One Party Domination in Singapore and Mexico essays

One Party Domination in Singapore and Mexico essays Political scientists often describe Mexico as a one-party authoritarian state. Power is centralized in the hands of a virtually omnipotent president, who is always the candidate of the dominant or ruling party, which in Mexico is the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI). Singapore is a one-party state that declares that it is democratic although when analyzed by political scientists is considered socialist. These parties have many similarities and many differences and this paper will undertake the task of comparing and contrasting the one-party system in both Singapore and Mexico. This analysis attempts to answer whether a one-party system can be democratic. The controlling political party in Mexico is the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), and it had been the governing political party since 1929. The PRI is divided up into three sectors: labor, agrarian, and popular. This party claims to be the true heir of Mexicos revolutionary tradition, and has worked extremely hard to keep an appearance as a left-wing party. Although the PRI certainly has right-wing and left-wing factions, it is probably more accurate to describe it as a centrist conservative party dedicated to preserving a mixed capitalist/socialist economy. (Johnson 1984a, p137) Until very recently for many Mexicans the PRI, the state, and the government were basically the same thing. From 1929 up until 1988 the candidates of the PRI had won in all presidential, state, and Senate elections, and practically all the representative elections for federal and local congress, including municipalities. (Cinta 1999a, p177) Military chieftains and regional bosses who survived the Mexican revolution started the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI); they created the National Revolutionary Party to put an end to two decades of violence and turmoil. Since then the PRI and its partisan predecessors ...