while entrenching themselves during regimes that took a hard stand against them. Since local administrative personnel changed at least every three years, and in some districts, such as the downtown area, often changed several times a year, this wait-advance strategy could easily pay off, particularly since the union leaders were usually cemented in their positions for life.
By the early 1990s, there were approximately 200,000 street vendors in the city, with over 10,000 in the square kilometer forming the "Historical Center" around the national palace. Despite half-hearted proposals and plans to construct markets for the vendors, little was done during the 70s and 80s due to lack of funds and lack of political will-power. Between 1989 and 1991, the newly constituted Representative Assembly for the Federal District wrote up a new set of regulations that would again allow the city to grant permits to street vendors and collect taxes from them that had been suspended since 1985.
But this plan was precipitously scrapped immediately after the 1991 mid-term elections. Interpreting the recovery of the PRI in those elections as a mandate for the neo-liberal "modernization" of Mexico that he aspired to put into effect, then President Carlos Salinas de Gortari decided to take a hard line against street vending as part of his crack-down against fiscal evasion, his attack on the old-party structure that used vendors for support, and to modernize the image of the city in line with the urban renewal of the Historical Center. The first test of this new policy was the removal of vendors from the facilities of the Metro subway system in January of 1992, for which planning began in September of the previous year. The fortuitous, for the administration, shooting of a passenger by a vendor along with a well-planned propaganda campaign to help cement public support behind the operation, which involved the use of hundreds of riot police over a two-month period and gave the govvernment the confidence to proceed to the next step--the relocation of Historical Center vendors into "commercial plazas". These would be paid for-on credit-by the vendors themselves, thus breaking a long-standing tradition by which public markets were constructed by the city and then rented at symbolic rates to vendors in order to secure their support for the PRI.
Under pressure from the president and small merchant associations, the administration rushed through forced negotiations with the leaders in the area. As one of the most important leaders complained afterwards, "We were forced to sign-they didn't give us any choice." At the same time, vacant lots or buildings had to be located and either bought or transferred from the private sector or government sectors, designs had to be produced, and construction had to be completed-all, initially, within a year, although in fact most were delayed. In some cases, vendor unions had already been in the process of designing markets in association with the government. But in most, the city had to start from scratch. At the same time, credit had to be obtained. While initial plans called for the participation of several newly privatized banks, in the end all the financing came from two government-owned banks-Nacional Financiera and the Banco del Pequeo Comercio-through a newly formed cut-out operation, the Fondo del Desarollo Econ>mico del Distrito Federal (FONDEDF).
As a result, confusion reigned. The new market stalls were to be offered only to members of unions already registered in the area. Naturally, this gave the unions the ability to force vendors to pay extra fees in order to secure a stall for themselves, or face the prospect of being hounded out of the area by the police. I was personally told many times by officials that the unions were obliged to collect extra fees in order to cover the "down-payment" on the stalls, but in fact the down-payment was paid later on an individual basis by vendors, meaning that the extra fees were for other purposes. Officials attempted several times to create a single list of vendors who were eligible for stalls, to prevent new groups from moving in, or old unions from adding to their membership rolls in the area. All the attempts failed miserably and in fact both things did occur.
But the worst problem was the markets themselves. Designed to hold the maximum number of vendors at the lowest possible costs, the new "commercial plazas" usually lacked coherent pedestrian flows, with most stalls hidden in a rat-warren of narrow corridors, and had poor natural lighting, leading to sense of claustrophobia. The constant flow of pedestrians that vendors experienced on the street was therefore nonexistent. In addition, the location of many of the markets was far from their original area on the street, so that their established clientele could not find them. As a result, these markets suffered very high rates of absenteeism: in some, such as "San Antonio Abad" and "Conjunto La Merc,d", 80-90% of the stalls were abandoned by their owners, despite the fact that they had already paid their down-payment. Those who stayed made ends meet by returning to sell in adjacent streets, often with the permission of their leaders.
Besides the precipitous drop in sales, the new markets required vendors to pay a downpayment of between N$1,000 and N$2,000 new pesos ($300-600 dollars at the time) with monthly payments of between N$500 and N$1,000. While a three month "grace" period was allowed at the beginning of the contract, this actually caused greater problems for vendors, since once the period was over, they were compelled to pay three monthly payments together. Since most had been able to save any money in the meantime, given the low level of sale, they immediately went into collection at this point-unless the unions intervened to protect them. All these problems were augmented with the devaluation of December, 1994, which lowered sales even further and increased the interest rates and monthly payments on their mortgages. As a result, even if they continued paying on time, many vendors found that their debt still increased, and many simply gave up.
Vendors reported incredible economic pressures that affected their family lives and psychological well-being. One reported that she had considered suicide on several occasions in the face of her mounting debt. Others reported having sold houses or cars to leverage the down-payments, or obtaining loans from family members that they had trouble repaying. These pressures at the same time led them to take a highly negative attitude towards the government and, at times, their own leaders. Many expressed the feeling that the PRI and the leaders had abandoned them by agreeing to the relocation plan, and refused to pay their membership fees and participate in political acts in support of the official party. In most cases, these feelings had not galvanized into an activist position, but rather led to feelings of political apathy. But in some vendors, economic frustration had already led to active opposition to their leaders and the PRI- -one vendor told an interviewer that he feared for the author's life if he continued to investigate the situation in the markets.
The leaders, even those that were affiliated with the PRI, also pulled no punches in their criticism of the relocation program and the city administration. Guillermina Rico and Alejandra Barrios, the two most important leaders and supporters of the PRI in the area, both accused the city of allowing a new class of "toreros" to exist on the streets who were responsible only to the market inspectors: "They can't sell in the markets so they are 'toreando', and the (market inspectors) are the leaders now," collecting daily bribes to allow them to sell. A legal advisor to one of the leaders affiliated with the PRI complained that the government consistently snubbed them, but favored opposition-affiliated groups to reinvade areas under the ban: "We can give the system 80% of the seats (in upcoming elections for "Ciudadanos Consejeros"), but they don't seem to realize how important we are," he argued, and added darkly, "If we became members of the opposition, we would probably be better off."
Another leader went even further, asserting that "Nobody is affiliated with the PRI out of conviction--we are all with the system out of convenience. And there may come a time when it is no longer convenient." While he remained loyal for the moment, he noted that militants of the leftist opposition Partido Revolucionario Democr tico (PRD) and even the RUTA-100 union (one of the most radical trade union movements in Mexico that is allied with the rebel Ejercito Zapatista de Liberaci>n Nacional (EZLN) and in active conflict with the city administration over the mass firing of its members and the arrest of its leaders), had approached them to discuss the possibility of joining forces. "If we were to join the opposition, just imagine what would happen," he noted, adding "we don't want a confrontation because ... it would be unequal... They have 20 or 30 thousand granaderos (riot police), that's why we don't want to get to that level. But if they don't resolve our (problems) we don't know what level we'll get to."
Furthermore, while many leaders and vendors expressed their respect for Camacho Solis, the regent who initiated the "commercial plaza" program in 1991, they expressed disgust for the series of officials who followed after his resignation in late 1993. As one leader complained about the regent, Oscar Espinoza Villareal, and other officials in 1995, he noted, "Camacho was something else--Camacho came to La Merc,d. This one doesn't even show his face--he lacks political skill... There is no one in the government who can say, 'Lets do this is that'. All they want is 'negotiation'. The Regent doesn't show his face, the delegate sends us to the sub-delegate, and he send us to his secretary. What is she going to arrange? Nothing!"
While in the 1994 presidential elections none of the ssociations that were affiliated with the PRI left the party to join the opposition and many of the leaders and vendors I spoke with expressed continued support for the PRI, by 1995 many more leaders and individual vendors were expressing their discontent. Leaders were under pressure not only because of the problems with the markets, but also because of a rising sentiment among vendors themselves that their role was becoming superfluous. Whether they were in markets or on the streets, many more vendors expressed their independence from their leaders. Many noted that leaders no longer really existed, since they were now owners of their own stall and didn't need the leaders to protect their rights anymore. And even vendors who continued to sell on the street were less likely than before to pay fees to their associations, since they considered that the leaders had given up their claim to the streets when they had signed the agreement with the city.
Not all the markets are a failure--as noted above, some were designed with much more participation by the vendor unions and as a result met with commercial success--most notably "Pino Suarez" and "Meaves". But they did not create any special loyalty towards the PRI--after all, the vendors had paid the full cost for their stalls, and had nothing to thank the "system" for. On the other hand, in the vast majority of the new markets poor location and design added to the economic crisis produced feelings of frustration and a sense of having been "cheated" by a system that had not only conned them out of a livelihood, but had saddled them with a huge financial burden into the bargain. Sparked by a show of public force that threatens to shut off their only avenue of subsistence in the area, these feelings could easily lead to active opposition to a government that they perceive as turning against them. Above all, the political apathy that they express--above all, the feeling that no political party is willing to support them, repeated again and again in interviews--may lead many to search for a solution outside of the limited "democratic" structure of political participation. Outside, that is, of a "system" that, despite its faults, has guaranteed political stability in Mexico for almost 80 years.
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* Research in July and August of 1995 was supported by the Ford Foundation, Mexico. Earlier research was supported at different stages by the UCLA Program on Mexico, the National Science Foundation, The U.S.-Mexico Fulbright program, the Organization of American States, and the American University in Cairo.