Mexico news Sept.13

Posted by The Generals on September 16, 2012, 1:07 pm
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Subject: Mexico News WEEKLY September 13, 2012 Mexico & Nafta MEXICO: López Obrador takes radical step It is customary for the victor to attract most of the attention after elections but try as he might, president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto does not seem to be able to shunt his defeated leftist rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador to one side. López Obrador once again ensured he remained the centre of attention this week by announcing in front of tens of thousands of supporters gathered in Mexico City’s main square, the Zócalo, on 9 September that he was leaving the Movimiento Progresista (MP), the coalition for which he sought election. His announcement, which has plunged the Left into profound introspection, might ultimately benefit Peña Nieto. Peña Nieto this week revealed details of a new initiative to improve transparency and accountability in public life and a plan to reduce the “inadmissible” levels of poverty in Mexico, affecting more than half of the population, but López Obrador was busy grabbing all the headlines. He is banking on doing the same on the day of Peña Nieto’s investiture on 1 December by organising demonstrations in every square in the country, including popular tribunals against Peña Nieto’s “imposition”, festivals and expositions. López Obrador thanked the parties that make up the MP - Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), Partido del Trabajo (PT) and Movimiento Ciudadano (MC), especially the PRD. He said his separation from the coalition did not constitute a rupture and that they parted on good terms. He added, however, that it was time for “a new stage”, and that he would lead his “civil disobedience” campaign from the Movimiento de Renovación Nacional (Morena), a civil association he created in 2011 which he seems intent on registering as a political party.   “The PRD is an institution, and institutions are much stronger than people or personalities,” Jesús Zambrano, the PRD president, maintained. He is, broadly speaking, right. López Obrador did not dominate the PRD in the way, for instance, that he will expect to dominate Morena. But, since he was elected mayor of the Distrito Federal in 2000, no other politician in the party has had his ability to appeal to Mexico’s disenfranchised poor. Indeed, in the 23 years since the party’s formation, nobody else has run for president for the PRD except for Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a party founder. If, as seems likely, López Obrador seeks the presidency again six years from now, he would take a considerable chunk of the current support base of the PRD with him. Revamping the PRD López Obrador’s departure is “a sudden jolt for the Left, which will have to think in depth about a makeover, not just institutional but also political,” PRD Senator Alejandro Encinas said. Zambrano said there would be a national congress before the end of the year to chart a course for the party. He insisted there was no crisis but whether the faction loyal to López Obrador stays within the PRD is unclear, especially if the party signals a willingness to recognise, and possibly even work with, Peña Nieto. Jesús Ortega, a former national leader of the PRD, said López Obrador’s exit would end “this political schizophrenia whereby the PRD projects two different visions, two ways of behaving, and two political positions”. Ortega is one of the key figures, along with Zambrano (a former guerrilla from the 1970s) and Carlos Navarrete in Los Chuchos, more formally known as the Nueva Izquierda, the faction that has controlled the PRD party machinery for the last five years. Unlike López Obrador, and for that matter Cárdenas, Los Chuchos have shown a preparedness to negotiate with whoever is in power. This would be to the benefit of Peña Nieto, although it could lead to an internal party schism. Perhaps suspecting as much and keen to avert such a split, Marcelo Ebrard, the DF mayor until 1 December, has called for all leftist parties and movements, including Morena, to form a counterweight to the incoming PRI government, a broad front (‘frente amplio’), modelled on Uruguay’s leftist coalition of this name, in which every leftist party “has its space”. Ebrard is one of the favourites to steer the party towards the centre-left ground in readiness for a tilt at the presidency six years down the line. He could face competition, however, from his successor, Miguel Angel Mancera, if he performs well over the next six years, as well as Graco Ramírez, the incoming governor of Morelos, who had a tense relationship with López Obrador. Ebrard said that while the resolution issued by the federal electoral tribunal (TEPJF) throwing out the legal challenge brought against Peña Nieto’s candidacy by Lόpez Obrador was “very disappointing”, he had “to comply with what the law says”. Others in the PRD clearly feel the same and were not prepared to rally behind Lόpez Obrador in a long campaign impugning Mexico’s institutions. This may well have spurred his decision to leave. Speaking in the Zόcalo, Lόpez Obrador made his intentions clear, quoting Ricardo Flores Magón, a Mexican anarchist and social reform activist who played a key role in sparking the Mexican Revolution: “When I die, my friends should write on my grave: ‘here lies a dreamer’, and my enemies ‘here lies a madman’. But nobody should dare to write ‘here lies a coward and a traitor to his ideals.’” Javier Jiménez Espriú, a long-serving professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), also emphasised the need for resistance rather than acceptance: “We have been sentenced by the federal electoral tribunal, with no right to bail, to six years of regression, oppression, corruption and forced labour,” he said. It is important to note that while Lόpez Obrador has refused to recognise Peña Nieto, he repeatedly stressed that all resistance would be in strict adherence to democratic rules. “We must always seek transformation by peaceful, electoral means,” he said in response to cries of “Revolution!” from assembled supporters in the Zόcalo. Lόpez Obrador said nationwide popular assemblies would be held from 12 September, culminating in a national congress on 19 and 20 November to mark the 102nd anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, to decide whether Morena should undergo the process of registering as a political movement. Peña Nieto and the PRD The upshot of the PRD’s process of introspection, or “renewal” to quote party president Jesús Zambrano, will be important for President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto in terms of whether he will face a fierce, uncompromising opposition, a coherent, constructive opposition, or even a potential ally on some reforms in congress. If Peña Nieto was seeking to build bridges with the party, however, his decision to invite Rosario Robles, a former president of the PRD (see sidebar), to take part in his transition team, was odd. Zambrano was particularly critical of her appointment. “Everyone has the right to sell out,” he said, “but they should be ashamed to do it.”     Peña Nieto was accompanied by Robles, who he appointed as deputy coordinator for social policy to help design policies to combat poverty, on a tour of the north-eastern state of Durango this week. “Poverty has a woman’s face in Mexico, and the solution has a woman’s face,” Robles said. Robles Rosario Robles, 56, was mayor of the Distrito Federal between September 1999 and December 2000, replacing Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas who stepped down to run for president. She left the PRD in 2004 after she was linked to the corrupt Argentine businessman, Carlos Ahumada. Days after appointing her, president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, encouraged Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) senators to pass a bill strengthening transparency and accountability in public life. Peña Nieto said that corruption was “without doubt one of the issues that has caused most damage to relations between public authorities and citizens”. ******************** Mexico & Nafta TRACKING TRENDS MEXICO | Poultry sector losses. On 7 September Mexico’s agriculture minister, Francisco Mayora, presented an assessment of Mexico’s agriculture sector to congress following the outbreak of avian flu last June and said that preliminary data compiled by the ministry show that losses attributed to the event amounted to US$350m.     According to Mayorga, in the first stage of the outbreak some 11m birds had to be destroyed and this has caused the big losses to producers who are still trying to recover their stocks. Mayorga said that although there have not been any further cases of the virus reported, the authorities are not yet confident that the outbreak has been controlled and that they are continuing with their vaccination programmes.     This being the case, Mayorga said that a definitive figure on the number of birds destroyed and the levels of losses incurred could not yet be provided, pointing out that the number of killed birds may increase to as much as 20m. “We hope that approximately by 15 or 20 September we will have concluded the vaccination phase and then we could make a final balance. At the moment all figures are preliminary,” Mayorga said.     The avian flu outbreak has forced Mexico to open up its domestic market by temporarily eliminating some of the import quotas on eggs it has in place in order to satisfy the local demand and to control a surge in the price of eggs. Mayorga said that for the moment the government would keep these measures in place, but he rejected the idea of having to do the same for chicken meat pointing out that he was confident that the national producers would be able to supply the local demand.     Interestingly, the US’s Poultry & Egg Export Council (USAPEEC) has announced that it will lodge a formal complaint before a North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) panel against Mexico’s chicken meat import quotas. According to USAPEEC the imposition of quotas of up to 25.7% is “unjustified” and Mexico should be forced to remove it. Moreover, USAPEEC argues that the imposition of quotas has also harmed Mexican consumers as it has increased the price of chicken meat by 22.4%. MEXICO | Iadb to invest in niche bank. The Inter-American investment corporation (CII) part of the Inter-American Development Bank (Iadb), revealed on 11 September that it plans to invest up to US$15m in Mexico’s Corporación Financiera de Occidente (Finox), a limited financial society (Sofol) to turn the company into the country’s largest niche providing services to small and medium sized firms.     Finox, which offers financial services primarily to small and medium sized firms in the agroindustrial and manufacturing sectors, was created in 2004 after Mexican legislation introduced the concept of a Sofols. Since then it has become one of the country’s most successful Sofols with over 300 customers and an established presence in 10 of Mexico’s 32 states. However, Sofols were only introduced as a temporary measure and their charter is due to expire next year when they would have to register as a full financial society or dissolve.      CII representative, Goldie Shturman, has said that the Iadb believes that Finox could be quickly turned into a fully fledged bank that will allow it to continue to service the niche market it has found. According to Shturman, CII has already secured funds from the Iadb to start the process to “turn the financial institution into one of the most important small scale banks in the country”. This process will involve not only obtaining a banking licence but also expanding Finox’s presence in the country.     CII believes that its investment in the company will allow Finox to set up 15 new branches across Mexico and triple its number of clients to 3,600. CII expects that once that Finox obtains its banking licence it will be able to expand its credit portfolio quickly by obtaining access to new sources of funds such as the possibility of making public offerings. In this way, Shturman said that Finox could continue to promote the development of small and medium sized Mexican businesses.

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