Calderón visit as much about domestic politics as visa-free travel

What isn't being said about President Felipe Calderón's globetrotting ...

Calderón visit as much about domestic politics as visa-free travel

DAVID AGREN

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Calderon publicly scolded his American hosts during a visit to Washington last week, when used a speech to a joint session of Congress to condemn an anti-illegal immigrant measure recently passed in Arizona and lax gun laws that facilitate the southward flow of weapons into Mexico.

The condemnation drew scorn in the United States, but played well with the domestic audience back home - especially in the political class.

It’s uncertain if Calderon will bring a similar tough approach to Ottawa this week, his first trip to the capital since the federal government imposed visa restrictions last July on Mexicans heading to Canada.

What is certain, however, is that Calderon brings the same pressing domestic and political concerns to Ottawa as he did to Washington -- even though the visit appears timely: The Canada-Mexico relationship has appeared to be less openly friendly over the past year as the new visa regulations for Mexicans have been poorly received and visits to Canada -- a country that had been an increasingly trendy destination for tourist trips and studying abroad -- have subsequently diminished.

But political analysts say scolding Canada for imposing visa restrictions on Mexicans, instead of fixing a refugee system rife with abuse and bogus claims, would play well with the domestic audience and be an easy way for Calderon to score political points at a time his National Action Party (PAN) has been performing poorly on the local level and gubernatorial elections are underway in 12 of the country's 31 states. The outcome of those election could shape the final two and a half years of his presidency as he tries to achieve reforms to labor, finance, the political system and the public security apparatus, but confronts a divided Congress and increasing powerful state governors reluctant to cede territorial control over matters of law-and-order .

“He’s going to complain, not in a diplomatic way, but in terms of propaganda, about the need for Mexicans to request a visa,” said Aldo Muñoz Armenta, political science professor at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico in Toluca.

“The only forum he has to promote his agenda … is that he leaves the country," Muñoz added, referring to the traditions of president not openly campaigning in gubernatorial and local contests.

At home, Calderon faces a tough domestic agenda that goes beyond the problems of security and battling the cartels -- a battle that has claimed more than 23,000 lives since he took office in December 2006.

The Mexican economy, hit hard by the H1N1 outbreak and problems in the United States, dipped by nearly seven per cent in 2009, while the rates of unemployment and poverty have increased.

The 12 state-level elections pose enormous political problems, too.

The resurgent Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) -- which governed for 71 years until being deposed by the PAN in 2000 -- could run the table on July 4, further weakening Calderon's administration. It could also add to the PRI's advantage for the 2012 presidential elections as the party already governs 19 states and its governors operate effective political machines for turning out the vote, rule with little transparency and frequently manage social programs for electoral purposes.

“There are many elections in which the PAN is at a disadvantage. He needs … to strengthen his party,” Muñoz said.

“These foreign trips are unavoidable,” he added. “The problem is they’re used for electoral purposes.”

Muñoz expects Calderon to raise the visa issue prominently in Canada -- much as he raised the migration and gun issue in the U.S. Congress.

Others issues on the Canada-Mexico agenda include trade, the expansion of programs for sending temporary and agricultural workers to Canada and Canadian assistance in combating the ongoing security problems in Mexico. The Mexican media is certain to raise the issue of fugitive union boss Napoleon Gomez, who has been residing in Vancouver to avoid charges pertaining to the misappropriation a $55 million trust fund.

But the travel visa still generates some negative headlines and hurt feelings in Mexico and its clumsy and sudden implementation has not been forgotten.

The pop-culture publication “Chilango” summed up the mood at the time of the visa’s implementation with its cheeky front-page admonishment, “Be patriotic and don’t be go to Canada” -- a twist on a common expression disparaging “chilangos,” as Mexico City residents are known.

Muñoz says the visa issue, like any matter pertaining to migration -- a perpetual issue in many downtrodden parts of the country -- would receive the most attention in Mexico and provide Calderon with the best opportunity for building political capital.

“Migration is a permanent issue in Mexico. It continues being an issue capitalized on a lot … it’s a beneficial issue for politicians.”

President unveils political system overhaul

Calderón's proposed political reforms include reelection, run-off elections and fewer federal lawmakers

President Felipe Calderón unveiled a proposal on Dec. 15 for staging run-offs in future presidential elections. The process would pit the two biggest vote-winners in a run-off election to determine a clear victor - and presumably avoid a rerun of the narrow 2006 presidential contest, when Calderón narrowly won by less than a single percentage point and the scorned runner-up, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, derided the process as rigged.

The president unveiled the proposal as part of a 10-point plan for overhauling an oft-maligned political system that is dominated by powerful political parties and, according to some observers, run by an irresponsible political class that lacks both professionalism and accountability to voters.

The 10-point plan fulfilled a promise made earlier this fall to advance reforms such as the reelection of legislators and mayors, introduce the possibility of holding referendums and allowing for the election of independent candidates.

Calderón's proposals include those ideas, but, if the version he sent to Congress is approved, it would also eliminate the Senate seats distributed through proportional representation and reduce the number of seats in the Chamber of Deputies by 25 percent.

Other proposals call for allowing citizens and the Supreme Court to propose laws and creating a mechanism for the president to critique legislation already approved by Congress before signing it into law. (Torreón-based writer Patrick Corcoran of the Gancho blog compares this to a version of the line-item veto.)

One proposal could potentially imperil the nation's minor political parties - the Green Party, Labor Party, Convergence party and New Alliance - by raising the minimum-vote threshold necessary for them to maintain their registrations with the Federal Electoral Institute from two percent to four percent.

Opposition lawmakers greeted the president's plan with muted enthusiasm. Senate president Carlos Navarrete of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) groused about the president sending the plan to Congress on the final day of the ordinary sessions. (The permanent commission of Congress begins sitting next week.)

"The president likes to wait until the minute and send it in a nick of time, well, he needs to understand that Congress will take its time evaluating the proposals," he told reporters.

Navarrete - described in news reports as being "bothered" by the president's timing - said debate would likely begin in February.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), meanwhile, questioned the president's motives and timing and suggested that Calderón was pursuing diversionary tactics.

"It seems that this change of direction comes after the adverse and precarious results with which the executive arrives at the second half of its government ... in the economic and security matters that were its priorities" said PRI Sen. Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, president of the constitutional points committee.

Still, some in the PRI appeared open to holding discussions with the president, although Coldwell raised the possibility of his party pursuing other reforms such as an overhaul of the presidency itself and giving Congress more of a role in vetting presidential appointments. (PRI heavyweight, Sen. Manlio Fabio Beltrones has long called for creating a "cabinet chief" position, while Coldwell said the PRI wanted to end the "cronyism" in Calderón's cabinet selections.)

State of Mexico Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto appeared even more cautious that his Senate counterparts. He told reporters that he opposed reelection for historical reasons that go back to the national mythology that constant reelection during the rein of Former President Porfirio Díaz provoked social unrest and led to the Revolution.

Peña Nieto, an early favority for the 2012 PRI presidential nomination, previously has said that he instead favours extending legislative and mayoral terms from three years to four years. His support for any proposals could be key as he reputedly wields enormous influence over the roughly 40 PRI lower-house lawmakers from his home state.

For his part, López Obrador blasted the Calderón proposal for a run-off election. In a Twitter posting, he said, "The mafia want a run-off in the elections. They think that with Televisa and their two parties [PAN and PRI], they're going to keep themselves in power forever."

Calderón and López Obrador both claimed 35 percent of the 2006 popular vote; most analysts say that a run-off would have undoubtably gone in favor of the PAN.

President signs drug-decriminalization law

President Felipe Calderón finally signed a new law that decriminalizes the possession of small quantities drugs that include marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine. The law - which Congress approved in April, despite objections from National Action Party (PAN) lawmakers in the lower house - also requires state and municipal police forces to crack down on small-time drug dealing, known in Mexico as narcomenudeo.

Calderón proposed the law last year as part of a series of measures for combating narcotics-trafficking gangs. Other measures proposed making it easier for the government to seize the assests of organized crime, overhauled the Attorney General's Office (PGR) and created a new Federal Police. The war on drugs has claimed more than 11,000 lives since Calderón took office in December 2006.

The president's original proposal called for mandatory rehabilitation stints for those caught with drugs. Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) senators balked at that proposal and made rehabilitation voluntary. PAN deputies nearly rioted when the bill arrived in the lower house, however. The deputies unsuccessfully demanded mandatory rehabilitation be included and also objected to the quantities of drugs that could be carried without incurring penalties. The amounts surpassed the original proposals called for by Calderón.

The law allows for the possession of five grams of marijuana, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine and 500 milligrams of cocaine without incurring criminal penalties.

Calderón waited months before signing the law - he also waited to sign a maximum salary law that forbids any public servant or politician from earning more than the president - fueling speculation that he might exercise the presidential veto.

One PAN lawmaker, who voted against the measure, told me back in May that Calderón would eventually sign the law since it contains provisions that force state and municipal police to begin cracking down on small-time drug dealing. Those tasks had been the exclusive jurisdictions of federal police forces. Small-time drug dealing, he added, also is becoming more common in Mexico as the cartels develop a domestic market for their product and pay their underlings in merchandise.

The law follows a previous effort in 2006 to decriminalize drug possession. Congress passed a bill that year, but President Vicented Fox vetoed it after caving to pressure from U.S. officials.

Calderón's right-hand man resigns

Germán Martínez promised big things upon winning the PAN presidency by acclamation in December 2007 - a move that analysts say was ushered in by President Felipe Calderón, who wanted to wrest control of his party from rival factions, and had been friends with Martínez from their days as young Panistas in Michoacán.

Martínez promised unity for a party that was split among warring factions, and divided over the leadership of polemic outgoing president Manuel Espino, whose conservative and Catholic factions never warmed to the 2006 candidacy of President Felipe Calderón. Martínez also promised to put an end to an electoral losing streak that had cost the PAN state and local governments in places such as Yucatán, Aguascalientes and Mazatlán. He said that the continuation of such electoral calamities - blamed on party infighting over nominations - would ultimately result in the PAN losing the presidency in 2012.

The losing continued throughout 2008, however. Martínez attributed those electoral misfortunes to geography; local elections were held in such PAN wastelands as Baja California Sur, Hidalgo and Guerrero that year. But late last year, he promised that 2009 would be different. He promised that the PAN would retain its leading stature in the Chamber of Deputies and win many of the six governor's races being held in 2009. He pointedly promised to win Nuevo León back from the PRI.

He promised too much.

Martínez resigned as PAN president on Monday after leading the party to an election night debacle in which the PRI and its ally the Green Party (PVEM) gained a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Even worse, the PAN lost five of the six governors races, including Nuevo León. Other losses came in PAN strongholds such as Querétaro and San Luis Potosí, where the PAN was knocked from power. The party also was decimated in places such as the conservative heartland of Jalisco as the PRI took 12 of the 20 seats in the state congress and the four big municipalities that comprise the Guadalajara metropolitan area. The PRI also displaced the PAN in its State of Mexico strongholds to the west of Mexico City - most notably in Nuacalpan and the state capital, Toluca.

Some of the PAN's lack of electoral success could be blamed on external factors such as the global economic crisis, an economy weakened by the outbreak of swine flu, and public security problems. The PRI also got its act together after being humbled in the 2006 election.

But Martínez - who some PAN politicians acknowledge works closely with Calderón - both annoyed and alienated many party members with his tactics, which were branded undemocratic. The PAN National Executive Committee appointed the majority of PAN congressional candidates in 2009, along with gubernatorial candidates in places such as Nuevo León. The practice drew accusations of Martínez using the "dedazo," an old PRI practice of the president hand-picking his successor that had been decried by many Panistas during their days of being erstwhile members of the opposition.

Martínez also was the public face of a fierce PAN electoral offensive that accused the PRI of being a half-hearted participant in the war on drugs and blamed it for failing to tackle the cartel problem during the years that it ruled the country. That strategy may have worked; it perhaps prevented the July 5 vote from being a complete wipe out, but not much more.

That strategy angered many in the PRI, whose leadership largely responded to the attacks in a non-combative fashion. And now with the PRI wielding power in San Lazaro, Martínez became an obstacle to Calderón pushing any sort of reforms through Congress in the latter half of his administration. Martínez's departure became even more necessary since the lower house is entirely responsible for the passing the budget - the PAN-led Senate has no role in the process.

No replacement has been named for Martínez, who assumed full responsibility for the elections outcome in his resignation address. (Calderón surely deserves some of the blame, too.) Espino weighed in earlier in the day by calling on Martínez to humble himself. No doubt, many disaffected Panistas - those on the outs with Calderón, the conservative-Catholic Panistas in Western Mexico, and those loyal to former PAN presidential candidate and legal bigwig Diego Fernández de Cevallos, former president Vicente Fox and, of course, Espino - will no doubt be jockying for control of the party in the coming months.

And what about Sen. Santiago Creel? PAN presidents appoint the party's parliamentary leaders. Could he be in line for a comeback, or another run at the PAN nomination in 2012? Perhaps. But Calderón surely must go down as the biggest loser in this affair; Martínez was his right-hand man.

This article ran in The News last December, one year after Martínez became PAN president.

For right-hand man, time to get it right

By David Agren
The News

Monday marks one year since Germán Martínez took the helm of the governing National Action Party amid allegations that, instead of promoting internal unity and ending a string of embarrassing election defeats as hoped, he has purged rivals from the party leadership and presided over a disastrous year at the polls.

Back in the fall of 2007, Martínez was tapped by President Felipe Calderón to restore order in the PAN, which was rife with internal conflict and led by an executive at odds with Los Pinos. He was to guide the party into 2009, when anticipated success in midterm elections would facilitate the president's agenda of reforms.

The jury is still out on the effectiveness of Martínez's short reign as party president. Some analysts and PAN lawmakers say it is still too soon to pass judgment. At the end of his first year, some conflicts are still simmering - particularly a rift with the faction loyal to former party president Manuel Espino - and he has presided over a string of unsuccessful election results at the state and local level.

But everyone agrees that next year will test Martínez's mettle as he leads the governing party into midterm elections that come amid a sharp economic downturn, a bloody and increasingly difficult war on drug trafficking cartels and a revival of the previously downtrodden Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

"The acid test is next year, with six governorships at stake," said ITAM political science professor Federico Estévez.

SO FAR, NOT GREAT
The PAN's unimpressive local election results in 2008 have been received poorly in some circles within the party.

"It's evidently a reflection on the inner workings of the party at the municipal, state and federal levels," PAN Deputy Cristian Castaños told The News.

In spite of the losses - many of them in states that traditionally vote against the PAN, anyway - the lawmaker was quick to credit Martínez with taking necessary, if not universally popular, steps toward modernizing PAN policies, working cooperatively with rival political party leaders and keeping a lid on internal discord.

In April, the PAN loosened restrictions preventing non-members from running as party candidates in order to tap a larger pool of talent and avoid nomination squabbles in cliquish local committees.

Martínez also deepened relations with the presidents of opposition parties by striking agreements over how to keep illicitly gained funds out of election campaigns and issuing a joint condemnation of the Sept. 15 grenade attacks during Independence Day celebrations in Morelia.

Martínez even made attempts to reach out to some of the PAN's estranged factions - most notably, former President Vicente Fox, who was given an advisory position to the party's Strategic Planning Commission.

"The easiest path [for Martínez] was not to make any noise, not fight anyone, and don't pay any cost," said Castaño.

TIGHT CIRCLE
Martínez assumed the party presidency without a fight. No other PANista dared oppose Calderón's longtime collaborator and anointed candidate for deposing a regime headed by Espino. (Espino had fought Calderón's presidential aspirations and at times since 2006, had even hindered the newly elected president's ability to effectively wield power from Los Pinos.)

The ascent of Martínez, a Michoa-cán native like Calderón and a former federal comptroller, to the PAN presidency accelerated a process through which Calderón seized control of the party and began tightening the close inner circle of confidants he has depended on for governing during much of his second year in office.

Martínez adopted a similar style to that of Calderón. He renewed the party's National Executive Committee by appointing members close to the president, and sacked long-time Calderón rival Santiago Creel as Senate leader in June.

The move would give a "push" to the stalled energy reform negotiations, he said.

The changes spurred accusations that he was carrying out a purge, especially after the new PAN leadership in the Senate ultimately agreed to an energy reform deal that many analysts described as "watered down."

But then, the plan went awry. Calderón and Martínez were forced to open their inner circle with the Nov. 4 death of Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño in a plane crash. The factions loyal to former PAN presidential candidate Diego Fernández de Cevallos and former party president Luis Felipe Bravo Mena were brought back into the fold when Calderón appointed Fernando Gómez Mont as interior secretary, and Bravo Mena as chief of staff.

Those moves could ultimately undercut both Calderón and Martínez, according to UNAM political science professor Francisco Reveles.

"There's been a modification in the relationships between the PAN's internal groups that doesn't favor President Felipe Calderón or the president of the party," he said. "The president and his team is having to [make] an agreement with other groups."

Some disagree. ITAM political science professor Jeffrey Weldon, for one, said that cracking open the inner circle would not bring peril, explaining that Fernández de Cevallos still commands respect within the party and that Calderón has simply ended a needless spat. Thawing relations with Espino, often identified as a leader of one of the PAN's most conservative factions, was another matter.

"The Espino faction will stay on the outs for some time, although [they] still control a bunch of states," Weldon said.

Espino, a figure known for sharp outbursts and the current leader of an umbrella group of Christian Democratic parties known as ODCA, has continued being polemic even after having left office. He has questioned Calderón's tactics of working closely with the PRI, saying such moves would only discredit the party. Espino also announced last Thursday that he would once again become active in the PAN leadership - a right bestowed upon all former party presidents.

But the announcement of his return coincided with the PAN leadership's eviction of the ODCA and Espino from the offices they had been lent by the party.

PAN Deputy Gerardo Priego called the gesture "rude" - the offices had been vacant for nine years before ODCA arrived - and said the eviction was evidence of the contradictions in the party leadership's claims that it was eager to find unity. "The discourse is inclusive . [but] if you're pretending to be inclusive, you have to show it in your actions," said Priego.

LOOKING AHEAD
Espino told reporters last week that he was returning to the forefront of the PAN "so that this string of electoral defeats in our party doesn't continue."

Indeed, even though the election cycle appears to favor the PAN next year, with gubernatorial races being staged in its heartland states of San Luis Potosí and Querétaro, much is at stake in 2009, and no one is certain Martínez can do it alone. The party hopes to gain ground in states such as Nuevo León, Sonora, Campeche and Colima - and some say the pressure will really be on Martínez if the PAN fails to live up to expectations.

"If [Martínez] doesn't win Nuevo León, it would be a defeat for the party," Weldon said. "He has to hold his states, and ideally, pick up another one in either Sonora or Colima."

Priego is one PANista who expresses hope for 2009. But he also said that tactics needed to change. And, he said, Martínez would be better served by a different team of electoral advisors.

"Those who are directing the party don't have a history of working at the municipal or state committee level," the deputy from Tabasco said. "They don't know grassroots politics. They need to complement their [teams] with people [who have] this experience."

Mexico's drug war turns political

My latest for World Politics Review on how the Mexican government's war on drugs has become a partisan political issue.

What's Next for Andrés Manuel López Obrador?

The second anniversary of President Felipe Calderon taking power passed earlier this month - along with the second anniversary of the "gobierno legitimo" being founded by election runner up and the self-proclaimed "presidente legitimo" Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

World Politics Review ran a pair of good analysis pieces:

Mexico's Calderón Faces More Obstacles Ahead (By Patrick Corcoran) and What's Next for Andrés Manuel López Obrador? (By David Agren.)

Deputies dispute plan for overhauling police

by DAVID AGREN
The News

Opposition lawmakers on Tuesday rejected proposals for creating a single federal police force under the command of the Public Security Secretariat, or SSP, but signaled their willingness to back other safety measures proposed by President Felipe Calderón.

"We don't want to see a single police force," Deputy Francisco Rivera Bedoya, the president of the Public Security Committee and a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, told The News. "We want to see better coordination between [all of the forces] rather than a single federal police force."

The opposition to the policing proposal will mean more delays on security measures proposed this summer. Lawmakers will likely miss a Saturday deadline for achieving the 74 public security objectives laid out at an August federal crime summit.

Lawmakers on Tuesday expressed little discomfort over missing the deadline, however.

"Our commitment is to introduce legislation during our normal period of sessions, which ends Dec. 15," said Senate president Gustavo Madero.

Since the summit, Calderón has presented measures that would change sentencing laws, target the assets of those affiliated with organized crime, crack down on kidnapping and decriminalize the possession of small quantities of drugs.

He also proposed revisions to the National Security System Law, calling for the merger of the Federal Preventive Police, or PFP, and Federal Investigations Agency, or AFI, and proposing the new force be granted broader preventive and investigative responsibilities. But the country's two main opposition parties - the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, and the PRI - almost immediately voiced objections.

On Tuesday, PRI lawmakers objected to increasing the budget for the federal police at the expense of the state forces, as well as the creation of a more powerful SSP led by Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna. The PRD also objected.

Members of Calderón's National Action Party, or PAN, backed the measure, saying it would improve local police.

"We have 2,438 municipalities with police forces, 32 [states and districts] with police chiefs, plus federal forces," PAN Dep. Edgar Olvera, the secretary of the Public Security Committee, told The News. "We're a country with a large number of police forces, but without a law for coordination and cooperation."

Olvera also discarded PRI complaints that reducing money for local police forces is "violating state sovereignty," saying that the PRI is using that argument to evade accountability. The PRI currently governs 18 states and its governors wield enormous influence within the party.

"The state governors - the majority of them PRIístas - want to receive the money," Olvera said. "They all want to receive the money, but they don't want to accept the rules. They all want to have discretion with the resources."

New No. 2 signals party push for unity

by David Agren
The News

With the sudden death last week of Juan Camilo Mouriño, President Felipe Calderón shelved his criteria for appointing Cabinet members on Monday, and reached beyond his inner circle to tap Fernando Gómez Mont as interior secretary.

Analysts say the move reflects a new style of governance being ushered into Los Pinos, and that the president is signalling his desire to advance his agenda of structural reforms in a divided Congress. This would require a shrewd negotiator and non-polarizing figure in the Interior Secretariat.

"This is a good signal because the president, governing with his inner circle, has been isolated and not really able to build bridges," said political analyst Jorge Zepeda Patterson. "Calderón's Cabinet [has been] characterized by people who have long futures, but short pasts."

The appointment also reached across current breaches in the National Action Party, or PAN, which has been plagued by low-level feuds between pro-Calderón groups and those that never warmed to his nomination for the presidency.

"[The appointment of Mont is] a strong signal for a unified party," said Jeffrey Weldon, a political science professor at the ITAM.

AN OLD HAND

Gómez Mont, the son of a PAN founder and close collaborator of former PAN presidential candidate Diego Fernández de Cevallos, brings a long political history to the Interior Secretariat. He previously sat in the Chamber of Deputies in the early 1990s and participated in commissions that revamped the electoral and judicial systems.

As a criminal defense attorney, he later defended both former President Carlos Salinas and the president's brother Raúl along with a former Pemex director implicated in the Pemexgate scandal.

He also helped create the tamper-proof voter identification card that most Mexicans carry in their wallets.

As an attorney, Gómez Mont developed a reputation as a shrewd negotiator - a key skill for an interior secretary, who acts as a liaison between the presidency and other levels of government, but who is also responsible for security matters.

"The main function of the Interior Secretariat is precisely that of a political operative," Zepeda said. "They didn't opt for a military man, or police official as many had speculated."

Mouriño drew posthumous praise for his political skills, but was derided through his 10-month term by left-wing lawmakers anxious to assail the president via a proxy. They demanded the interior secretary's resignation over allegations of previously steering business to a family company.

Zepeda said Gómez Mont would mostly like draw less fire, but could be "injured" by left-wing lawmakers who hold grudges against Fernández de Cevallos, a controversial figure for his decision to defend private companies as a lawyer against the government while serving as a senator.

"It's important for Calderón to be able to have a moderate left that is allied with him to pass reforms and not have to depend on the [Institutional Revolutionary Party]," Zepeda said.

Mouriño dies in crash

Mouriño dies in crash

by DAVID AGREN
The News

The nation's highest-ranking Cabinet official died Tuesday evening when his government-owned jet plunged into a narrow street lined with office buildings in the capital's upscale Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood.

Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño, a trusted adviser of President Felipe Calderón and the country's top public security official, died in a crash that claimed the life of José Santiago Vasconcelos, the former lead federal prosecutor for organized crime.

"Mexico lost a great Mexican, intelligent, loyal, committed to his ideals, honest and hard-working," President Felipe Calderón said in televised remarks Tuesday night.

The president tapped his former chief of staff to be interior secretary earlier this year in an effort to smooth relations with Congress for the introduction of a politically sensitive energy reform package. But the Spanish-born Mouriño, 37, immediately became polemic as contracts surfaced suggesting that he had steered Pemex business to family businesses while serving in previous public positions. He was most recently mentioned as a possible gubernatorial candidate in his home state of Campeche.

Mouriño and Vasconcelos were returning from public security meetings in the state of San Luis Potosí, but their plane crashed for reasons that are still unclear to investigators.

The crash killed all nine passengers and crew members and at least three more on the ground, according to Carlos Huber, spokesman for the civil protection agency in the borough of Miguel Hidalgo. At least 40 people were injured, seven of them seriously.

Photos taken by Huber shortly after the crash showed at least three weapons belonging to passengers on the plane littering the scene.

He told The News that at least 20 vehicles were torched and one of the victims was found sitting in a car.

Huber said that the Learjet 45 appeared to have been traveling in a northward direction - the opposite direction for aircraft arriving in Mexico City from San Luis Potosí and contrary to the normal flight path to the capital's international airport.

Senate votes for reform

AMLO addresses followers at November 2007 rally.


Senate votes for reform

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

The Senate approved an energy reform package Thursday, six months after President Felipe Calderón unveiled his controversial plan for overhauling the state-run petroleum sector and stemming a precipitous decline in oil production.

Lawmakers from the three main parties voted overwhelmingly in favor of the seven initiatives comprising the package, which now moves to the Chamber of Deputies.

"It's a success that we've had a civilized Senate debate, producing new rules of the game for a better, more modern and more transparent Pemex," said Sen. Manlio Fabio Beltrones, leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the Senate.

The vote was moved from the Senate chamber to a heavily guarded office tower several blocks away in order to avoid protesters loyal to former presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has long decried the plan as a first step to privatizing the nation's oil industry.

But López Obrador's protests, which included a takeover of Congress earlier this year and regular street demonstrations by his "oil defense brigades," lost some of their steam after members of his same Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, opted to negotiate the deal with the PRI and Calderón's National Action Party, or PAN.

The initiatives approved Thursday grant Pemex increased budgetary and operational autonomy; allow the state-owned oil giant to partner with private firms for oil exploration and exploitation ventures; make the company's tendering process more flexible and provide incentives to restart dormant drilling activity in mature oil fields.

But the reforms discarded Calderón's proposals for paying performance bonuses to Pemex's private-sector partners and eliminated another for building new refineries with private money. The reforms also failed to touch the influential oil workers union, which holds five seats on the Pemex board.

Despite the changes, Calderón lauded the Senate-approved package.

"Without exaggerating, I can say that it is the most favorable change in the hydrocarbons sector since 1938," he said, referring to the year the petroleum industry was expropriated.

Analysts described the reforms as an improvement over the status quo, but inadequate for solving the managerial issues in Pemex and arresting production declines.

"This reform is important in providing Pemex with increased autonomy, both financially and operationally," said Alejandro Schtulmann, director of research at Empra, a Mexico City risk consultancy.

"But it falls short in solving Pemex's challenges. The union is a huge problem ... it won't do anything to reverse the decline of [the massive Cantarell oil field.]"

The vote followed six months of discord over energy reform, which has provoked legislative shutdowns, more than two months of public hearings, a partisan citizen consultation process and the threat of López Obrador-sponsored brigades flooding the streets.

A small group of senators representing a coalition of left-wing parties known as the FAP voted against the reforms due to the lack of a clause explicitly forbidding future privatization. They also objected to a measure allowing private firms to win contracts for managing entire production areas on behalf of Pemex.

Deputy Javier González Garza, PRD leader in the Chamber of Deputies, said the two measures would be raised during debate in the Chamber, although he added, "I agree with a large part of the reform."

Debate in the Chamber is expected to begin Tuesday.

Drugs, Energy, Economy Beset Mexico's Calderón in Second Year

From World Politics Review: www.worldpoliticsreview.com


President Felipe Calderón at an April 2006 campaign rally in Tepatitlan de Morelos, Jalisco.

David Agren | 16 Jul 2008

MEXICO CITY -- President Felipe Calderón spent the week leading up to the second anniversary of his narrow election victory July 2 touring Southeastern Mexico, where he promoted the main tenets of his administration: security; structural reforms; and social programs.

While inaugurating a baseball stadium in Cancún that was built with funds from a public security program, he spoke of the Mexican military destroying a "world record" amount of cocaine and seizing more than 16,000 weapons over the past year.

The president also got his hands dirty mixing cement in a Campeche home as he promoted "Piso Firme," a program for replacing dirt floors in some of the country's most impoverished dwellings with more solid surfaces.

Upon returning to Mexico City, he spoke glowingly of his government's efforts at ushering structural changes -- especially its proposed energy reform legislation --while addressing an audience of bankers.

Calderón barely won the July 2, 2006, presidential election, garnering a scant 35 percent of the popular vote. Five months later, he barely managed to take the oath of office as left-wing lawmakers attempted to disrupt the ceremony.

But Calderón effectively put the close election behind him even as his scorned opponent, Andres Manuel López Obrador, declared the vote fraudulent and assumed the mantle of "legitimate president."

Calderón started his six-year term by declaring war on narcotics trafficking gangs and dispatching some 30,000 troops to hunt them down. He also reeled off a string of legislative accomplishments -- something his predecessor. Former President Vicente Fox, was unable to accomplish -- by striking deals with the Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI, on overhauls to the state workers' pension plan, tax collection and the criminal justice system.

He even borrowed a page from López Obrador, whom Calderón had previously branded, "A danger for Mexico," and accused of advancing a populist agenda culled from the worst days of PRI rule. When tortilla prices climbed last year and public opinion turned against a proposed gasoline tax, Calderón resorted to the populism he decried in the 2006 election campaign by freezing prices.

His public approval rating soared in the first year, hitting 64 percent in December, according to a Grupo Reforma survey. Calderón even quelled the rebellious factions in his National Action Party, or PAN, by having a close confidant, Germán Martínez, run unopposed for the party presidency that same month.

Jeffrey Weldon, director of the political science program at ITAM, a private university in Mexico City, attributed the high approval ratings to Calderón's ability to pass reforms and his committing fewer self-inflicted injuries than Fox.

"People are giving him credit for trying to get things done," Weldon said.

As with many presidents, however, governing became more difficult during Calderón's second year in office.

His job approval ratings remain high: A June Consulta Mitofsky poll gave him 61 percent support. But Calderón has encountered stiff opposition to energy reform proposals that would allow expanded private sector participation in the state-run petroleum sector -- a sensitive topic in Mexico, where many consider public oil ownership to be a key pillar of the country's sovereignty.

Other second-year challenges include combating rising food and fuel prices that threaten to diminish the purchasing power of millions of Mexican households and confronting public opinion polls that reflect an increasing pessimism over the viability of the president's war on drugs.

ENERGY REFORM FIGHT
Winning passage for energy reform has perhaps been the most vexing for the president. Analysts say the issue was supposed to be a crowing achievement that Calderón and his party could campaign on in the July 2009 midterm elections.

Calderón geared up for the introduction of energy reform by appointing his most trusted ally, former chief of staff Juan Camilo Mouriño, as interior secretary in an effort to improve relations with Congress. He also tried taking advantage of internal chaos in the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, which opposes any private sector involvement in the energy sector, and a seeming willingness by the PRI to once again broker a deal.

But few of the president's intentions for energy reform unfolded as planned.

Mouriño quickly encountered problems when López Obrador produced contracts suggesting the interior secretary had steered Pemex contracts to family businesses while working in various public positions.

A legislative commission cleared Mouriño of any wrongdoing, but his role as a liaison with opposition legislators was damaged.

After the reforms were unveiled in early April, left-wing lawmakers shut down Congress for 16 days. The shutdown derailed the possibility of approving energy reform before the regular legislative session ended April 30.

The Senate then embarked on a marathon series of 22 debates -- a condition that PRD, Labor Party and Convergence party lawmakers set for abandoning their protest -- in which energy reform is discussed by invited experts, activists and academics.

Pollster Jorge Buendía, director of Ipsos Public Affairs in Mexico City, said the initiative has now slipped away from the government as talk of a PRD-sponsored referendum on the issue generates more headlines than the content of the energy reform proposals.

Calderón responded to the legislative delays and decline in support for energy reform by sacking PAN Senate leader Sen. Santiago Creel -- an old adversary who was defeated by Calderón during the PAN presidential primaries and linked to a rival faction of the party.

Buendía said the changes reflected a crisis for the governing party and indicated a Calderón effort to take control of his party and tighten his inner circle.

"I can't remember a time when a [party] national executive committee removed a parliamentary leader," he added.

Creel had gained a reputation for being too accommodating to opposition demands, but his rivals in the Senate rebuked his forced departure, saying that a government that barely scraped into power and holds only pluralities in Congress is in no position to dictate terms.

"A government with an electoral minority, with a minority in Congress, being relentlessly hounded the left, can't use a heavy hand to impose its conditions," said Sen. Carlos Navarrete, PRD leader in the Senate.

A WORSENING ECONOMY
Issues beyond Calderón's control -- most notably deteriorating economic conditions and rising prices -- also have also been provoking headaches.

"They have an economy that's going down, inflation that's going up. None of this is any of their doing," said Federico Estévez, also a political science professor at ITAM.

He added that similar problems afflicted the Fox administration during its second year -- and contributed to PAN losses in the 2003 midterm elections that left Fox a lame-duck president.

Calderón has responded to the rising prices and economic turbulence with a number of measures, many of them emphasizing government intervention in markets.

Last month, he eliminated tariffs on wheat, corn and rice entering the country. At the same time, however, he froze the prices of 150 household staples ranging from beans to soap.

The president additionally defended subsidizing gasoline and diesel fuel by nearly $20 billion this year -- something U.S. motorists crossing into Northern Mexico have been increasingly taking advantage of.

Grupo Reforma columnist Sergio Sarmiento described the president's unwillingness to lift fuel subsidies as cosmetic measures that fail to help the poor and populist pandering that surpassed the actions of previous governments.

"Not even the [Mexico City] government of López Obrador had populism so pure," he wrote last month.

The president's economic populism and maneuvering toward establishing tighter control over his party represented a return to old-style PRI politics, said pollster Dan Lund, president of the Mund Group in Mexico City.

"It's a presidential system and he's moved toward basically the old PRI style: It's populist in its economic programs for the poor and its top-down," Lund said.

"The one successful model of the past -- successful in quotes -- is the PRI. No one is inventing a new model here."

A RETURN TO SECURITY FOCUS?
Calderón started his administration by implementing a law-and-order agenda and promising to rein in narcotics trafficking gangs. But his sending the military into troubled areas has resulted in a growing number of human rights complaints and failed to stem a rising number of drug-related deaths -- especially among police officers.

Public sentiment has turned against his war on drugs, which has claimed more than 1,600 lives in 2008. Two June polls showed that the public overwhelmingly believes that narcotics traffickers have gained the upper hand.

Ironically, Estévez, the ITAM political science professor, said the president could possibly win back some political capital by focusing once again on security.

"He has to put the military cap back on [and] wear the medals," Estévez said.

"That's the best thing going for him."

David Agren covers national affairs for the The News in Mexico City, where a version of this article originally appeared.

PAN dumps Creel as Senate leader

PAN dumps Creel as Senate leader

David Agren
The News

Sen. Santiago Creel was sacked as the National Action Party leader in the Senate as the governing party tries to improve its chances of winning approval for a series of reforms to the state-run energy sector.

A Tuesday press release from the PAN national executive committee said, “The PAN is restructuring in order to give a new push to the reforms.”

Creel’s ousting comes as the Senate is holding a marathon session of 22 debates on energy reform – a key initiative in a series of overhauls to the federal government being undertaken by President Felipe Calderón.

The debates, an April takeover of Congress by opposition lawmakers and now a proposed public consultation on energy reform in Mexico City by the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, could further impede passage of energy reform.

Analysts were quick to note, however, that Creel’s exit also continued a purge of leaders with loyalties to the conservative wing of the party that was deposed last December by the ascent of Germán Martínez, a close confidant of Calderón, to the PAN presidency.

Pollster Dan Lund, president of the Mund Group in Mexico City, said that Creel, a former interior secretary, was not part of Calderón’s inner circle.

“This is a tightly controlled party, which is not pluralistic and everything functions at the direction of [Calderón],” Lund said.

Sen. Gustavo Madero, president of the Senate finance committee, was named as Creel’s replacement.

Lund described Madero as “one of the president’s men.”

Creel will continue serving as President of the Senate until Aug. 31, according to the Senate press office.

Héctor Larios, PAN coordinator in the Chamber of Deputies, survived Monday’s purge, but acknowledged that he was serving at the pleasure of the party president.

Both Creel and Larios were appointed by former party president Manuel Espino – a longtime Calderón adversary – during the period when Calderón was still waiting for the electoral tribunal to adjudicate PRD complaints from the 2006 vote.

Calderón – who Lund said is calling the shots in the PAN – moved against Espino last fall by having Martínez run unopposed for the party presidency.

Personal indiscretions may have also tripped up with Creel, who had gravitated toward the PAN’s conservative and Catholic factions earlier this decade.

He generated scandalous headlines earlier this month when it was revealed that he fathered a child out of wedlock with a soap opera star Edith González.

Sergio Valderama Herrera, political science professor at UNAM Xochimilco, attributed Creel’s fall to “political and personal shortcomings.

“He broke with one of the PAN’s traditional values: Family,” said Valderama Herrera.

Creel stumbled at times in his PAN leadership position – most notably when he accepted a challenge to debate energy reform with former PRD presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. PAN officials later quashed plans for the debate.

Ironically, Creel narrowly lost the 2000 Mexico City mayoral election to López Obrador.

He subsequently served as interior secretary and gained the backing of the PAN establishment, including Former President Vicente Fox, for a 2006 presidential run.

Calderón derailed those plans as he upset Creel in the 2005 PAN primaries, however.

Felipe Calderón gets his man

By David Agren
The News

Germán Martínez Cázares, a staunch supporter of President Felipe Calderón, assumes the presidency of the National Action Party, or PAN, on Dec. 8.

Officially, the 40-year-old former federal comptroller will head the governing party for the next three years and lead it into the crucial 2009-midterm elections.

Unofficially, his ascent will sideline the party’s conservative-minded old guard, which has frequently bickered with the president and enjoyed little electoral success over the past year.

Martínez’s rise to prominence also marks a victory for Calderón and his pragmatic stream of the PAN as the president finally wrests control of his center-right party away from his detractors in the PAN’s conservative-leaning Catholic wing.

“It puts someone in who is close to the president,” said Jeffrey Weldon, a political science professor at ITAM, who noted Martínez’s moderate political views.

CLEANING UP AFTER ESPINO

Martínez inherits a badly divided party rife with ideological and personality-driven feuds that has sputtered of late in state and local elections – most notably in Yucatán and Aguascalientes, where conflicts over candidate selection and forging alliances doomed PAN campaigns in traditional party strongholds.

And his party presidency, which ushers in a younger generation of leadership, comes at a time when the PAN is making the difficult transition from being an erstwhile opposition fighting the previously entrenched Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, to establishing itself as the governing party.

Martínez succeeds outgoing president Manuel Espino, a polemic figure identified with the PAN’s conservative-Catholic wing, whose term as party head ends three months earlier than scheduled. Espino frequently squabbled in public with Calderon, who represents a more moderate and pragmatic faction that until recently was not well-represented in the PAN leadership.

“[Espino] created this view of a divided PAN,” Weldon said.

The tension between Espino and Calderón dates back to before Espino became party president in 2005, when Calderón endorsed a rival candidate for the PAN's top position.

Later, the Espino-led party hierarchy, which included former president Vicente Fox, openly supported former interior secretary Santiago Creel for the PAN presidential nomination and never enthusiastically backed Calderón’s presidential bid.

Calderón responded to the lack of support by branding himself “the disobedient son” during last year’s campaign.

CALDERON’S COUP

Calderón and Martínez share many similarities, dating back their modest upbringings in Michoacán and later advancements into the upper echelons of the PAN.

“They’re both very much the same kind of person in terms of who they are and where they come from and what they’re seeking,” said Federico Estévez, a political science professor at ITAM.

Both men hail from from lower middle class backgrounds and were mentored by Catholic academic and former PAN stalwart Carlos Castillo Peraza. The pair, both self-starters, also climbed the ranks of the education system, won two terms as federal deputies, served in high-level party positions and showed sharp political instincts for advancing to the top and “staying there,” according to Estévez.

Martínez also brings less baggage to the PAN presidency than Espino, who claimed the party’s top job under cloud of controversy after being accused him of rigging the party leadership vote and employing corporatist practices during the contest.

Espino, who won with Fox’s backing, took active interest in the selection of local candidates, taking advantage of the influence wielded by the presidents of Mexico’s political parties.

“[Party presidents have] a lot of discretionary power,” Estévez said.

“You can’t get anywhere without the [party] president coming onboard.”

Relations further soured with Calderón after the July 2, 2006, when, according to Mexico expert George Grayson, “Espino became a thorn in the side” of the recently-elected president.

Grayson, a government professor at the College of William & Mary, said that Espino appointed PAN leaders in the new Congress affiliated with the party faction hostile to the president and dithered over forming an alliance with the PRI in last summer’s Chiapas gubernatorial election, which was narrowly captured by the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.

Espino’s tough approach to leadership also dismayed many in the PAN as internal conflicts dominated the headlines during his term. The federal Electoral Tribunal recorded complaints from 1,530 PAN members over the past year regarding the infringement of their party privileges – some 77.5 percent of all grievances filed.

It also led to mixed electoral results. The PAN successfully maintained its grip on the presidency and captured record pluralities in both houses of Congress in 2006 – accomplishments Espino frequently points out. But the PAN suffered some embarrassing losses in state and local contests afterwards, which Martínez addressed when he announced his candidacy for party president on Oct. 29.

“If we continue losing municipal governments we risk losing the presidency in 2012,” he said at the time.

According to Aldo Muñoz, a political science professor at Universidad Iberoamericana, Calderón and Martínez champion a pragmatic, “neoPANista” wing of the party, while Fox and Espino allegedly lead a religious-conservative “doctrinal” branch, which is influential on the state and local level in Western Mexico and is often referred to as “El Yunque,” or The Anvil.

Martínez recognized the PAN schisms during a campaign rally in his hometown of Quiroga, Michoacán and promised to include members from both sides of the party in the party’s executive committee. He also noted the challenge of incorporating new members drifting over to the PAN due to its proximity to power.

But pollster Dan Lund questioned whether Martínez and Calderón would be able to unite the party around themselves going forward.

Lund noted that the PAN has long lacked the underpinning of a policy agenda, which has made it more vulnerable to internal disputes and power struggles.

“I don’t think anyone has forged policy leadership,” said Lund, president of the Mund Group in Mexico City.

“And when you don’t have a plan you tend to get bogged down in personalities and fiefdoms.”

PRD: AMLO lost on July 2

Finally, more than nine months after the July 2 presidential election, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) acknowledged that its candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), lost the contest and recognized Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party (PAN) as the president of Mexico. Neither AMLO nor the PRD initially viewed Calderon's victory as legal and AMLO was declared "legitimate president" on Nov. 20. But for AMLO, it's been a somewhat lonely struggle. Several PRD governors have recognized Calderon and within the PRD, Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard is currently outshining his predecessor.

Having the PRD's president recognize Calderon - and in a sense, turn the page - can only hurt AMLO even more. This could also be the PRD trying to project an image to the public that it's more than just an appendage of its former presidential candidate. The party made handsome gains in the last senate and congressional elections and with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) now striking deals with the PAN - witness the ISSSTE pension reforms and the unseemly alliance keeping Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz in office - the PRD and its allies (the PT and Convergence) are functioning as the opposition.

The PRD also has other members harboring presidential aspirations for 2012. Ebrard would surely top that list. The next presidential election is still more than five years away, but he's the early favorite - or, at a minimum, being the mayor of Mexico City, the most visible. (This being Mexico, it's never too early to speculate, is it?)

Sliding oil prices jeopardize Mexico's budget

Former president Vicente Fox - he seems so out of memory these days - in many ways righted Mexico's financial situation and ushered in a period of macroeconomic stability. He even drove down the country's budget deficit. He received high praise, but University of Guadalajara political science professor Marco Antonio Cortes shrewdly observed: "He deserves credit, but not all of the credit that's been attributed to him.

"He's been lucky."

Lucky enough to ride an upswing in world oil prices. Oil - more specifically, Pemex profits - floats the Mexican government. Fox took advantage of high prices to rectify government finances - even though Pemex is as troubled as ever.

Now with prices falling, President Felipe Calderon faces a problem. The Mexican government budgeted for an average price of $42.80, but the price for Mexican crude recently tumbled below that threshold. Compounding the problem, production in Mexico's principle oil fields is falling as Pemex remits 60 percent of its income to the federal government. The lack of exploration and maintenance is finally catching up to the company and country. Columnist Sergio Sarmiento, an advocate of private participation in the Mexican oil industry, dubbed it: "The end of the lottery." This could be Calderon's most vexing problem over the next six years.

UPDATE: Pemex is predicting its production will decline by 13 percent over the next six years - Felipe Calderon's presidential term.

Labour unrest casts shadow over popular vacation mecca

This piece was published in Sunday's Calgary Herald. It focuses on the strife in Oaxaca, but also the political implications of the unrest as it coincides with Fox's departure from Los Pinos (the president's residence.)

Labour unrest casts shadow over popular vacation mecca

DAVID AGREN FOR THE CALGARY HERALD

Potential Oaxaca visitors frequently query ecotourism promoter Ron Mader about the situation in his strifetorn Mexican state, where over a six-month period a teachers' strike has descended into open revolt against the state government. He often demurs, though, before suggesting people read the message boards at his popular website, Planeta.com, after which, travellers can make an informed decision about going to a part of Mexico the Canadian government recently admonished its citizens to avoid.

But when asked about the impact of the dispute, which has scared off tourists and generated negative international headlines, he responded, "You've taken a poor Mexican state and made it 90 per cent poorer."

Given the backdrop of conflict in Oaxaca, drug gang-related beheadings in Michoacan and a bitter presidential election, which was never conceded by the runner up, reports of a bombing last Monday at a Scotiabank Inverlat outlet in Mexico City — along with explosions outside the nation's election tribunal and the headquarters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) — seemed disturbingly routine.

Over the past six months, the news streaming out of parts of the Republic has at times been decidedly grim — if not absurd.

And it all comes with less than three weeks remaining in President Vicente Fox's term in office. He'll leave Los Pinos (the president's residence) having achieved little, spare unseating the long-ruling PRI after 71 years in power — no small feat — and improving the country's macroeconomic climate. (Interest rates and inflation have both dipped to seldom-seen low levels.)

Perhaps most disappointing, much of the old Mexico his gobierno de cambio (government of change) was supposed to supplant stubbornly endures.

Unwelcome brushes with the country's corporatist and authoritarian past also keep resurfacing, reminding an increasingly-jaded population of the failures of the Coca-Cola executive-turned-president — not to mention nearly six years of dashed expectations.

But the ongoing conflict in Oaxaca state, which the Mexico City bombers cited as their motivation for action, will most likely go unresolved until Fox leaves office and it becomes the responsibility of president elect Felipe Calderon. Depending on how the two men manage the Oaxaca situation, the conflict could spread, plunging Mexico into even deeper turmoil. Its outcome could ultimately determine Fox's legacy.

For some observers, Oaxaca — and much of the recent upheaval in Mexico — is the symptom of two of the president's biggest shortcomings: an inability to broker deals and an unwillingness to get tough when needed — perhaps due to fears of inadvertently emulating the often inglorious suppressions carried out during the PRI years.

"He's never understood that in order to rule a country as difficult as Mexico you have to use the police once in a while," said Sergio Sarmiento, a columnist with Grupo Reforma, who cited a long list of inaction dating back to 2002, when machete wielding farmers thwarted plans for a new Mexico City airport. "He often simply gives in to the demands of people who use or threaten to use violence." The Oaxaca situation started off rather quietly though after the teachers walked off the job — an annual occurrence in the culturally rich, but impoverished southern state. According to Sarmiento, "The teachers' union in Oaxaca has struck every year for 26 years." (They all have drawn paycheques while off the job.)

This time around, the teachers demanded not only better pay, but wage parity with their counterparts in wealthier parts of Mexico — something that was eventually achieved. (Teachers in Oaxaca may earn less than teachers in other states, but according to Sarmiento they receive Christmas bonuses worth approximately 90-days' pay.)

After negotiations bogged down in June and a botched attempt at dislodging the strikers from protest sites in the state capital of Oaxaca de Juarez was made, the labour dispute turned violent as the striking teachers were joined by farmers, students and leftists protesting under the name: the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO). A call for the governor's head was issued shortly thereafter.

After abiding months of protests, Fox finally ordered in the federal police after a U.S. journalist was shot to death in late October. The journalist's colleagues alleged gunmen loyal to the governor pulled the trigger. The PRI denied any culpability, but promised to protect any party member accused of the murder and keep PRI Governor Ulises Ruiz in power.

Ruiz, a polemic figure with a sordid reputation for corruption and thuggery, obtained power after a scandalous 2004 election. His state chapter of the PRI has always governed Oaxaca. Diego Petersen Farah, director general of the Publico newspaper in Guadalajara, wrote last week, "Ulises Ruiz is a troglodyte and the Oaxaca PRI is more a criminal organization than a political party.

"Keeping Ruiz in office will be costly for Oaxaca, costly for the country and a tragedy for the PRI."

But removing Ruiz would trigger political consequences that could jeopardize the president-elect, who disgruntled presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez

Obrador vowed would never take office. Thus, despite decades of ill-will, a sort of mutual blackmail has started flowing between the federal PRI, which was embarrassed in the federal election and won't let one of its governors fall, and Fox's National Action Party (PAN), which barely held on to the presidency.

"The reason Ruiz hasn't fallen is because the PAN has decided not to antagonize the PRI. They have no choice," Sarmiento said.

"Either (PAN) makes agreements with the PRI or they forget about ruling the country for the next six years."

For months, the Oaxaca conflict was overshadowed by the country's close election race and the subsequent post-election fallout. After narrowly losing the July 2 election by less than one percentage point, Lopez Obrador of the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) screamed "fraud," began floating wild conspiracy theories — like subliminal messages being placed in pre-election ads — and assailed the country's electoral institute. He caustically commented after losing an appeal, "To hell with Mexico's institutions."

Lopez Obrador eventually launched a massive six-week shutdown of central Mexico City and had himself declared the "legitimate president of Mexico." The PRD congressional delegation has already prevented Fox from delivering the annual "informe" (state of the nation address) and according to Sergio Sarmiento, the PRD won't play ball with Felipe Calderon.

Despite being weakened — the PRD just lost a governor's race in Lopez Obrador's home state — the former Mexico City mayor recently backed the APPO protests and officially assumes the "legitimate president" title on Nov. 20 in a ceremony Fred Rosen, a columnist with The Herald Mexico, dubbed, "Pure theatre." "It's not serious politics anymore." And while targeting the PRI and elector tribunal held some logic — five leftist guerrilla groups wanting Ulises Ruiz ousted claimed responsibility — why they would target Scotiabank Inverlat remains a mystery. (Mexican banks are generally reviled after a clumsy nationalization in 1982 and a later bailout after a crony-driven privatization in the 1990s went awry — something Lopez Obrador railed against during his campaign.) Away from the political theatrics of Mexico City and conflict in Oaxaca, additional unrest is also brewing. A rash of drug-related beheadings and gangland killings in Acapulco, Michoacan and Baja California has continued unabated for months.

Even pipe-smoking bandit subcomandante Marcos reappeared recently after the EZLN established roadblocks in parts of Chiapas state in order to support APPO.

Fox once infamously promised to resolve the EZLN crisis in Chiapas state in 15 minutes. It never happened. Oaxaca might go the same way for the president, giving Fox the dubious privilege of starting and ending his regime with a crisis in Southern Mexico.

University of Guadalajara political scientist Javier Hurtado predicted the Oaxaca conflict would be resolved in the first week of December after Felipe Calderon takes office and some of the mutual blackmailing ends.

"The problem is what's going to happen from now until Dec. 1," he said.

"How many more people are going to die?"

CALGARIAN DAVID AGREN IS A FREELANCE JOURNALIST LIVING IN GUADALAJARA.

Oft Underestimated Calderon Could Accomplish What Fox Couldn't

Felipe Calderon isn't really the most inspiring figure, but the man shows good political instincts. He also seems to think before speaking - unlike President Vicente Fox. He might actually accomplish a few things in his sexenio - like work constructively with congress. I penned an article on the man and his ascent to power for World Politics Watch. Check it out here.