Opposition dispute rivets Mexico, threatens reforms

Los Angeles Times, 5/20/2013

A dramatic rupture in Mexico’s main opposition political party has aired the group’s dirty laundry and also could trip up President Enrique Peña Nieto’s ambitious agenda of reform. The political fireworks riveted Mexicans on Monday, dominating airwaves and social media as leaders of the National Action Party, or PAN, bickered openly.

On one level, citizens were viewing another chapter in the agony of a party that ruled for the last 12 years but has been corroded by infighting and a bitter power struggle. Also at stake, potentially, was the ease with which Peña Nieto has been getting legislation through a fairly compliant Congress. PAN chair Gustavo Madero over the weekend unceremoniously fired his party’s caucus leader in the Senate, Ernesto Cordero. Cordero will remain in the Senate, even continuing to hold his title of Senate president, but will no longer be the party’s go-to man.

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Mexican politics: The PRI’s long tail

The Economist, 5/9/2013

On May 7th Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico’s president, showed off some of the fancy political footwork that days before had earned him the gushing endorsement of his first visiting head of state, Barack Obama. Flanked in the National Palace by leaders of Mexico’s three main political parties, he resurrected an ambitious reform programme that a scandal in his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had threatened to derail.

Notwithstanding finger-wagging by opposition leaders, Mr Peña persuaded them to restart a tri-party political pact that is the crown jewel of his five-month-old administration. On May 8th the pact was put into action when the government sent a package of bills to Congress to increase bank lending and competition. Next it hopes to liberalise the state-strangled oil industry and raise taxes broadly. Eventually, as Mr Obama succinctly put it, the aim is for Mexicans to make it through each day without paying a bribe.

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Mexico Parties Sign Electoral Deal to Resume Reform Agenda

The Wall Street Journal, 5/7/2013

Mexico’s government and opposition leaders signed an agreement Tuesday to prevent the use of federal antipoverty programs in support of candidates in coming local elections, a condition demanded by the opposition to continue backing the reform agenda of President Enrique Pena Nieto. The deal, signed at a public event at the National Palace, promises to end a political dispute that in recent weeks threatened to derail the so-called Pact for Mexico, an unprecedented accord between the government and opposition to secure legislative support for key economic and structural overhauls.

Tuesday’s agreement was added to the pact, a 34-page document outlining 95 commitments to bolster Mexico’s competitiveness, agreed in December by Mr. Pena Nieto, the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD. The Congress has already passed overhauls of the education and telecommunications sectors drawn up under the pact, raising expectations among Mexicans and foreign investors that the country can approve long-postponed reforms. A financial sector proposal to bring about more and cheaper bank lending, postponed in late April due to the political dispute, is now expected to be presented as early as Wednesday.

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No talks on key Mexico reforms until spat resolved: opposition

Reuters, 4/30/13

A multi-party alliance to modernize Mexico’s economy will not discuss pending energy and tax reforms until an electoral spat between the opposition and the government is resolved, the head of the main leftist party said on Tuesday. Jesus Zambrano, chairman of the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), said there could be no talks on these reforms until the government had taken clear steps to punish those responsible for a vote-buying scandal in the Gulf state of Veracruz that was exposed this month.

“There won’t be (talks) about anything that is not to do with the political and legal … structure that will enable us to get out of this impasse,” he told Reuters in an interview. President Enrique Pena Nieto’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has been forced on the defensive since the conservative National Action Party (PAN) put out recordings of PRI officials advocating the use of government funds to secure votes in Veracruz in elections due on July 7.

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President Enrique Peña Nieto works to soothe Mexico tensions

Financial Times, 4/24/13

Mexico’s four-month-old administration on Wednesday appeared to overcome its first political crisis after opposition leaders said that they had largely settled their differences with the government. The agreement, which came after an emergency meeting of party heads, appears to put the government’s economic reform back on track in a turnaround that will doubtless ease investor concerns.

Billions of dollars have flowed into Mexico in recent months on hopes that centrist President Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party will push a series of reforms aimed at transforming Latin America’s second-largest economy into a more vibrant emerging market.

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Mexico vote-buying scandal threatens president’s agenda of reforms

Los Angeles Times, 4/23/13

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Tuesday faced the most serious political crisis of his young government, an explosive dispute with rival parties over electoral dirty tricks that could imperil his ambitious reform plans. Peña Nieto’s highly touted Pact for Mexico, a kind of blueprint for his administration’s agenda that had seemed to have won consensus from most major political groups, was on the verge of collapse after fresh reports of vote-buying by the president’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

The government was forced to cancel a series of public events under the auspices of the Pact for Mexico to avoid the embarrassment of a boycott by the main opposition factions. The first casualty would appear to be a broad reform to overhaul Mexico’s financial sector, which was scheduled to be unveiled Tuesday.

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Mexico fires 7 for allegedly planning to use aid programs to promote ruling party in elections

Associated Press, 4/18/13

The head of Mexico’s Social Development department dismissed seven officials Thursday after some of them were mentioned in taped discussions about how to use anti-poverty programs to promote the governing party in upcoming local elections. The dirty tricks discussed at the meetings included kicking opposition supporters off a federal program that provides small monthly stipends to poor families and handing out government-supplied wheelchairs in the name of the ruling party.

It reads like a laundry list of abuses from the past of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, which ruled Mexico for seven decades with graft and handouts until it lost the presidency in the 2000 and the 2006 elections. When Enrique Pena Nieto’s regained the presidency for the PRI last year, he said the party had reformed itself. But the tapes released by the conservative National Action Party reveal officials from the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, which is governed by the PRI, discussing how to get National Action supporters off government social programs and insert PRI supporters.

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Op-ed: What is Power For? (Spanish)

Luis Rubio

El Universal, 4/18/2013

John Bailey reviews Luis Rubio’s book, Mexico Matters, and analyzes how the Wilson Center’s event, “Mexico Today”, was a significant in regards to the US- Mexico relationship.

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Enrique Peña Nieto’s Cabinet & Specialized Cabinets

Click on the link to learn who is part of Enrique Peña Nieto’s cabinet. Information regarding his specialized cabinets is also included.

President EPN Cabinet

What is the purpose of Obama’s visit to Mexico? (Spanish)

Milenio, 4/10/2013

La decisión de Barack Obama de aceptar la invitación que le hizo el presidente Enrique Peña Nieto plantea varias interrogantes. Ante todo, porque se prevé que poco después vendrá a la Cumbre de Líderes de América del Norte, acompañado por el primer ministro de Canadá, Stephen Harper. Considerando las crisis internacionales y las abultadas agendas de política interna y de política exterior que enfrenta al inicio de su segundo y último mandato, Obama seguramente pudo haber esperado unas semanas para reunirse por primera vez con Peña Nieto en su calidad de Presidente constitucional. La pregunta es: ¿por qué optó por adelantar el encuentro?

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