At last — a U.S. newspaper gets it right

I might quibble with a few points (I’m still bothered by the automatic “70 years of PRI rule” — which was first said by Jesse Helms, by the way.  PRI wasn’t organized until 1948, though it included the most of the same people as the previous PRM… which is like saying that the early 19th century Whig Party in the U.S. is today’s Republican Party), but the Almagordo (NM) Daily News’ Managing Editor, Michael Becker wrote what’s probably the best short overview of Mexican politics I’ve read in a long time. 

My two minor points — a 60% approval rating for a new president is fairly low.  This early in a new Presidency, I’d expect at least an 80% rating.  This indicates that Calderón is going to have to do more to coopt the at least 2/3rds of normally leftist voters.  Second point:  Vincente Fox was not running for President in 1988. 

The election of Vicente Fox as president of Mexico in 2000 was a watershed moment for that country. It not only signaled the end of 71 unbroken years of one-party rule by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, it marked the beginning of serious efforts to address Mexico’s many economic and political problems.

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As Dan Lund, president of MUND Americas, a consulting firm in Mexico City, said, the PRI was a “big tent” party, encompassing everything from free market advocates to democratic socialists.

In the early 1980s, the center-right broke off to form the Partido Accion Nacional. In 1988, the center-left spun out into the Partido de la Revolucion Democratica, or PRD.

It was the PRD that landed the first blow against the system. It’s presidential candidate and founder, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, barely lost the 1988 presidential election. Many believe had it not been for electoral fraud, he might have won.

Then, in 2000, the PAN’s Vicente Fox took a convincing win in that year’s election. But Mexico’s Congress was divided among the PRI, PAN and PRD, and no one had a clear majority. Fox proved to be a great campaigner but a poor politician. He was unable or unwilling to make the sort of political compromises that would have ensured passage of the reforms he wanted to make.

Last year, the PAN’s Felipe Calderon squeaked past the PRD’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador by a razor-thin margin 243,934 votes, or 0.58 percent of the 38.5 million votes case.

His slim majority has raised questions about the security of his mandate. Calderon has responded by making some bold moves, and pushing a three-pronged platform based on security, more employment and programs to alleviate poverty.

He is starting with security….

Lund said Calderon is trying to position himself as a “war-time leader” with regards to drug trafficking. The problem, however, is that the army is a “blunt instrument” and “somewhat unreformed,” although it is less corrupt than Mexico’s police.

On the other hand, Calderon’s use of extradition was a smart move as it sends a clear message it is the one thing the cartel leaders truly fear, he said.

Rafael Vargas, a pollster who now works for the Mexican president’s office, said Calderon’s approval ratings hit 60 percent larger than his election results following his decision to deploy troops and extradite drug leaders.

If Calderon can get Mexico’s security situation under control a big if Lund believes his next move will be to address the many monopolies that control large sections of Mexico’s economy.

Carlos Elizondo, an Oxford University professor and advisor to Calderon, characterizes Mexico as a country of monopolies.

“Mexico has never been forced to compete,” he said, and the resulting inefficiencies have made it hard to create the number of jobs needed.

Calderon’s narrow victory may have created some political space to attack those privileged monopolies, Elizondo said. Lopez Obrador’s campaign focused on those privileges and ways to dismantle them. Elizondo said Calderon can now argue that his reforms, while painful, will be less painful than what would have occurred under a PRD government.

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But reforms will take time to create more jobs. U.S. officials in Mexico, including political appointees, say privately that the United States can help by regularizing the flow of migrants seeking work.

In other words, a guest worker program.

The irony is that just as the Mexican government seems committed to tackling its economic inefficiencies, the debate to the north is focused on walling off the border and sending back all those living in the United States illegally.

U.S. officials in Mexico reject these arguments as unrealistic. Sending illegal immigrants back would be a huge blow to Mexico’s economy. There aren’t enough jobs for them, and the remittances immigrants send back are a vital source of revenue.

A poll by the Inter-American Development Bank in 2003 found one in five Mexicans regularly get money from relatives in the United States. The total was estimated at $14.5 billion that year, making remittances the second-largest source of foreign earnings behind the petroleum industry.

A study by Bendixen and Associated released earlier this month estimated remittances will reach $50 billion by 2010. Mexican officials say each dollar in remittances generates $2 in local savings.

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Another way the United States could help would be to increase the number of border crossing points. The United States accounts for some 80 percent of Mexico’s total trade and an even higher percentage of Mexico’s economic growth