The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 9

INTERNATIONAL MEWS 9 EiBDDs TOO THE GUARDIAN Wednesday August 24 1994 Fasti DeaiTuDeir I John Cuttings Zedillo will have to balance democracy and PRI factions Tim Golden reports from Mexico City Luis Donajdo Colc- sio lay dying in a Tijuana hospital on "tithe night of March 23, an assassin's bullet in his head, a handful of his aides gathered together in the office of Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, the manager of Colosio's campaign to become president One phone line was open to the hospital, another to President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. After a short while, some of those present began urging Mr Zedillo to join the president "That's where you have to be," one insisted, fearful that a rival for the suddenly vacant candidacy of the governing party might get there first. If Mr Zedillo was hesitant then, he was not on Monday. With barely IS per cent of Sunday's presidential vote counted and well before either of his main opponents conceded defeat, the economist, aged 42, announced himself the winner. The two episodes illustrate the hurried political maturation of a man of consuming ambition, who nonetheless owes his presidency to the most violent and unexpected circumstances.

Mr Zedillo faces a singular challenge. He has spent most of his career dealing with foreign debt and economic planning. Now he must respond to increasing demands for political system, and a greater say in government. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon was born on December 27, 1951, to a working-class family in Mexico City. Three years later, his father, a struggling electrician, moved his wife and six children to the northern border city of Mexicali.

Friends say his vision of the United States, in particular, owes much to his upbringing. Unlike the previous president, the privileged son of a government minister who went to Harvard, Mr Zedillo grew up in a gritty neighbourhood of an ugly, dusty city dominated by its smaller Californian neighbour, Calexico. He studied economics at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City and at Yale. Upon returning to Mexico, he went to work at the country's central bank. He had already joined the PRI at 19.

After three years as minister of planning and budget, Mr Zedillo became education secretary in 1992. The post launched him into contention for the PRI's presidential candidacy. He quickly faded from the race, however, after conflicts with the powerful teachers' union and two fiascos in which history textbooks he commissioned had to be withdrawn because of public uproars over their revisionist content. When Colosio was announced as President Salinas's choice to succeed him, he made Mr Zedillo his campaign coordinator. It was the position that Colosio had held in Mr Salinas's campaign, and many politicians saw the move as a sign that the president was already grooming Colosio's likely successor.

New York Times. With 65 per cent of the ballots counted, Mr Zedillo had 49 per cent of the vote, an insurmountable lead, but the lowest percentage ever for a ruling party presidential candidate. Diego Fernandez de Cevallos of the centre-right National Action Party was second with 28 per cent, followed by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the Democratic Revolution Party with 16 per cent. Mr Cardenas told a rally in Mexico City on Monday the election was "a colossal LA! TYPHOON has devas tated one of China's uoastal provinces. killing sat least 700 people.

I More than 8 million inhabit-ants of eastern Zhejiang were Laffected by flooding, from 'Typhoon Fred, officials said yesterday. Haifa million homes 'were destroyed or damaged. "There is no way of calculating many people are still they added. The typhoon pounded the coastal region of this eastern province over the weekend, -causing flash floods and 20ft tidal waves. The latest blow comes after a summer of disasters" which have been 'severe even by Chinese standards.

Nearly 2,000 Chinese have already died from flooding in southern and eastern China. month's floods hit six 'provinces and caused more than 4 billion of damage. But drought in other areas, affecting 27 million people, has forced impoverished peasants off the land. From central Anhui province to western Tibet, many can now be seen begging on the streets. Chinese leaders have told the people to face adversity br ively.

The minister in charge of flood relief, Chen Junsheng, said that "socialism is superior" when it comes to dealing with natural catastrophe. But Mr Chen has warned local officials to watch out for profiteering and looting and to improve health services so as to prevent outbreaks of cholera or dysentery. Many Chinese believe that the state no longer copes efficiently with disaster. Soil erosion and widespread logging make floods more devastating. Mr Chen is now in Zhejiang co-ordinating the relief effort The province had been lashed by rain for 43 consecutive hours with more than 8in falling in some areas.

Meanwhile the official newspaper People's Security called yesterday for national action to "improve social It said there had been a 20 per cent increase this year in serious crime. March of the slaves A Manila policewoman stops 'comfort women' from confronting the Japanese prime minister yesterday PHOTOGRAPH: FERNANDO SEPE Filipino sex slaves march against Japanese PM hotel in the Philippines capital carrying banners reading "Compensation They want 130,000 each for their suffering. The 50-strong demonstration came on the first leg of Mr Murayama's four-country tour of south-east Asia, and coincided with an opinion poll, published in the Asahi newspaper, showing that 72 per cent of Japanese think their country has not done enough to compensate victims of its aggression. Mr Murayama will offer fresh apologies to the countries concerned and pledge billions of yen in new aid, probably including funds for a centre to help Filipino women become self-sufficient. But the Japanese government's view is that it settled the issue of official compensation through post-war reparations to the various governments.

Maria Rosa Luna Henson, a former sex slave now aged 66, said yesterday that the programmes Mr Murayama was offering to pay for were "a waste of Ms Henson said: "It doesn't mean a thing to us. We want them to compensate us directly and not the Philippines people generally, because the young people were not born." About 200,000 women, mostly Korean, but also Filipino, Chinese, Dutch and Indonesian, were forced into prostitution at bayonet point. Many of them were in their early teens. Until last year the Japanese government denied any official involvement, claiming the women had joined voluntarily or had been recruited by private enterprises. To save some face, the gov ernment is now trying to persuade businesses, trade unions and individuals to contribute to a fund for the women.

The foreign minister, Yohei Kono, said yesterday that the government could support such a fund, though not with direct contributions, "if it's what the Japanese public want to The Philippines government is likely to urge Mr Murayama to offer compensation to the women and to the more than 600 children abandoned by their Japanese soldier fathers after relationships with Filipino women. Kavln Rafforty In Tokyo THE Japanese prime minister, Tomiichi Mur-ayama, was met in Ma nila yesterday by a demonstration of former sex slaves demanding compensation for maltreatment at the hands of Imperial Army sol diers SO years ago. The former "comfort women" the euphemism for women forced to serve Japanese soldiers as frontline prostitutes during the second world war braved heavy rain to march to his change, and negotiate with key opponents if not bring them di rectly mto his government. But he must also contend with conservative factions of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party PRI that believe he owes his victory to them and nothing to the opposition. More broadly, he will have to pick up the pieces after an administration that has carried out deep economic reforms but left millions clamouring for a more equal distribution of wealth, a less corrupt justice Does everyone with Mercury need a Mercury button telephone? asks David.

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