Editing Mario Vargas Llosa (section)

=== Mexico ===
A month after losing the [[1990 Peruvian general election|1990 election]], at the invitation of [[Octavio Paz]], Vargas Llosa attended a conference in Mexico entitled, "The 20th Century: The Experience of Freedom". Focused on the collapse of communist rule in central and eastern Europe, it was broadcast on [[Mexican television]] from 27 August to 2 September. Addressing the conference on 30 August 1990, Vargas Llosa embarrassed his hosts by condemning the Mexican system of power based on the rule of the [[Institutional Revolutionary Party]] (PRI), which had been in power for 61 years. Criticizing the PRI by name, he commented, "I don't believe that there has been in Latin America any case of a system of dictatorship that has so efficiently recruited the intellectual milieu, bribing it with great subtlety." He declared, "Mexico is the perfect dictatorship. The perfect dictatorship is not communism, not the USSR, not Fidel Castro; the perfect dictatorship is Mexico. Because it is a camouflaged dictatorship."<ref name="terra">''Terra.'' 7 October 2010. [https://archive.today/20130112184033/http://www.terra.com.mx/noticias/articulo/973216/Vargas+Llosa+a+20+anos+de+Mexico+es+una+dictadura+perfecta.htm Vargas Llosa a 20 años de "México es una dictadura perfecta"] (Vargas Llosa, 20 years after "Mexico is a perfect dictatorship").</ref><ref>''El País'' (Madrid). 1990 September 1. [http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/AZUA/_FELIX_DE/TRIAS/_EUGENIO/VARGAS_LLOSA/_MARIO/MARSE/_JUAN_/ESCRITOR/PAZ/_OCTAVIO/SARAMAGO/elpepicul/19900901elpepicul_1/Tes Vargas Llosa: "México es la dictadura perfecta"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111024235439/http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/AZUA/_FELIX_DE/TRIAS/_EUGENIO/VARGAS_LLOSA/_MARIO/MARSE/_JUAN_/ESCRITOR/PAZ/_OCTAVIO/SARAMAGO/elpepicul/19900901elpepicul_1/Tes|date=24 October 2011}}</ref> The statement "Mexico is the perfect dictatorship" became a cliché in Mexico{{sfn|Reding|1991|p=257}} and internationally, until the PRI [[2000 Mexican general election|lost power in 2000]].