By
The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - Several top members of Mexico's former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, said they want to create a new party out of the ashes of the old group, which ruled the country for 71 straight years.
The PRI "was never conceived to exist without a PRI president in power," and thus should be dissolved and re-formed with a new name, new ideology and structure, the group said in statement published yesterday.
Created by a sitting president in 1929, the PRI held the presidency without interruption until it lost July, 2000 elections to current President Vicente Fox.
The PRI retains more governorships and congressional seats than any other party, but votes held since the July 2 defeat show the party going down hill fast.
The dissident group, calling itself "The Renaissance Movement," includes Genaro Borrego, a former national leader of the PRI, and influential businessman Eduardo Bours.
It called for giving a more leftist, "social-democrat" ideology to the PRI, which had become increasingly conservative and market-oriented over the last two decades.
While they proposed no new name, the group did say the party would have to register members as individuals, rather than the current scheme of organizing the rank-and-file under farm, labor or community sectors.
The PRI's current leadership - tied to the conservative wing of technocrats who led the party to defeat - has announced that in November it will hold a national party convention, the first the PRI has ever held as an opposition group.
Organizers have said the expect 10,000 PRI members to attend the convention, and the Renaissance Movement said it will present its proposals there.
