The new Mexican president, Felipe Calderón,
has hit the ground running. Many in the business community and the world
press are pleased in what they see. What is not that understood is the real
task that awaits Calderón.
One of the first things that he did was to cut the salaries of top
government officials by 10%. This is a page right out of López Obrador's
book (who ran against Calderón and lost by 0.56%.) Except that López
recommended a 50% cut. Considering how much these officials make (among the
highest in the world), Obrador's cut would have been more realistic.
Calderón's first trip was to a tiny poor mountain village to announce
that he was going to select 100 such villages to pave the streets and
improve the infrastructure. A nice start, but it will take more than paved
streets to make life livable for our vast underclass.
He has raised the pay of the military forces. Again, so far, so good.
But that is going to have to extend to law enforcement officers (not in
Calderón's direct control) to make the law enforcement less vulnerable to
bribery.
And while Calderón has selected a mainly business friendly and "hard
line" cabinet, there is little evidence so far that the real roots of
México's problems will be addressed.
In an excellent column by Denise Dresser, Job No. 1 for Calderón:
Remake México, she states that in order to succeed, Calderón, if he
wants to survive, will have to do all those things that Fox should have done
but didn't. And that includes taming the "rapacious" monopolies and
privileged unions and protected businessmen that block competition and
growth and take them on. (See my prior column México's Parallel
Government.)
Meanwhile, Jorge Castañeda goes even further along this line of
thinking. You may remember Castañeda, who was Fox's first foreign secretary,
and who tried to run for the presidency in 2006 as an independent. He was
prevented to do this by the Supreme Court because México only allows members
of recognized political party to run.
Castañeda identifies three critical areas that beg for attention to
improve México:
· Public and private economic monopolies that run up costs and defeat
competitivity. Comment: Remember that both the oil monopoly and the electric
monopoly were organized to assure a large voting block to keep the political
sector in power. Efficiency was secondary.
· The labor unions. One of the most undemocratic institutions in México
with enormous political power and zero transparency.
· The political monopoly. Castañeda points out that for 71 years, one
party had a "complete lock" on Mexican politics. Now, after the 2000
election, they simply divided up that power between three parties. Comment:
As far as political monopoly goes, consider that in the Mexican House of
Representatives, 40% of the seats are appointed directly by the parties with
no voter input. In the Senate, it is 30%. The parties make the selections
based on the proportion of the total votes that each party receives in the
election.
Calderón has also presented a new anti-corruption package to the
Congress with many details but no real way to enforce the initiative.
And, of course, this brings us to the real bottom line. None of these
things will come to pass without a total reform of the Mexican legal system.
Remember that the legal system in México was designed to perpetuate a
one party dictatorship. It was crafted with skill and it worked for 71
years. The problem is that México is now an emerging democracy and the
situation has changed. And that means that the rules must be changed.
We see all around us the deep-rooted desire of the people to progress
to a better life in México. We also see in many cases that that this desire
is erupting into protests that portend to get worse unless things change.
And it doesn't help that so much of our Mexican population is living in that
country to the north to send money home in order that their families can
survive down in México.
After the finish of the Fox administration, beginning with so many
promises but producing so few results, it falls on the new Calderón
administration to start addressing the root causes of México's problems.
Mr. Calderón, the clock is running.
___________________________________
Richard N. Baldwin T., a HispanicVista.com (http://www.hispanicvista.com/)
contributing columnist, lives in Tlalnepantla, Edo de México. E-mail at:
R1041643422@aol.com
By
Richard N. Baldwin T. /HispanicVista.com