De la Madrid PRI — IMF austerity, opening, 1985 earthquake

Doctrine — stated goals and content

Inaugural orthodoxy pivot from López Portillo's statist-developmentalist inheritance to IMF-supervised stabilisation and gradual market opening — the opening chapter of Mexican neoliberalism. Four doctrinal pillars: (1) IMF austerity — Extended Fund Facility (November 1982) and subsequent programmes; public-sector deficit cut from 16.9% of GDP (1982) to sub-10% by 1986; wages fell ~40% in real terms 1982-1988; oil revenues consolidated into federal budget; (2) trade liberalisation — GATT accession (1986), reversing four decades of ISI import-licensing; average tariff fell from ~100% to ~20% by 1988; import-licence coverage fell from ~100% to ~25% of tariff lines; (3) privatisation start — ~750 of ~1,155 parastatals disposed of (mostly small) by 1988 under PRONAFIDE framework; the banking system (nationalised 1982) was partially recompensated and re-privatised only under Salinas; (4) Pacto de Solidaridad Económica (December 1987) — heterodox stabilisation pact fixing wages, prices, and exchange rate across business-labour-government after 1987 hyperinflation (159% annual peak) following the October 1987 stock-market collapse; inflation fell to ~20% by late 1988. The September 1985 Mexico City earthquake (M8.0, ~10,000+ deaths, ~4% of DF housing stock destroyed) triggered autonomous civil-society mobilisation that eroded PRI corporatist legitimacy. Stated school: Washington Consensus stabilisation + heterodox incomes-policy fallback. Left-right axis: centre-right economic content within PRI's single-party institutional framework. Popularity / legitimacy: July 1982 election de la Madrid won with 74.3% in a still-hegemonic PRI electoral system; by July 1988 succession election Salinas officially won 50.7% amid the famous "system crash" that obscured real count; opposition (Cárdenas FDN 31.1%, Clouthier PAN 17.1%) reached historic highs. Coherence line: trade ISI-developmentalist autarky and wage expansion for macro stabilisation, GATT-integrated export capacity, and creditor-community rehabilitation — at explicit distributional cost.