Struggle for top dog status
Calderon loses tangle with Congress over speechMexican President Felipe Calderon has lost his first scrape with the new Congress, and it hasn't even been sworn in yet.
In a sign of the altered political map, Calderon postponed his annual state of the nation speech... after lawmakers from the newly dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, objected to the timing.
Calderon, a conservative, had planned to deliver his address from the National Palace on Tuesday morning before a select audience; his office was already sending out invitations. Separately, his interior minister would go to Congress later in the day to present a written version of the report when the legislature opens.
But that plan rankled lawmakers from the PRI, who complained that Calderon had it backward. By law, they said, Congress should get the official report and then he could make a speech. The PRI, which ruled Mexico for seven decades until it was toppled in 2000, and a smaller party now control the 500-seat Chamber of Deputies after beating Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, in July elections. The PAN still holds the Senate.
After a flurry of haggling over the speech, the president yielded...
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Labels: leadership, legislature, Mexico, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:53 AM
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Leader Urges Cooperation Against Ills Mexico Faces
"President Felipe Calderón on Wednesday listed a catalog of misfortune that afflicted Mexico over the past year. In his annual state of the union address, he described a country tested by the global economic crisis, the swine flu pandemic, rising drug violence, drought and plummeting oil production.
"Mr. Calderón used his address to make a strong defense of his battle against drug traffickers and organized crime, ending with a call for cooperation from the opposition-dominated Congress to take on the country’s mounting problems...
"The president and Congress will face their first tussles over the 2010 budget, in which any attempt to find new money to stimulate the economy will be limited by falling tax and oil revenues.
"Most forecasts suggest that the economy will contract by 7 percent this year, making Mexico one of the countries that has been hit hardest by the global crisis.
"The Mexican economy’s dependence on the United States has made it especially vulnerable to the American recession. Manufacturing exports, long the most buoyant part of the economy, have suffered as American demand has dried up.
"In addition, the swine flu pandemic, which made its first wide-scale appearance in Mexico, took its toll as the economy all but shut down for a week in April and tourists fled."
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