Monday, January 21, 2008

Presidential Insider Named Interior Minister in Mexico

By Allan Wall

On January 16th, 2008, Francisco Ramirez Acuña stepped down as Mexico’s Secretary of Government, Gobernación, and he was replaced by 36-year old Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo.

So what is the function of the Secretario de Gobernación?  In English, it’s usually translated “Minister of the Interior,” or “Secretary of the Interior.”  In the United States the “Secretary of the Interior” is what we call the official who takes care of national parks and federally owned land. But the Mexican position is very different.

In Mexico, the Secretario de Gobernación is the president’s right hand man, his enforcer, and his negotiator. The Secretario is in charge of domestic security, disaster relief, immigration, movie ratings, TV commercials, and the official news agency Notimex.  And, the Interior Minister is the president’s chief negotiator with Congress, political parties and state governors.  It’s a position that is key to the administration’s success, or lack thereof.

Officially, Ramirez Acuña resigned to “attend to personal matters,” which nobody believes.  President Calderon was displeased with his performance and asked him to resign.  Ramirez had been the subject of much criticism, for, among other things, failure to maintain effective relations with legislators of various political parties, including his own.  Also, he was criticized for a slow response to the Tabasco and Chiapas floods, and failure to handle the terrorist attacks on oil installations. 

The new Interior Minister, Juan Camilo Mouriño (known as “Ivan”), is already Calderon’s closest collaborator, and he is moving over from the President’s Chief of Staff position. 

Under the Vicente Fox administration (2000-2006), Mouriño worked with Calderon in the Department of Energy during the latter’s tenure as Secretary. In the PAN (National Action Party) primary in 2006, Mouriño was Calderon’s campaign manager in his victory over Santiago Creel (Fox’s preferred candidate). In the general election, Mouriño ran Calderon’s war room, then after the election was in charge of his transition team.  The new Interior Minister has previously served as a state legislator in Campeche, and a congressman.

As Calderon’s Chief of Staff, Mouriño was known as the “fireman” and the “negotiator,” and he was already fulfilling many of the functions that a Secretary of Gobernación normally does.  The new Interior Minister is also said to have good relations with the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), which is very useful in negotiations.

Juan Mouriño was also born in Madrid, Spain. And that brings up another complicated issue.

Whereas in the United States a naturalized American citizen can do about anything but become president (and some people even want to change that), in Mexico a naturalized Mexican is severely limited from many positions. A naturalized Mexican citizen is prohibited by law from serving in the military during peacetime, being a policeman or a pilot, captain or crewmember of any vessel or aircraft bearing a Mexican insignia, or being in charge of a port or airport.  Also, a naturalized Mexican can be stripped of his Mexican citizenship while a natural born Mexican cannot.

In politics, a naturalized Mexican can never serve in the Mexican Congress, on the Supreme Court, be a governor, or a cabinet secretary.  Politically speaking, naturalized Mexicans are second-class citizens and are severely limited in the political realm.

So how was it possible for Mouriño to have served in the Mexican congress and to be named Interior Minister, both posts off limits to naturalized Mexicans?

The reason is that Mouriño, despite having been born in Spain, is considered a Mexican by birth.  The Mexican Constitution stipulates that one born to a Mexican mother or father in another country is a Mexican by birth.  And Mouriño’s mother is Mexican.

In fact, people have already begun talking about the possibility of Mouriño being a future Mexican president.

But the next presidential election isn’t scheduled until 2012.  In the immediate future, Mouriño has a lot of challenges, including the security situation and the negotiation of a much-needed energy reform. 

Surely the new Interior Minister wasn’t under any illusions that this would be an easy job, but his first full day on the job (January 17th) made it clear that it wasn’t. Among other things, that day saw a cartel shootout in Tijuana in which little children were filmed being evacuated from a school.  Also, striking teachers, protesting the past year’s pension reform, gave Mouriño a welcome by protesting right in front of the Interior Ministry headquarters in Mexico City.

“Ivan” has his work cut out for him, that’s for sure.

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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.