Monday, June 23, 2008

Felipe Calderón Firms his Political Control in Mexico

By Barnard R. Thompson

With Germán Martínez, the President of Mexico’s National Action Party (PAN), abruptly removing Santiago Creel Miranda from his Senate leadership role as coordinator of the ruling party’s 52 senators, on June 9, rumors and ruses immediately began to fly.  And not just in the 128-member Senate (where the PAN holds the most seats), but on the broader stage as well, among all of those interested in Mexican politics, national interests and world affairs.

The foreign press picked up the story from the Mexican media, and most versions went with the report that Senator Creel had been dismissed due to his uninspired role in the PEMEX, or Mexican Petroleum, debate.  This based on Creel’s less than energetic backing in the Senate of President Felipe Calderón’s reforms that would open areas of the state owned oil and gas monopoly to private sector involvement.

However, to paraphrase Paul Harvey, there is more to the story.  Plus the rest is to come.

Santiago Creel [53], an attorney, began his public political activities in the early 1990s, and in 1994 he has named to Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute as a council member.  In 1997 he was elected to a three year term in the federal Chamber of Deputies, backed by the PAN, yet he did not actually join the party until 1999.  In 2000 Creel unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Mexico City, yet Vicente Fox won the presidency in that year’s elections and he subsequently named Creel Secretary of Government, or Interior, where the latter served until 2005.

According to almost all reports, Creel was Fox’s choice to be the PAN presidential candidate in 2006 and, hopefully, his successor.  And during the 2005 run-up campaigning for the candidacy Creel certainly seemed to think he would be the party’s chosen one.  (Ultimately, in the PAN’s internal democratic selection and election process, Calderón beat out Creel.)

During that period, in 2005, two significant events occurred prior to the PAN’s nominating conventions and candidate elections.  First there was a leadership change in the party, with Manuel Espino Barriento, a dogmatic know-it-all and Fox loyalist, winning the national presidency.  And once in office Espino made a Creel favoring move in the Chamber of Deputies, when he removed Calderón ally Germán Martínez from his then post as coordinator of the PAN deputies.

Incidentally, at the time much of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering was said to have been orchestrated by Fox (and his wife).

As well, in the spring of 2005 then Interior Minister Creel authorized a number of federal gaming permits, with Televisa, the Mexican television conglomerate, getting a whopping total of 130 of the licenses for numbers parlors and “remote betting centers,” or offsite books.  This, and apart from the gaming law and regulatory challenges that ensued, brought on a firestorm of criticism against Creel, from not only opposition party politicians but too from within the PAN, a major claim being that in exchange for the permits he had brokered a sweetheart deal with Televisa for advertising during his campaign for the nomination and subsequently the presidential campaign period.

And to some degree this may have played a part in Creel’s loss of the presidential candidacy.

However Creel did win a 2006 to 2012 term in the Senate, thanks to Fox and the Espino-led PAN putting him high up on the proportional representation list of candidates.  Furthermore, the 2012 presidential elections could not have escaped their vision at the time.

Besides the claims that Creel lost his party leadership post in the Senate due to his apathetic attitude towards Calderón’s energy reforms, the removal has also been attributed to other factors.  Ironically, one claim is that Televisa and the Azteca Television network helped to force him out.

With 2005 long gone, yet in part certainly with the memory of possible advertising irregularities during the 2006 campaigns, the Mexican Congress has since made several reforms and modifications to the Constitution, Federal Electoral Code, and Federal Television and Radio Law (some of which are still pending).  Without going into detail, the stricter guidelines and changes add controls over party and candidate spending and spending practices on commercials and advertising, and as such they may cost networks and broadcasters millions if not billions of pesos in the future.

And Creel, who is currently the President of the Senate, supposedly failed to act in the interests of the media during the debates and thus the networks are said to have been demanding his head.

Before continuing, it must be noted that Felipe Calderón has truly consolidated power, not only in the executive branch of government but too with his people now in top positions throughout the PAN’s extended body politic.  And he has accomplished this in a very impressive manner.

Too, there of course is a high probability that payback was part and parcel of Creel’s ouster, a move that Martínez could not have made without Calderón’s approval (Calderón was conveniently en route to Spain when the action was taken).  Payback by Calderón for Creel’s actions and attitudes in 2005, and what he has done – or not done – since.  Plus turnaround-is-fair-play for Martínez, considering that Creel sympathizers dumped him as party coordinator in the Chamber of Deputies in 2005.

More importantly today, an integral part of all of this is setting the stage and positioning the actors for the 2012 presidential elections.  Contests that will have, so to speak, next year’s midterm elections for the Chamber of Deputies as a posturing and positioning dry run for each party.

And it appears that Creel, a past PAN heir apparent for 2012, is now being pushed out of the limelight and away from a future leading role.

Among Mexicans, with the exception of the United States of America, ambassadors to foreign countries are not seen as particularly significant or important.  In fact, ambassadorial posts have often been used as a kind of exile for those who political leaders at home feel would better serve their interests by being sent abroad.  The more clout the person has, the further from Mexico he or she should be sent.

Within the next month or two, insiders expect Santiago Creel to be named ambassador to either the United Kingdom or Chile.

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Barnard Thompson, editor of MexiData.info, has spent 50 years in Mexico and Latin America, providing multinational clients with actionable intelligence; country and political risk reporting and analysis; and business, lobbying, and problem resolution services.