Pemex Overhaul Harder as PRI Misses Mexican Congress Majority

Bloomberg, 07/03/2012

Incoming Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto will struggle to overhaul the state-run oil industry, a project he has called his “signature issue,” after his party won fewer seats in Congress than pre-election polls forecast.

That leaves Pena Nieto dependent on the opposition to overhaul tax and labor laws, and his PRI well short of the two- thirds majority needed for constitutional changes to open up the oil industry to private investment. He must now convince much of the opposition and his own party to back a law that he says is needed to reverse seven years of declining output in the largest supplier of crude to the U.S.

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Populism in Mexico: A Tale of Damage [In Spanish]

Letras Libres, April 2012

Can one speak of a Mexican populism? If so, who would be its Mexican exponents? Is there a danger of neo-populism? César Cansino reviews Mexican history in order to find the answers. First, he explains that populism has implied high costs for the country as it has either inhibited or postponed development, democracy, and social justice in Mexico. According to Cansino, it would seem as if populism has appeared and disappeared in Mexico in a pendulum effect, impulsed by inefficiency and opacity of previous administrations.

Cansino identifies three characteristics in the political experience of populism: 1) placing the people above the power of existing institutions, thanks to an artificial symbiosis created between the people and the populist leader, 2) the absence of institutional mediation, given that the figure of the populist leader becomes assimilated to people, 3) a personification of politics into the populist leader, leading the people to believe that they can only be heard through the leader. The recurrent presence of populism in Mexico, Cansino believes, have to do with the poor modernization of the country’s political system.

Excerpts: Other Voices on Mexico’s Drug War

Wall Street Journal, 5/19/2010

Over the past couple of weeks, Wall Street Journal reporter David Luhnow talked with politicians and experts who offered their views on Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s attempts to end drug-related violence in Mexico. Read excerpts of the conversations with Lázaro Cárdenas, former governor of Michoacan state and a leading leftist politician; Enrique Krauze, Mexico’s most prominent historian; former Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda; and Prof. George Grayson, Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary.

Lázaro Cárdenas, former Michoacán governor

The Army and Navy are still the most trustworthy institutions in Mexico. So, he didn’t have many options. The trouble is — what’s the exit strategy? Because centering the strategy on the army, well — that’s your last option, there’s nothing left after them.

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Brief History of Presidents vs. Union Leaders (in Spanish)

El Universal, 10/13/09

Lázaro Cárdenas and Luis N. Morones; Adolfo López Mateos and Demetrio Vallejo; Carlos Salinas and La Quina, are just some of the players in union disputes.

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Interview: Mexico must strengthen electoral system

Interview, El Pais, 1/28/2009

Lazaro Cardenas

In an interview with Spain’s El Pais, Cuahutémoc Cárdenas, PRD founder and son of President Lázaro Cardenas (1934-1930), discusses foreign policy, the fragmentation of the Mexican left, the progress of the country’s democracy, and the 2009 elections.

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