Thursday, 14 November 2013 00:10
BY DAVE GRAHAM
Reuters
MEXICO CITY – Accused a generation ago of engineering the “perfect
dictatorship,” Mexico’s ruling party is now close to agreeing on a plan
that could weaken the presidency and strengthen Congress in order to win
votes for a major energy reform.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its opposition rivals
are shortly expected to unveil the blueprint for a reform aimed at
giving Congress greater oversight of government and allowing lawmakers
to serve consecutive terms.
Billed as a step forward for democracy, the electoral reform is a
bargaining chip for President Enrique Peña Nieto’s most ambitious plan —
changing the constitution to allow more private capital into Pemex.
The energy bill is the central pivot of a broader drive for change
from telecoms to education that Peña Nieto hopes will help boost
Mexico’s economic growth, which has long lagged that of other countries
in the region.
Peña Nieto needs two-thirds of the votes in Congress to change the
constitution. But the PRI does not have a majority, making it dependent
on help from an opposition keen to cut back the party’s long-standing
domination of Mexican politics.
Some of the votes needed for the oil reform are likely to come from
the National Action Party (PAN) — which has made them conditional on
electoral reform passing first.
That is close to becoming reality.
Senior politicians in the PRI, PAN and the leftist Democratic
Revolution Party (PRD) say they see eye-to-eye on most of the reform and
PRI Senate leader Emilio Gamboa told local radio that a bill could be
voted on next week.
If approved, it would then go to the lower house, improving the chances of a deal on the energy reform this year.
Political sparring over how much to open up the oil industry, which
the left is resisting, has raised doubts about whether Congress can
approve an energy reform this year.
Still, Martínez of the PAN said talks on the energy bill had advanced
significantly in recent weeks, and Interior Minister Miguel Ángel
Osorio Chong told Mexican radio on Tuesday he saw “the will” in Congress
to pass it this year.
The electoral reform seems unlikely to bring about a major change
sought by the PAN — a direct run-off between the first and second placed
candidates in presidential elections.
“That isn’t on the agenda for the PRI at least,” said Enrique Burgos,
a PRI senator who chairs the committee responsible for constitutional
matters in the upper chamber.
What it is certain to contain are changes to reverse a ban on
consecutive re-election of legislators in Congress — rules peculiar only
to Mexico and Costa Rica in Latin America.
Senators would have the option of serving two consecutive six-year
terms, while lower house members would be allowed to sit in Congress for
up to three or four three-year stints in total, according to
legislators involved in the talks. At present, legislators can only stay
in Congress by hopping between houses for a maximum of 9 to 12 years.
The reform foresees changing the constitution to allow states to
decide whether to permit direct re-election of mayors and deputies in
the state legislatures, Burgos said.
But it should also do away with the “the omnipotent president”
created by the PRI, said Jesús Ortega, an ex-chairman of the PRD and one
of his party’s chief negotiators.
Changing the electoral law has been a perennial objective of
opposition parties looking to erode the power base the PRI has
maintained since the party’s founders consolidated the political system
established after the Mexican Revolution.
The reform also aims to create a more powerful national electoral
body — but that has met resistance from states governed by the PRI
unwilling to give up the control they have over the outcome of tight
elections, said Ortega of the PRD.
“I call it the resistance of the barons,” he said.
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