Mexico's New President Tearing Up the Script
From The Americas
"Last summer Enrique Peña Nieto's determined face stared down from election posters, promising Mexicans: "You know I will deliver." Just over 38% of
voters were convinced, enough to hand him the presidency. Since his inauguration on December 1st he has indeed delivered several new policies and
reforms-just not the ones voters and pundits expected.
During the campaign Mr Peña's aides in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) said that before Christmas of 2012 there would be a fiscal reform
to increase the government's meagre tax revenues. That would be swiftly followed by a shake-up of the energy industry to give a competitive nudge to
Pemex, the state-run oil and gas monopoly, at whose headquarters a suspected gas explosion killed 38 people on January 31st. Mr Peña's critics
retorted that he was a puppet of special interests, such as the teachers' union and powerful broadcasters.
Today the situation seems to have reversed. The promised tax and energy reforms have been pushed back to the second half of this year, with assurances
that Pemex will not be privatised (though joint ventures with private firms are likely). Meanwhile Mr Peña's legislators have turned their guns on
those they were expected to protect. In January Mexico's states ratified a constitutional reform that paves the way for better training and stricter
evaluation of teachers, which should undermine the power of the union. An enabling law is due before the summer.
Now the government has set its sights on telecoms. According to Aurelio Nuño, the president's chief of staff, within two months the PRI will present a
bill to attack the "great problem of concentration" in telephony, internet and television. It promises to chip away at the business empire of Carlos
Slim, the world's richest man, and that of Televisa, a broadcasting giant with mediocre soap operas but outstanding lawyers who have helped it to hold
on to a 70% share of free-to-air viewers, as well as about half the pay-TV market.
Mr Peña's change was partly prompted by the circumstances of his election. His 6.6% margin of victory fell short of the predicted landslide. Nor did
the PRI manage to win a majority in either chamber of Congress. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a left-wing candidate who came second, made
unsubstantiated claims of fraud, which he later levelled against the electoral institutions when they dismissed his claims. Mr Peña's strike against
Televisa is partly designed to undermine the claim that he is too cosy with them. Similarly, a reform in December to beef up freedom-of-information
laws, by allowing appeals at the federal level if states refuse requests, is geared towards countering the PRI's secretive image.
The other reason for the change of tack is an unexpected alliance struck in December between the PRI and the two main opposition parties. The "Pact
for Mexico", which contains 95 policy proposals on subjects from health to human rights, is the government's biggest achievement so far, Mr Nuño says.
The three parties that have signed up hold nearly every seat in Congress. Only a few leftists are holding out.
Through the pact, the government has gained cross-party support for its raids on teachers and telecoms, which are not vital to the opposition's
electoral base. The agreement will come under strain when the time comes to attack a group tied to a specific party. The fiscal reform will mean
raising sales taxes by some combination of higher rates, the inclusion of food and medicine or the abolition of a low-tax zone near the United States
border. The centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) fears that its supporters may defect to Mr López Obrador, who quit the party in
September, if it goes along. Reforming Pemex could prove still more controversial-not least with the rank and file of the PRI, which overlap heavily
with the oil workers' union.
Mr Peña must make the most of the pact before July 7th, when elections in 14 states will pit the three parties against each other. In Baja California
the PRI hopes to unseat the conservative National Action Party (PAN) for the first time in 24 years. A bad showing could mean curtains for the PAN's
embattled president, Gustavo Madero. The left faces a bigger split, as Mr López Obrador goes about founding a party of his own. Co-operation will be
harder if both opposition parties fall into disarray.
Mr Peña's agenda could also be knocked off course by security, as happened to the previous president, Felipe Calderón. José Antonio Meade, an
economist appointed to be foreign secretary, has begun to steer the conversation about Mexico onto happier subjects, such as the roaring export
sector. The murder rate is at its lowest in three years. But new fronts of violence have opened on the edge of the capital and in Acapulco, where six
Spanish women were raped by gunmen in a beach house on February 4th. Mr Peña is wise to have ditched Mr Calderón's drug-war rhetoric, says Juan
Pardinas, the head of IMCO, a think-tank, but he has gone "from the wrong narrative to no narrative at all". On February 12th the government unveiled
its second anti-crime plan in as many months, focused on the country's 100 most violent towns. A promised "gendarmerie" of 10,000 former soldiers will
not be created until the end of the year.
Less than 100 days into his presidency, Mr Peña's unexpected course is bringing some dividends. His political ad-libbing in response to changing
conditions has so far been deft. But many of the government's boldest promises have not yet been achieved, and need to be."
[Edited on 2-15-2013 by Gypsy Jan]
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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