Official’s Term Marked by Unseemly Developments : Mexican Governor Quits After 2 Die in Prison

SAN LUIS POTOSI, Mexico —  It is usually difficult for major officeholders in Mexico to run afoul of the system. After all, they are put in office by the president, and, politically, the president is considered virtually infallible.

Neither incompetence nor stealing, not even tolerance of political violence, is generally enough to drive one from office.

But Florencio Salazar Martinez, until last Monday the governor of the state of San Luis Potosi, made enough enemies and presided over enough turmoil to make himself an exception. He resigned at the statehouse in this high-desert mining center, requesting 10 months’ leave “for personal reasons.”

No one expects him back. A local newspaper reported his departure under the headline “The Nightmare Is Over.”

2 Mystery Deaths

Salazar left office in the wake of the mysterious deaths of two prisoners at the state penitentiary. They were said officially to have hanged themselves, but they are widely believed to have been killed, perhaps by thugs in the hire of prison officials.

The prison incident was only the latest in a series of unseemly developments during Salazar’s 20 months in office. Observers here note that with state legislative elections and the national presidential campaign approaching, his ouster was inevitable.

“There had to be a change; the government wants things quiet,” said Ricardo Rodriguez, a lawyer and civic activist in San Luis Potosi, the state capital.

Salazar’s case offers an unusual glimpse at the way the government of Mexico reacts to turbulence brought on by an apparently incompetent official. Clearly, the much-criticized “system,” as Mexicans call it, can deal quickly with this sort of thing when it becomes necessary.

Quarrel Reported

It is not clear whether Salazar’s downfall resulted solely, or even mainly, from his handling of unrest at the prison. According to sources in San Luis Potosi and in Mexico City, Salazar quarreled recently with President Miguel de la Madrid over the selection of legislative candidates. In any case, Salazar, with four years to go in office, had become an embarrassment.

A longtime politician and member of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, Salazar was chosen as a candidate for governor by De la Madrid. In Mexico, it is customary for the president to select major candidates for office from among his friends and supporters. With the aid of the political machinery of the PRI, as the party is known, the candidates are assured of winning. The PRI has not lost a contest for governor in 60 years, in any state.

“On paper, Salazar seemed a perfect candidate,” an aide to the president said. “He turned out to be a terrible governor.”

De la Madrid has chosen a Supreme Court justice, Leopoldino Ortiz Santos, to replace Salazar.

Method Criticized

Normally, a provincial shake-up like this might have little meaning. Salazar is the third governor to be dismissed so far in De la Madrid’s term. But the method of choosing candidates for office has recently come under harsh criticism.

The most important selection of all is to be made this fall when De la Madrid picks a candidate to succeed him as president. Some members of the PRI left wing are undertaking a national campaign to open up the selection process and permit an array of groups within the party to take part.

In part, the campaign appears to be an effort by the dissidents to influence De la Madrid’s choice for president. But the movement has also gained support among those who think that one-man selection of officeholders leads to the kind of problems that have plagued San Luis Potosi.

The most recent of Salazar’s public problems began early this year when 17 inmates at San Luis Potosi Prison began a hunger strike to protest the suspension of marital visiting privileges. Prison directors appointed by Salazar isolated the 17 at a half-completed jail in the town of Matehuala. Later, after being returned to San Luis Potosi, the inmates complained of being beaten, tortured and locked in rat-infested cells.

Outside Accusations

Meanwhile, leftist politicians outside the PRI charged that some of the prisoners were in jail for trying to organize peasant groups and that they were treated harshly for political reasons.

Then, prisoner Alfonso Castillo was found in his cell, strangled with a thin cord. A forensic doctor pronounced the death a suicide, but later the doctor said there were doubts about this ruling. Just as the storm caused by that incident appeared to be clearing, a second prisoner, Francisco Gonzalez, was found dead in similar circumstances.

Salazar infuriated the public and politicians alike by using a phrase for which he would become famous: “Nothing happened here.”

Such incidents are not necessarily enough to disgrace a high official. After the 1985 earthquakes, for example, the bodies of Colombian prisoners who had been tortured were found in the basement of the Mexico City attorney general’s office. Not long afterward, Atty. Gen. Victoria Adato was made a justice of the Supreme Court.

Gov. Salazar, however, had been involved in a series of matters that could not easily be glossed over.

Unpopular Moves

His highhanded use of police forces was unpopular. Last year, the state police violently dispersed students at an agricultural school who were demanding lower bus fares. Critics accused Salazar of employing agitators to break up another youth protest, at the San Luis Potosi Autonomous University. A student was fatally wounded by gunfire in that incident.

Salazar won the enduring enmity of local conservative opposition leaders, who felt they were robbed of victory in the 1985 mayoral election in San Luis Potosi. The PRI candidate won amid widespread charges of voting fraud.

When the mayor was inaugurated on Jan. 1, 1986, a protest crowd gathered in the town’s main square. Drunks threw eggs at the police. Suddenly, a group of plainclothesmen invaded the plaza and began beating the demonstrators with staffs. Several people were injured and one died, though the government said the victim was hit by a truck.

Finally, Salazar made enemies in his own party. When he ran for governor in 1985, he criticized the outgoing administration for creating a secret police unit, “the Convoy,” to crack down on opponents of the government. State legislators loyal to the former governor opposed Salazar’s programs, including the construction of an expensive tram system.

A Thing Not Done

“Salazar’s problem was that he spoke badly of the previous administration, and that’s something you don’t do in Mexico,” said Gregorio Marin, a spokesman for Salazar.

Marin said he does not expect to keep his job under the new governor.

It is not clear how President De la Madrid persuaded Salazar to resign. According to one report, the head of the Presidential Guard visited San Luis Potosi over the weekend and may have passed the word to Salazar. This report has it that he was told to resign on Tuesday and that Salazar, in anger, resigned Monday, forcing his successor to rush up from Mexico City to accept the rubber-stamp welcome of the state legislature.

The successor, Ortiz Santos, is typical of gubernatorial appointments. He has been in the party since 1951, and for the past 30 years has spent little time in his home state. He has held posts in Mexico City.

He apparently has come to San Luis with two goals: to end the protests over prison conditions and to reunify the local branch of the party. He has invited relatives of prisoners to visit him in his office, something Salazar refused to do, and he has called publicly for party unity.

He has not gone so far, however, as to try to appease the conservative politicians who are crying electoral fraud.

“That was a long time ago, and I am beginning anew,” he said in an interview.