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 Editorials | Issues | September 2007 
Mexico Leader's Speech at Center of Nation's Rifts
 Hector Tobar & Cecilia Sanchez - Los Angeles Times
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| | Mexico's President Felipe Calderon waves as he enters Congress in Mexico City, Saturday, Sept. 1, 2007, where he turned in his state-of-the-nation address. Calderon became the second president in a row who failed to give his annual speech in Congress. (AP/Marco Ugarte) |
Mexico City - For days before President Felipe Calderón's appearance Saturday at a joint session of Congress here, opposing lawmakers argued over the stage directions of what used to be a routine bit of political theater.
Would Calderón deliver his annual report on the State of the Nation in writing, or would he make a speech? How many of the 13 steps of the dais would he be allowed to climb? Or would he be kept out of the chambers altogether?
On Saturday, the president entered Congress and delivered his views - in writing. He made it to the top of the dais, but spoke for just 90 seconds. It was a small victory for the president, tempered by the fact that a third of the legislature boycotted his appearance.
"We won't accept an illegitimate president," said Leonel Cota Montaño, president of the Democratic Revolution Party (known as the PRD in Spanish), explaining why the PRD caucus left the chamber.
Members of the PRD and other leftist parties believe their candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was cheated out of victory by Calderón's conservative National Action Party in the July 2006 presidential election.
The dispute over the vote, which Calderón won by less than a percentage point, has tainted Mexico's political culture ever since.
Last year, a scrum of wrestling legislators prevented outgoing President Vicente Fox from entering the chambers at his final State of the Nation report. He too turned in written remarks.
After days of private and public negotiations, leaders of the PAN and PRD agreed to an official ceremony that allowed both sides to save face. Calderón complied with his constitutional obligation to attend the joint session of Congress, while PRD legislators were able to continue their public rejection of his rule.
"In the end, we were able to show ability to dialogue," PAN Sen. Santiago Creel said.
Calderón will address the Mexican people on television today, a day later than tradition dictates, before a hand-picked audience at Mexico's National Palace.
Many commentators said the State of the Nation speech, which has been given on Sept. 1 for nine decades since the Mexican Revolution, was likely to become a thing of the past.
Until 2000, Mexico was a virtual one-party state ruled by the Institutional Revolutionary Party. The PRI, as the party is known, dictated that Sept. 1 be a national holiday. The president traveled to his State of the Nation speech in an open-car parade amid streams of confetti.
With no party holding a majority of seats in Congress, the leading parties have agreed to rotate leadership positions in both houses of the legislature. Ruth Zavaleta of the PRD became the new president of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress, on Thursday.
Congressional protocol dictated that Zavaleta accept Calderón's report Saturday. For days, Mexicans speculated whether Zavaleta would do so. She faced pressure from party die-hards who said she should refrain from implying the PRD recognized Calderón as president.
Minutes before Calderón entered Saturday, Zavaleta addressed the joint session. She said she would recuse herself rather than "accept a document from a person whose election is questioned by millions of Mexicans."
A few minutes after Zavaleta and the other leftist legislators walked out, Calderón entered the chambers to cheers from PAN lawmakers.
Calderón smiled broadly, shook many hands and rose to the dais to hand a thick document to Creel, the president of the Senate. |
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