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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | August 2007 
Mexico Leader Prepares for State of Union
 Sergio Solache & Chris Hawley - Arizona Republic
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 |  | If we don't solve the problems of millions of Mexicans who are in misery and we only do cosmetic things, the country could explode.
-Rep. Alfredo Ríos, PRI |  | |
Mexico City - The last time President Felipe Calderón set foot in Mexico's capitol building, the result was total bedlam.
There were fistfights and shoving, protest signs and jeers as opposition lawmakers tried to stop his Dec. 1 swearing-in ceremony, claiming he had won the election through fraud.
This weekend, the conservative president goes back into the fray to deliver his first State of the Union report, chalking up a few political victories, laying out an ambitious schedule of reforms - and perhaps most importantly, analysts say - trying to strengthen his authority after a razor-thin election win last year.
"In these first months, he's been able to take the seat of power, which was his main challenge, but that seat was full of thumbtacks," said Jorge Chabat, a social-sciences professor at Mexico City's Center for Economic Research and Education.
Because of fears that opposition lawmakers will try to disrupt the speech, Calderón will exploit a constitutional loophole and carry only a written report to Congress on Saturday, the President's Office said this week.
He will give his speech to television cameras and a select group of invitees at the nearby National Palace on Sunday.
Polls indicate the public has warmed to Calderón, applauding Mexico's stable economy and a new crackdown on drug traffickers. But his political opponents say the crackdown is window-dressing, and they warn that his proposed reforms will raise taxes and erode protections for workers.
Calderón has pleased the United Status by extraditing a record 64 fugitives this year, including drug-kingpin suspect Osiel Cárdenas, and by asking for U.S. aid to fight drug traffickers. But he has been highly critical of U.S. plans to build a fence along the border and has demanded that the United States do more to combat the smuggling of guns into Mexico.
Mixed record
Calderón won the July 2, 2006, election by a mere 233,831 votes, or 0.58 percentage point. The rival Democratic Revolutionary Party refused to recognize the results, touching off months of demonstrations. Protesters set up tents in the middle of Mexico City's main Reforma Avenue, held huge rallies in the city's main plaza and set off bombs outside banks.
During last year's State of the Union address, opposition lawmakers rushed the dais to protest the election results, forcing then-President Vicente Fox to return to the presidential mansion and deliver his speech by television.
After taking office on Dec. 1, Calderón moved quickly to adopt a tough-sheriff image. He sent the army to quell drug violence in smuggling hotspots, cut the salaries of high-ranking government officials and rammed an overhaul of the government workers-pension system through Congress over the objections of powerful unions.
In an Aug. 4-9 poll commissioned by El Universal newspaper, 64 percent of Mexicans said they approved of the job Calderón is doing. (The error margin was 3.5 percentage points.) A similar poll by the Milenio newspaper showed 50 percent of Mexicans thought Calderón was doing better than they expected, compared with 31 percent who thought he was doing worse than expected. (The margin was 3.2 percentage points.)
In recent months, however, Calderón's government has faced a surge of new threats.
Drug traffickers have killed dozens of high-ranking police, apparently in retaliation for Calderón's crackdown.
In July, a leftist guerrilla group, the People's Revolutionary Army, bombed gas pipelines in central Mexico, forcing several large factories to shut down. The group was demanding the release of two militants that it claims were seized by Mexican authorities in May.
Meanwhile, poor Mexicans remain frustrated at the lack of improvement in their daily lives despite six years of relative economic stability. Anger over the country's lingering poverty helped fuel violent protests in the last months of Fox's presidency.
"If we don't solve the problems of millions of Mexicans who are in misery and we only do cosmetic things, the country could explode," said Rep. Alfredo Ríos of the rival Institutional Revolutionary Party.
A different style
Calderón has shown a talent for negotiating with Congress, something that Fox never mastered, said César Hernández, a researcher with the Research Center for Development, a Mexican think tank. The pension-reform bill was a prime example of behind-the-scenes horse-trading, he said.
"Even though they are from the same party, (Fox) had a totally different style of governing," Hernández said. "Calderón has showed himself to be a more professional president, more political, more capable of working with and getting things out of Congress."
Calderón's foreign policy has been pragmatic, as well. Despite being a free-market conservative, he re-established full diplomatic relations with Venezuela, whose leftist president, Hugo Chávez, had withdrawn his ambassador to Mexico following an exchange of insults with Fox.
Calderón has also hosted visits by the left-leaning leaders of Spain, Argentina and Brazil.
In public, Calderón has a more-focused speaking style than Fox, who cultivated a folksy image but became known for his lack of tact. Fox's offhand comments, including one about Mexican immigrants in the United States who "are doing the work that not even Blacks want to do" created minor international scandals that made many Mexicans cringe.
Next big test
Calderón's next big test is his proposed overhaul of Mexico's tax system, now being debated in Congress.
The federal government collects only about 11 percent of its gross domestic product in taxes, one of the lowest rates in Latin America, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That has left the government underfunded and heavily dependent on income from oil sales.
The Calderón administration will also likely roll out bills soon aimed at improving Mexico's elections system and streamlining the courts, Hernández said. |
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