Pena Nieto’s Mexico Energy Reform Faces Delay in PAN Shakeup

Bloomberg, 5/21/2013

Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto’s reform agenda that includes legislation to end the monopoly of state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos faces delays due to a shake-up in the former ruling party’s leadership.

Former President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party, or PAN, yesterday ousted former Finance Minister Ernesto Cordero from the Senate party leadership. The decision erodes the political consensus parties have built in congress, complicating the economic reform agenda, according to IdeaGlobal and Javier Oliva, a political scientist at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.

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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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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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Mexico’s “game-changing” telecom reform due in days: party leader

Reuters, 3/6/2013

Mexico’s phone and television markets, long dominated by Carlos Slim and his rivals, are facing a game-changing shakeup that could be announced in days, according to one of the political leaders tasked with drafting the reform. “This (reform) changes the whole board game,” Gustavo Madero, chairman of the conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN), told Reuters in an interview.

The leaders of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Mexico’s two main opposition parties are currently preparing the telecoms reform, which should be brought to Congress in days, not weeks, Madero said.

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Weekly News Summary: March 1st

The Mexico Institute’s “Weekly News Summary,” released every Friday afternoon summarizes the week’s most prominent Mexico headlines published in the English-language press, as well as the most engaging opinion pieces by Mexican columnists.

What the English-language press had to say…

This week, Elba Esther Gordillo, the powerful leader of the SNTE, Mexico’s teachers’ union was arrested for allegedly embezzling over $150 million in union funds to support her lavish lifestyle. The arrest shocked the nation and came only a day after President Enrique Peña Nieto signed into law a new education reform package. Many interpreted the move as an attempt by the Peña Nieto administration to reassert state authority over special interests, and as a warning to other industries (e.g. telecommunications and energy) that reform is on the way. NYT columnist Thomas Friedman gave much to talk about following two very optimistic pieces. He suggested Mexico will become a dominant economic power in the 21^st century, and praised Mexico’s young ‘just do it’ generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya mirrored Mr. Friedman’s optimism by suggesting a reinvigorated energy sector will transform Mexico into the world’s “new Middle East.” Meanwhile, north of the border, looming automatic budget cuts prompted ICE to release several hundred low-risk immigrants from deportation centers across the country.

Pacto Por Mexico: The Expert Take

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new opinion column “The Expert Take” which will feature original analysis and commentary from guest contributors featured exclusively on the Mexico Portal. We invite you to check back frequently for updates to this column.

By Roderic Ai Camp, 12/12/2012

During the era of the pre-democratic PRI in Mexico there existed a long history of national political pacts. Those pacts typically were between the PRI dominated executive branch and the two most influential actors, labor unions and business organizations. In the 1990s, at the highpoint of the democratic transition, the PRI for the first time in its history lost its ability to ensure a two-thirds vote in the legislative branch, preventing it from accomplishing constitutional changes. Consequently, the PRI began negotiating with the opposition; in exchange for support on some legislative initiatives, it agreed to electoral legislation which paved the way for the 2000 electoral victory of PAN.