Mexico PRI rebels formally demand Zedillo expulsion

MEXICO CITY, August 1 (Reuters) -- Rebels in Mexico's ruling party, angered by its first presidential election defeat in 71 years, formally petitioned on Tuesday for President Ernesto Zedillo to be expelled.

Five moderately influential factions in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) also demanded the expulsion of Zedillo's predecessor, Carlos Salinas, accusing both of undermining the PRI through neoliberal, free-market economic policies.

"We formally request the firm expulsion of Carlos Salinas and Ernesto Zedillo," said Martin Sanchez, coordinator of the PRI's Social Movement for National Democracy, one of the groups presenting the petition.

Unaccustomed to defeat, the PRI has been riven by internal power struggles between pro-Zedillo technocrats, mainly U.S.-educated economists, and the "dinosaurs" -- old-style PRI politicians closely associated with vote fraud, paternalism and fierce nationalism.

The PRI was founded in 1929 to bring a fractured Mexico together after the bloodshed of the 1910-17 Revolution.

It began life with a paternalistic and populist ideology but in recent decades, its principles became more fuzzy, and its main aim appeared to be the retention of power.

Under Salinas, who ruled from 1988-1994, and Zedillo, whose six-year term ends in December, Mexico has firmly embraced the free market.

Many state enterprises have been sold off, its borders have been opened to trade and Mexico has adopted the so-called neoliberal economic policies of fiscal and monetary discipline promoted by the International Monetary Fund.

Sanchez said the governments of Salinas and Zedillo pursued economic and social policies that were contrary to the PRI's basic populist and paternal spirit. He criticized the privatization of banks and state firms, and hikes in taxes.

Earlier this month, the five factions said they would stage a symbolic trial of Zedillo on August 23, accusing him of being a traitor to the party for so quickly acknowledging the PRI's defeat in the July 2 general election.

Vicente Fox, of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), will become Mexico's first non-PRI president in seven decades when he is sworn in on December 1.

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