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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2006 
Mexican President-Elect Names Cabinet
 Julie Watson - Associated Press
| | From left to right, Labor Secretary Javier Lozano, Economy Minister Eduardo Sojo, Treasury Secretary Agustin Carstens, Energy Secretary Georgina Kessel and Communications and Transportation Minister Luis Tellez, attend a news conference in Mexico City, Mexico, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006. (AP/Eduardo Verdugo) |
President-elect Felipe Calderon on Tuesday named a team of U.S.-educated economists to his Cabinet, laying the groundwork for a business-friendly government he said will focus on creating jobs as "the only effective path to fighting poverty."
Calderon's announcement came a day after his rival in the disputed July 2 presidential election, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, swore himself in as Mexico's "legitimate" president and launched a parallel government he says will try to block Calderon's proposals.
Calderon, who will be inaugurated on Dec. 1, has tried to reach out to the millions who didn't vote for him by adopting several of Lopez Obrador's campaign proposals, including a pension for the elderly and lower utility rates for the poor.
His new labor secretary will be lawyer Javier Lozano, who pledged to respect the country's powerful unions while working with Congress on reforms to make Mexico more business friendly. He called for creating more jobs at home so Mexicans don't have to migrate to the United States.
"Instead of labor leaving to go where there is capital, we should be bringing the capital to where the labor force is," Lozano said — echoing generations of previous Mexican officials.
Lozano was deputy secretary of transportation and communications under former President Ernesto Zedillo, who brought the Mexican economy back from one of its worst financial crises in the mid-1990s when the peso plummeted.
The treasury secretary will be Agustin Carstens, a University of Chicago-educated economist who served as President Vicente Fox's deputy treasury secretary from 2000-03 and later as deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
Eduardo Sojo, who has a doctorate in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, will head the Economy Department after running Fox's office of public policy.
Georgina Kessel, an economist educated at Columbia University, will be Mexico's first female energy secretary. She has promised to modernize the country's energy sector.
Mexico's former energy secretary, Luis Tellez, will run the Communications and Transportation Department. Tellez, who has a doctorate in economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Tuesday he would work to lower Mexico's communications costs — among the highest in the world.
Calderon directed his Cabinet to speed up Mexico's economic growth and attract more foreign investment. "We know that the only really effective path to combatting poverty and inequality is by creating jobs, dignified jobs," he said before announcing the posts.
The stock market rallied behind the appointments, with the local key stock index rising 1.3 percent.
Francisco Gutierrez, an economist at the Scotia Casa de Bolsa brokerage firm in Mexico City, said the team has a "good probability" of pushing through reforms in energy, tax and labor policies that stalled under Fox.
However, others criticized Calderon for sticking with the status quo, saying it shows his government will do little to lessen the gap between rich and poor.
"It's more of the same," said Rodolfo Garcia, a health science professor at the University of Zacatecas in northern Zacatecas state, one of the main exporters of migrant labor.
Garcia said the appointments are "heavily stacked on the right, very concentrated in the rich."
"I don't see many different political forces, which I think is necessary in assuring the stability of the country after such contested elections," he said.
Calderon may face immediate opposition from Lopez Obrador's supporters, who have vowed to block his inauguration. Based in Mexico City, Lopez Obrador's parallel government has its own Cabinet, but it will not collect taxes or make laws and will rely on donations to carry out its plans.
Lopez Obrador claims fraud and dirty campaign tactics were responsible for Calderon's narrow victory in the July election.
On the Net: President-elect Felipe Calderon's English language Web site. |
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