Rising violence, fading hopes
Felipe Calderón has got an electoral boost, but Mexico is still sliding dangerously downward
Jul 8th 2010
ONE reason why traffic is so appalling in Mexico City is that drivers routinely block others from crossing road junctions rather than miss the chance to edge forward before the lights change. And so it is with the country’s politicians. Ever since 2000, when Vicente Fox and the conservative National Action Party (PAN) ended seven decades of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), there has been a broad consensus that Mexico needs thoroughgoing reform of its corporatist institutions and its oligopolistic economy if it is to create a vigorous, prosperous democracy. But the opposition has been reluctant to forfeit short-term advantage or anger privileged insiders—from teachers to television companies—by helping the government pass legislation. The current president, Felipe Calderón, who is also from the PAN, has tried harder than Mr Fox to push through reforms—of the state energy monopolies, of the tax system and education, for example. But he has obtained only the most inconsequential of changes.
The cost of Mexico’s paralysis is rising. The economy was badly hit by the great recession, thanks to its umbilical link to the United States. An initially strong recovery now seems to be stuttering. At the same time Mr Calderón’s crusade against Mexico’s powerful drug gangs has prompted vicious turf wars in northern cities. Most of the 23,000 killed since 2006 appear to have been gangsters slaughtered by their rivals but some innocent people have died and, days ahead of an election involving 12 state governorships on July 4th, the PRI candidate in the border state of Tamaulipas was gunned down. His death prompted not a surge of national solidarity but further partisan squabbling between the president and the PRI; and public support for the crusade is waning.
Mr Calderón, a decent man, must take part of the blame for Mexico’s malaise. He has chosen loyalty over competence in his cabinet. He has proved inept at forging the political deals required to approve his reforms. And his plans for improving security are flawed.
Although some significant drug barons have been captured or killed, and the United States has been prodded into doing a bit more to stop the southbound flow of guns and money to the traffickers, the security strategy has been poorly implemented. Deploying the army was supposed to buy time to build a 100,000-strong federal police force, but only 12,000 new police, half of them soldiers on secondment, have been recruited. Nor has the government done anything to prevent several million young men with poor education and no proper job from being potential recruits for the drug gangs.
Getting out of the jam
Part of the government’s problem is that it does not have enough clout to impose its authority on the country. In theory, Mr Calderón and the PRI’s most plausible presidential candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, agree about the changes needed to bring that about. But in practice the PRI sees little reason to help Mr Calderón, since it hopes to cruise to victory in the presidential contest in 2012 by promising a dose of old-fashioned strong leadership after the PAN’s ineffectual tenure.
Voters may have other ideas. The PRI was expecting a clean sweep in the gubernatorial elections. Instead, in three of the most important states in play, where its rule was marked by the corruption and cronyism Mexicans became familiar with when it ran the country, the PRI lost. The result justifies Mr Calderón’s decision to forge local alliances with the left-of-centre Party of the Democratic Revolution, with which he agrees about little else except opposition to the PRI. It also suggests that many voters want change.
All three parties, but especially the PRI and the PAN, should take note. Whoever wins in the presidential election due in 2012 risks repeating the frustrations of the past ten years. All those who aspire to govern should sit down now and hammer out a set of political reforms which would give the next president a reasonable chance of carrying out his mandate. Otherwise Mexico risks continued gridlock, deeper disillusion with democracy and more violence.
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