Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Monday, June 23, 2014

Political bargaining

What can PAN get for its support of PRI policies that it advocated for 12 years while its candidates occupied the presidency?

Mexican political parties at impasse over key reforms

The conservative National Action Party (PAN) said this week it would only support an energy overhaul bill if Peña Nieto agrees to electoral changes that could weaken the ruling party's hold on power.

The president's Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, is resisting the electoral reform package despite agreeing to it earlier…

Although much of this back-and-forth may be political brinkmanship, the PAN’s actions have the potential of threatening the energy measures, which amount to a far-reaching program to open Mexico’s struggling oil-and-gas industry to foreign investment for the first time in nearly 70 years.

Without these new laws, proponents argue, Mexico could become an oil-importing country within a decade or so…

Improved oil and gas production is also considered key to spurring Mexico's sluggish economic growth.

Pemex oil platform

The left is adamantly opposed to opening up the industry, saying it will allow foreign companies to take the lion’s share at the expense of Mexican patrimony…

The election reforms that the PAN wants, and that it says the PRI agreed to, include allowing re-election of most posts, such as mayors and legislators (banned in the constitution), and candidacies by independent contenders…

The electoral reform would in effect end that system, and also take the appointing of regional election officials out of the hands of the president and give it to the federal Senate…

The PAN finished a poor third in 2012 presidential and statehouse elections and has been struggling to overcome internal battles and rebuild itself…