Monday, December 18, 2006

How Is Mexican President Calderon Doing So Far?

By Allan Wall

After two weeks in office, how is Felipe Calderon doing as President of Mexico?

Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox, deserves high marks for keeping the economy stable, with no peso crash or runaway inflation.  Yet you might say the economy was a little too stable, in that it lacked the dynamic growth that could provide enough jobs for the million Mexicans who enter the work force annually.  The new president needs to preserve Fox’s good financial policies while enabling the expansion of more and better-paid jobs.

As well, Mexico is in the midst of a growing crime wave, including drug cartel related violence that has claimed over 2,000 lives this year alone.

So far, Calderon has hit the ground running and he seems in control of his agenda, which is quite ambitious.  His three stated priorities are jobs, fighting poverty and fighting crime.   When you think about it, creating jobs is the best way to fight poverty.

Calderon has enforced an austerity program upon his own administration, with 10 percent pay cuts for himself and cabinet officials.  He plans to fight corruption and improve tax collection (now running at a 40 percent evasion rate).  The new president wants to encourage tourism and other economic development, and concentrate on the 100 poorest municipios (more or less equivalent to U.S. counties ) in Mexico.

From the previous administration, Calderon inherited the ongoing strife in Oaxaca, which Fox had failed to deal with for months until he reluctantly sent in the quasi-military PFP (Federal Preventive Police).  Calderon has shown resolve in facing the situation, both by arresting the principal leader of the radical protesters, and investigating the state police as well.

As part of the Mexican war on drugs, Calderon has already dispatched thousands of soldiers, policemen and sailors on a military offensive against drug traffickers of Michoacan state.

Felipe Calderon seems to exhibit better political skills than predecessor Fox, who was a great candidate but incapable or unwilling to do the horse-trading required to deal with Mexico’s Congress, a rambunctious body with no majority party.

Furthermore, the correlation of forces in Congress is better for Calderon than it was for Fox.  If he plays his cards right he can form a working majority with the formerly-ruling PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), which was chastened in the last election but now possesses a strategic kingmaker role between Calderon’s PAN (National Action Party) and the PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution).

As for the PRD, although it still claims not to recognize Calderon’s presidency its congressional representatives and senators are de facto parts of the system whether they admit it or not. As well, PRD governors have recognized Calderon and they are developing working relationships with the new president. That’s understandable, given the importance of federal funds to state budgets.

Certainly the challenges Felipe Calderon faces are enormous, and he’s barely begun.  In the drug war, aggressive policing and military operations have their places, but fighting against money laundering and the corruption that makes drug trafficking possible must accompany them. And even if he can do that, the enormous demand for drugs in the United States is feeding the narcotics trade.

To decrease poverty, Calderon must move beyond mere economic stability to encourage a dynamic economy, which involves taking on some powerful vested interests and breaking up some monopolies.

The new president must also take into account the diversity of Mexico’s population and the economic disparities that go along with it. For example, on his first trip as president to Guerrero state, Calderon (accompanied by PRD Governor Carlos Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo) visited the home of a poor lady who didn’t even speak Spanish.  It’s no coincidence that the poorest regions of Mexico are also the most indigenous, and that they include people who have never really been integrated into mainstream Mexican society.

A Washington Post editorial on December 15th, entitled, “A Tough Beginning,” gives the new president high marks, and summarizes the situation thusly: “Good politics and aggressive law enforcement should help to increase and consolidate the new president’s authority. Then he will have to use it to push through the institutional and structural reforms that Mexico needs to thrive.”

Calderon faces enormous challenges, but we should all hope he can be successful. It’s better for Mexico, and better for the United States as well.

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Allan Wall, a MexiData.info columnist, recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.  He currently resides in Mexico, where he has lived since 1991. He can be reached via e-mail at allan39@prodigy.net.mx.