MeXICOPolitical Parties

Checks and BalancesFederalism

PolitIcal Parties• Mexico is a multi-party system.

• There are three dominant parties which are the PAN, PRD and PRI.

• The rest of the parties form local coalitions with these three major parties or just isolate themselves.

Partido Revolucionario InstitUcional (PRI)

• Formed in the 1929 by Plutarco Elias Calles.

• Lázaro Cardenas ruled the PRI during 1934-1940. He redistributed the land to the poor, nationalized the oil companies in 1938, and set a corporatist system.

• Mexico was a one party rule and had a strong economic growth until the later 1970s.

• Political Ideology: Corporatism, Socialism

• Current leader: Beatriz Paredes Rangel

BEATRIZ PAREDES RANGEL

• First woman governor in Mexican history. • From 1974-1977 she was a state deputy

of Tlaxcala. • 1978-1980 advisor for the governor of

Tlaxcala. • She was appointed under-secretary for

agrarian reform,. • She has also served

– as Governor of Tlaxcala – in the Chamber of Deputies – Senate– And in 1993 Salinas appointed her as

Ambassador to Cuba.• She ran for Head of Government in the

2006 federal district election • In 2007, she ran again for the party's

presidency and won by a large margin.

PARTIDO ACCIÓN NACIONAL (PAN)

• Mexican Roman Catholics, together with other conservatives (mainly Manuel Manuel Gómez MorínGómez Morín), founded the PAN in 1939.

• The PAN has worked long and hard to develop a strong network of grass-roots militants.

• The party attacked political centralism and advocated expanded states’ rights. Their main public has been the urban middle class.

• Since the 1970s its has been divided into moderate progressive and militant conservative (neo-PANista) factions.

• Compared to the rest of the political parties PAN is the weakest political party. • This political party believes in municipal decentralization and general

democratization. • Over the last decade the PAN has governed most of the largest citites in

Mexico and has governed most of the capital cities of the country. • First registered political party of Mexico• Conservative • Christian Democratic party• One of the main of Mexico • Current leader Manuel Espino Barrientos (2005).

MANUEL ESPINO BARRIENTOS

•He was a mass media editor and political commentator;

•He joined the PAN in 1978 since he occupied various positions in the party.•In 2001 he was coordinator of tours for the Presidency of the Republic.•He has been elected twice to the Congress of Mexico.

PARTIDO DE LA REVOLUCIÓN

DEMOCRÁTICA (PRD)• Founded in Mexico City on May 5, 1989 by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, Heberto Castillo, Gilberto Rincón Gallardo, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, other PRI members and left-wing politicians.

• Ideology: Centre-left, Liberalism, Social democracy

• Current president: Leonel Cota Montaño

LEONEL COTA• Leonel Cota began his political

career as a member of the PRI where he a representative in the Chamber of Deputies from 1994-1996 as mayor of La Paz, Baja California Sure from 1997-1999.

• When he lost his candidature he resigned and entered the PRD.

• In this political party he won as governor 1999-2005

• He became president of the PRD with about 75% of the votes.

OTHER POLITICAL PARTIES

National Parties: • Partido del Trabajo (Labour Party) • Green Ecological Party of Mexico • Convergencia por la Democracia (Convergence) • ‘Alternativa Socialdemócrata y Campesina’ or

‘Alternativa’ (Social Democratic and Farmer Alternative) • Nueva Alianza (New Alliance)• These are the local ones and the ones above are the

national ones along the PRI, PRD and PRN.

CHECKS AND BALANCES

There are two types in the Mexican government:

1.Separation of powers or horizontal

2.Federalism or vertical

SEPARATION OF POWERS• A system of checks and balances that limits a strong central government.

In a system like this, political competition among actors in the different branches of government provides incentives for actors to police one another’s actions.

• The Mexican constitution outlines a system of checks and balances and a separation of powers

– During one-party rule these formal institutions were meaningless and power was concentrated in the hand of the president and the executive branch. The legislative and judicial branches did not serve the purpose of an effective check. The president had many informal or “extra-constitutional powers” that were derived from his control of the ruling party. The most important one was nominating the future candidates for leader of the ruling party. Since the PRI won almost all elections, in practice the president would appoint all the governors, the legislators, and his successor.

– When opposition parties started winning elections they served as a checking system. The president began to lose many informal powers. In 1988 the PRI lost its super-majority over the legislation and could no longer pass constitutional reforms without consulting other parties. Then in 1997 when the diverse opposition coalition took control (Vicente Fox), a true system of checks and balances developed.

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH• There are 2 chambers:

– Upper house: Senate• 128 members, each state and federal district have three

senators (two come from the winning party and one from the runner-up party), and another 32 senators are distributed through proportional representation (if the party wins more than 2% of the national vote), in other words.

• No party can win more than 2/3 of the seats in the senate except under extraordinary circumstances (winning first place in all the states).

• 6-year terms – no reelections

Lower House: Chamber of Deputies– 500 seats, 300 are allocated

through single-member districts, the other 200 through proportional representation

– Each party that wins at least 2% of the national vote is entitled to its proportional share of the list deputies with a few restrictions

– No party can have more than 300 seats – for constitutional reforms they need a 2/3 vote.

– No party’s share in the total number of seats can exceed by more than 8% its share of the national vote. To win a majority in the lower chamber the party must win more than 42% of the vote

– 3-year terms – no reelections

• This mixed system provides a good balance between single-member districts and proportional representation, allowing for both local representation through districts and also a fairer distribution of the seats among parties.

• The functions of the legislative branch:– Enacts nearly all public policy, except for land

reforms, tariffs and quotas in international trade are for the president.

– All regular legislation must be approved by both chambers in the same form and then submitted to the president for publication. The president must publish it within 10 days or send it back to the chambers.

– President has 2 typed of veto: regular veto (president rejects bill), correction veto (president requests the congress to amend the bill if they do amend the bill then it goes back to the president). Congress can insist on the original bill with a 2/3 vote. Then the president must publish the legislation.

JUDICIAL BRANCH•Supreme Court – 11 members 15-year terms (no reelections), nominated by the president confirmed by the senate.•Federal electoral tribunal – 7 members, 4-year terms (no reelections). •1994 reforms – Supreme Court has judicial review. Fox and Zedillo have strengthened the judiciary.•Since none of the leaders can be reelected, the people can’t reward or punish their leaders for their actions, at the same time, there isn’t one person that is dominating a sector of the government.

EXECUTIVE BRANCH• The President dominates

the executive branch and has many informal powers.

• Ever since the PAN and the PRD have become competitors of the PRI the government has been divided. Because of this the Executive branch has become strong since it has to arbitrate between the legislative and judicial branch.

FEDERALISM AS A check

• Federalism, in which different levels of government limit one another. Here the incentives to police the actions of other government actors come from the self-interest of each level of government. The result is an outcome in which each level of government essentially balances the others—without the need for checks and balances within the central government.

FEDERALISMFederalism is a system of government in which power is constitutionally divided and delimited between a central government and that of provinces or states. Each level of government has its own powers and obligations to provide services and raise revenues. Unlike Confederations, federal systems give the central authority some amount of control over its citizens, thus endowing it with a degree of sovereignty.

OVERVIEW• The system of government that was born out of the Mexican

Revolution (1910-1917) compromises 31 states and a Federal 31 states and a Federal DistrictDistrict (Mexico City), divided into more than 2,400 municipios (municipal governments). Municipios are governed by an ayuntamiento (council) headed by the presidente municipal (mayor) – municipal officials are elected for 3-year terms.

• Mexico’s states all have different needs and have different levels of poverty, therefore, each local government sees to the needs of their own region. Presidents face the challenge of dividing the power amongst them in the national government.

• Since the debt crises of the 1980s and 1990s, there have been important moves toward decentralizationdecentralization – especially in education and healthcare systems to reduce the financial burden on the national government – as opposition parties began to win control of municipios and states.

Decentralization: Towards A True Federalism?

• President Miguel de la President Miguel de la MadridMadrid (1982-1988) of the PRI introduced amendments to Article 115 of the Mexican Constitution to revive local governments and help stimulate social and economic development.

• President Carlos SalinasPresident Carlos Salinas (1989-1994) of the PRI led some important changes, though in many ways Salinas used decentralization to restore presidential legitimacy and to increase his own power. – The National Solidarity Program / National Solidarity Program / SolidaridaSolidaridadd (PRONASOL)(PRONASOL) was the most obvious example of his attempt to enhance his power. PRONASOL is a highly controversial social-welfare program that supports community participation- It served to reinforce center power – bypassed state and local governments by extending the federal government’s connections to the community level.

– Salinas allowed the recognition of opposition candidate ErnestoErnesto RuffoRuffo’s (PAN) victory in Baja California – leaders like Ruffo became advocates of fiscal decentralization.

– Salinas oversaw initiatives to reform electoral rules to produce transparent and accepted federal elections.

• At the end of the Salinas administration, Mexico was hit by political chaospolitical chaos that brought armed rebellion, high-level political assassinations, corruption, and the worst peso devaluation since the early 1980s.

NEW FEDERALISM• President Ernesto ZedilloPresident Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000) of the PRI needed to

“open up the horizontal political space between the three branches as well as decentralize vertically by trusting state governors, increasing the amount and transparency of revenue-sharing, and empowering local government” (Victoria Rodriguez).

• Zedillo’s tolerance for increased democratization allowed the first opposition-dominated Chamber of Deputies in 1997 – “horizontal” aspect of the New Federalism, since PRI dominance traditionally made the legislature a rubber stamp for the executive.

• In 1998 and 1999, the opposition-majority legislative coalition began to work toward expanding municipal autonomy by approving new reforms to amend Article 115.– Allowing a 2/3 vote of the city council to make extended

planning commitments.– Reinforce the functions of municipios.– Make state revenue sharing more transparent.– Increase the control of municipios in managing their

budgets.– Specify municipio responsibilities with regard to areas not

included in the constitution – transportation, ecology…– Ensure that local governments can collect taxes occupied

by local offices of federal and state agencies, and publicly owned enterprises.

• Vicente Fox Vicente Fox (2000-2006) of the PAN vowed to increase power of the states, as several other presidents have but failed to do so.

• He wanted to maximize use of block grants – federal funds made to a state for the delivery of a specific group of related services.

• He didn’t evolve the economic structure more than any other former presidents.

• Efforts to decentralize have been high; however, there remain certain institutional and functional barriers to further democratization and decentralization – until these are resolved Mexico will lack the benefits made possible by true federalism.– Fiscal decentralization – state and local governments require greater

access to the fiscal resources necessary to meet their responsibilities. This means more equitable revenue sharing between the federal, state, and municipal governments.

– Re-election – to strengthen subnational governments, the issue of re-elections needs to be considered. Because they can’t be re-elected, federal and state legislators have little accountability to their local constituencies.

– Judicial Reform and Activism – Mexico’s courts almost never play a significant role in determining political outcomes due to the dominance of the executive power, which has given presidents and governors undue capacity to manipulate this branch.

– Municipal Restructuring – municipal governments are heavily dominated by their executives because there aren’t separate elections for city council members. District elections for city council members would contribute to greater “horizontal” decentralization by creating possibility of a check on municipal executives, and thus greater local accountability.

CHALLENGES

CONCLUSION TO FEDERALISM

• Federalism in Mexico is slowly becoming a reality due to the continued opening of the nation’s political system and the greater commitment of decision-makers at all levels to the redistribution of power within the system.

• Federalism promises to enhance Mexico’s democratic institutions by providing a balance of power – greater regional and local expression and increased efficiency in the formation of public policies.

• Federalism has important domestic and international implications for Mexico with respect to the development of collaborative initiatives to promote regional planning and development along the US-Mexican border.

CONCLUSION• Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Mxp1AssPo

– What do you think of the video? – How does it add to your understanding of the

Mexican political system? – What did you think of the people’s reactions

and comments? – Did you like the ballot boxes?

THANK YOU

FOR LISTENING