[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 161 (Monday, December 15, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2413-E2414]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        MEXICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. JIM KOLBE

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 13, 1997

  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend to my colleagues an 
article concerning the Mexican political system by Mr. C. Allen Ellis, 
the president of Ellis Interfin Services, Ltd.

                          Mexico at Watershed

       On July 6 Mexico, with over 30 million of its 52 million 
     registered voters participating, held congressional elections 
     for all 500 members of its Chamber of Deputies, to replace 
     one third of its Senate, and to elect a mayor of its vast 
     capital city for the first time. The result was historic. 
     Mexico's 65 year old one-party political system, led by a one 
     term president having near absolute power, crumbled before an 
     electorate slowly emerging from Mexico's worst political and 
     economic crisis since its Revolution of 1910.
       The immediate results have been the end of congressional 
     dominance by the ``Partido Revolucionario Institucional'' 
     (PRI), which now holds a minority of 239 seats in the 500 
     member lower chamber, and a former party opposition holding 
     261 seats, which has formed a working coalition at least for 
     the present. The opposition majority is asserting itself in 
     seeking basic prerogatives and is developing fundamental 
     changes in congressional rules and procedures to limit the 
     vast powers held by the president since 1928. In addition, a 
     leftist opposition party, the PRD, has elected Cuauhtemoc 
     Cardenas, son of a populist former president, to govern as 
     mayor of Mexico City's Federal District for a three year term 
     along with a 40 member Council, of which 38 are members of 
     his party and to which not a single P.I. candidate was 
     elected.
       President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, midway through his 
     single 6 year term of office, has emerged as a principal 
     beneficiary of the elections whose fairness and extent of 
     voter participation were unique in Mexico's electoral 
     history. This success was the product of the newly 
     independent Federal Electoral Institute, a vocal and critical 
     press and media, the availability of public funding for all 
     political parties, and, in general, President Zedillo's 
     insistence on a fair and democratic election at the expense 
     of his own presidential powers.
       The emergence of a politically significant Congress has 
     been accomplished without formal changes in the Constitution 
     of 1917 or the laws of Mexico. Among the initial political 
     changes that could prove to be more than transient are: 
     limiting of our neighbor's ``spoil system'' whereby sitting 
     presidents, their relatives and close political and private 
     sector associates can amass great wealth, the greater sharing 
     of presidential power with state and municipal governments 
     many led by opposition parties (6 of Mexico's 31 states and 
     hundreds of municipalities), and a stronger Supreme Court no 
     longer serving only at presidential pleasure.
       The new political system which is emerging is accompanying 
     an economic recovery from the ``Crisis'' of 1995 and early 
     1996, led by the export sector principally benefiting 
     approximately 200 major companies and their domestic and 
     foreign suppliers, and, in stark contrast, a slow and painful 
     recovery of its domestic economy. Mexico's two-way trade with 
     its United States and Canada NAFTA partners has increased by 
     67% in three years from $91 billion to $152 billion in 1996, 
     with Mexico this year expected to supplant Japan as the 
     second most important trading partner of the United States 
     after Canada. This year United States exports to Mexico are 
     once again accelerating after their dramatic fall in 1995 
     (resulting from the ``Crisis'' and the December, 1994 
     devaluation of the peso), at $32.7 billion for the first six 
     months running 23% ahead of the same period in 1996.
       Thus Mexico's new political system is emerging in tandem 
     with a strengthening economy, and in a North American 
     regional economy where the United States continues its 
     remarkable seven year record of non-inflationary growth with 
     massive job creation,

[[Page E2414]]

     much of which is due to vastly accelerating exports of goods 
     and services from the United States to developing nations led 
     by Mexico.
       One of the principal challenges facing Mexico, which 
     President Zedillo emphasized in his comprehensive annual 
     address to the Mexican people on September 1, is the 
     development of a long-term economic strategy, based on a 
     private sector-led market economy, and acceptable to a 
     political consensus. This has become critical because in each 
     of Mexico's last five presidential terms, beginning in 1970, 
     a financial crisis has been precipitated by differing and 
     often contradictory economic policies. This will be a 
     particularly difficult challenge, as highlighted recently by 
     the highly adversarial response by opposition members to the 
     recent appearance before the Congress of several cabinet 
     officers, urging continuation of President Zedillo's and 
     Treasury Secretary's Guillermo Ortiz's economic recovery and 
     growth program and its required budget.
       Another principal issue confronting Mexico involves the 
     escalating threat to the personal security of persons in 
     Mexico, at all levels of society, from a growing crime wave 
     overwhelming an ineffectual and often corrupt criminal 
     justice system and federal, state, and local police forces 
     increasingly led by Mexican Army officers. A leading force in 
     criminal activity are the regional narcotics cartels, which 
     with their vast financial resources are responsible for 
     widespread corruption throughout the public and private 
     sectors of Mexico, as well as in the Army which for years has 
     led the national anti-narcotics campaign.
       President Zedillo in his September 1 address emphasized to 
     his country and its citizenry the threat represented by the 
     prevailing climate of insecurity and from narcotics. 
     Fundamental reform of the judicial and public security 
     systems have been a particular priority of his 
     administration, but he acknowledged these programs and 
     policies had to be improved. He vowed to develop and fund 
     additional public security measures and called on the 
     Congress, state, and municipal governments to work closely 
     with executive branch in this vital arena.
       In Mexico's economy, the present state of the financial and 
     commercial banking sector remains a principal obstacle to 
     economic growth and development. The public finances of 
     Mexico are strong, having recovered far earlier than expected 
     from the ``Crisis'' thanks to a wise and timely financial 
     assistance package led by the United States and the 
     international financial agencies. Continuing consolidation, 
     led by commercial banks in Spain and Canada, has been 
     required among financial institutions which began to fall 
     shortly after their poorly conceived and implemented 
     privatization by the prior administration. Massive government 
     assistance and debt assumption has been provided to the 
     privatized financial sector, with accompanying widespread 
     public criticism, to confront a bad debt overhang which now 
     exceeds $50 billion and will require many years of continuing 
     economic progress to surmount.
       Mexicans traditionally have had a keen awareness and pride 
     in their own extraordinary history. However, this admirable 
     quality has limited development of modern democratic 
     political institutions and the ability to develop the 
     economic and social policies required by a young, ambitious 
     and increasingly restive population.
       The crossroads at which Mexico finds itself has been 
     particularly well-stated in a recently published history of 
     Mexico:
       ``The ordinary Mexican is no longer obsessed by the 
     gravitational pull of the past. Intoxication with history is 
     now more an issue for political and intellectual elites. In 
     the midst of the Crisis, in a national mood of confusion and 
     unease, today's Mexican is turning toward the future. And the 
     man and woman in the street have begun to understand that, 
     even if the lack of democracy is not Mexico's foremost 
     problem, the country's other problems cannot be resolved 
     without democracy. These are the issues of the past and the 
     present and the future, including the ancient social and 
     economic problems that Mexico has endured as ``the land of 
     inequality.'' Without a legitimate division of powers, the 
     President, if he wishes, can reign as an absolute for six 
     years. Without a solidly based and independent system of 
     justice, the corrupted ``Revolutionary Family'' will continue 
     exploiting ``public posts as private property,'' sacking the 
     country as it has from the days of Aleman to Salinas de 
     Gortari. Without a truly efficient and honest civil service, 
     neither a just system of taxation nor a way of delivering 
     benefits directly to the poor are possible, as modes for 
     reducing the enormous inequalities between great wealth and 
     great poverty. Without a reliable and honest police system, 
     the streets will be insecure and the financial influence of 
     drug cartels will grow geometrically. Without true and 
     effective federalism, the capital will continue to exercise a 
     form of imperialism over the provinces and the cities. 
     Without democracy--the ideal of Madero (and less completely 
     of Juarez)-- any economic reforms, even if they move in the 
     right direction, will always be fragile and endangered.''\1\
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     \1\ Mexico: biography of power: a history of modern Mexico. 
     1810-1996/ by Enrique Krauze
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       My own view of the road ahead for Mexico, at this watershed 
     in its history, is that our neighbor has found in President 
     Ernesto Zedillo a wise and dedicated leader whose policies, 
     along with the present confluence of events, can produce a 
     presidency sharing power with a representative Congress 
     having real legislative, oversight and budgetary powers, and 
     with an independent judiciary providing the rule of law and 
     the fair administration of justice.
       Whether Mexico is continuing on the course this paper has 
     described will become more apparent in its crucial political 
     year 2000 when presidential, state and municipal elections 
     are scheduled. These will constitute a plebiscite on Mexico's 
     emerging political system, on present economic and social 
     policies, and on those to be followed in the next three 
     years.
       The course of present and future developments in Mexico 
     will have profound implications for our own country and 
     national interest. A growing and increasingly prosperous 
     Mexico, with responsive and representative political 
     institutions, will remove, or at least substantially reduce, 
     many of the conflicts which have characterized our nation's 
     historic relations with Mexico. This relationship is the most 
     complex and wide-ranging we have with any nation, and in 
     coming years will continue to be among our most important.

     

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