Monday, June 21, 2004

 

Without a political thaw Mexico faces a bitter future

 

By Carlos Luken

 

Can you imagine if the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” turned out to be real? In the film climatologist Jack Hall discovers that global warming was triggering not only a climate cataclysm, but also the beginning of a new Ice Age in the Northern Hemisphere.

 

Now, should this theme be relocated from Manhattan to Mexico and the Mexican congress, the plot would change from science fiction and become a bona fide political tragedy.

 

Today, after three years of democracy, it is no secret that Mexico’s congressional partisanship has iced most of the efforts for legislative reform of President Vicente Fox. And in doing so the country is paralyzed in hazardous stagnation, likening the congressional frivolity to the movie plot.

 

Mexico is in a virtual legislative Ice Age that not only defies responsibility but challenges democracy.

 

Regrettably, all of the political parties misunderstand Mexico’s now democratic system, this after 71 years of autocratic rule and single party domination, and current elected officials believe that each incident of everyday life is political cannon fodder. Mexican parties excel in finding anything that can divide the country, instead of looking for that which can unite the nation and bring about progress. Democratic virtues of liberty and free speech have deteriorated from priceless elements of a representative society to weapons used in the melees that result from constant and pointless confrontations.

 

In blatant belligerence many politicians seize on each and every opportunity to condemn an opponent’s political and private behavior, which leads to predictable personal retaliations and character assassinations that in turn make effective dialogue impossible.

 

As a consequence, many analysts now accept that for the remaining two and one-half years of the Fox presidency any bill submitted to congress by the executive branch, regardless of its significance or content, will not be approved due to partisan politics.

 

While Mexico must face the critical need to import natural gas and gasoline as it rapidly depletes its own exploitable reserves, legislation to allow private investment for needed infrastructure development and modernization cannot be passed. Outdated tax laws are burdens to private sector investors, while at the same time weighing down the government. Obsolete labor laws are throwbacks to past socialist government’s, laws that discourage investment in the country and drive investors elsewhere in search of business friendly environments.

 

Mexico’s neo-political process already needs an overhaul as many old conventions are still in place. As well, simplistic decrees have proven to be impractical, plus recently passed electoral laws have certain severe flaws with respect to political parties and campaign regulations.

 

But energy, fiscal, labor and political reforms, all vital issues, have regrettably been relegated to a status of hopelessness — with little concern for the perilous consequences this all brings to Mexico’s already frozen future. Witness the latest example.

 

Fox announced on June 15 that he would send a bill to Congress asking legislators to grant approximately 10 million Mexicans living abroad the right to vote for president in 2006. This gesture would recognize not only the importance of those voters, but also their contribution to the Mexican economy as the remittances they send home now total more than US$13 billion, making this Mexico’s second most important source of foreign revenue, after crude oil.

 

One would think this is a no-brainer that should pass indisputably, and thus give Fox a breakthrough in Congress via a popular piece of wanted legislation. But alas no, for even while Mexico’s three major political parties support some type of similar legislation, there were member politicians who were quick to disagree with Fox.

 

Opposition legislators immediately began a rhetorical war to minimize and discredit the Fox initiative, wanting to keep his National Action Party (PAN) from claiming authorship. Enrique Jackson, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) leader in the Senate, quickly minimized the initiative’s importance by saying it is only one of several projects on the floor. He also raised procedural questions and cast doubts on the bill’s wording.

 

Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) members of congress forced the legislation to be shelved by insisting that it must be part of a more sweeping political reform package, something they themselves have blocked since last year. PRD Deputy Emilio Zebadua went so far as to question the president’s timing as “… an exploitation effort against the legislative branch.”

 

PAN Deputy German Martinez shot back by accusing opposition party members of wanting to block any and all Fox proposals and initiatives, labeling the opponents — and their unconstructive political positions — “schizophrenic.”

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Carlos Luken (a www.mexidata.info columnist), a Mexicali, Baja California, based businessman, is the principal in I.L.C. Corporate Real Estate, a project development firm, and I.L.C. Corporate Services, a consulting practice that provides business management, consultancy and lobbying services to global corporations and government agencies. He can be reached via e-mail at ilcmex@yahoo.com.