Monday, June 6, 2005

 

The Fox cabinet and Mexican campaign politics

 

By Carlos Luken

 

Participants and onlookers alike greeted the June 1 resignation of Santiago Creel, Mexico’s Secretary of Government and the Vicente Fox administration’s top political operative, with mixed emotions.

 

On one hand the move signaled a transition that, if successful, will guarantee continuity for Fox’s policies. On the other, it brings on yet another period of disconcerting cabinet adjustments.

 

On the politics side, prior to Creel stepping down the National Action Party, or PAN (the party of both Fox and Creel), had announced its convention schedule and rules for the upcoming nomination of its 2006 presidential election candidate.  And in today’s Mexico this is important.

 

Once such PAN announcements were little more than token news items, an opposition party’s quasi-ceremony to select a sacrificial lamb to be defeated by the ruling, autocratic and all-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

 

But now that the PAN is in power, and with Mexico having developed into a three party democracy, things have changed. Too, and contrary to some past campaigns, the PAN currently has a group of four solid pre-candidates, all of whom at one time or another have served in Fox’s cabinet.

 

Yet compared to the PRI, whose 71-year reign up until 2000 gave it the experience needed to conduct smooth presidential transitions and well-managed power transfers, negotiated by internal coalitions and orchestrated in near secrecy, the PAN’s inexperience is showing.

 

For example, in a recent and regrettable speech PAN president Manuel Espino issued an ultimatum for Fox to sack non-party cabinet executives and replace them with PAN members, throwing down a gauntlet that Fox subtly evaded.  Many political analysts however are now apprehensive that Espino’s suggestion, although apparently disregarded, could trigger a PAN stampede to and from cabinet positions and elections. This in turn could create a domino effect and a new period of discontinuity and lack of coordination as new appointees reshuffle their teams to bring in new, loyal but untested executives, at a time when concentrated efforts focusing on immediate results are needed.

 

The departure of Santiago Creel represents a major loss to the Fox government. As Secretary of Government, Mexico’s interior minister, he steered a very difficult course for democracy in a country that, while desperately wanting democracy, has done everything possible to snuff its existence.

 

Fox named Labor Secretary Carlos Abascal Carranza to replace Creel. Abascal, a longtime business leader prior to entering government, is a skilled negotiator and probably the most conservative member of the Fox team.

 

In a Mitofsky Consulting firm poll, taken immediately after Creel announced his resignation, the PAN hopeful shot up to a 51 percent favorable rating among PAN members. Each of his three party rivals, former Energy Secretary and PAN president Felipe Calderon; ex-congressman and Chihuahua governor Francisco Barrio; and current Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Alberto Cardenas, a past governor of Jalisco, scored 8 percent. Cardenas has announced he will resign before June 15th, presenting Fox with another cabinet opening he will have to then fill.

 

In the meantime, Agriculture (SAGARPA) Secretary Javier Usabiaga expressed his interest in running for the governorship of Guanajuato. Usabiaga, a longtime personal friend and confidant of the president who also served in the Fox government when the latter was governor of Guanajuato, will probably resign by October.

 

Getting back to the presidential race, and considering party preferences rather than individual pre-candidates, the Mitofsky poll shows similar and longstanding electoral predilections among hardcore party members. The so-called hard vote distribution is fairly even, with the PRI having 25 percent, while the PAN and the PRD each have 20 percent.

 

But among PRI members, 49 percent favored party president Roberto Madrazo, and a combined total of 42 percent preferred one of the party’s other six candidates. And whereas 51 percent of PAN members said they would choose Creel, 91 percent of PRD members said they support Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

 

Unless all six Madrazo challengers unite to back one of their own, and rally the PRI membership accordingly, Madrazo will likely be the PRI candidate. Supposedly Creel can withstand a coalition among his three PAN opponents and still have the delegate support to win the party nomination. And Lopez Obrador of the PRD, to all intents and purposes, is running unopposed.

 

As for 2006, politically Mexicans expect a conflictive presidential campaign and a problematical election. Too, between now and July 2 of next year matters could be further complicated by an unpredictable political environment due to an inexperienced presidential cabinet.

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Carlos Luken, a MexiData.info columnist, is a Mexico-based businessman and consultant.  He can be reached via e-mail at ilcmex@yahoo.com.