| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | October 2008 
Mexico Leftists Seize Congress to Block Oil Reform
 Sandra Maler - Reuters
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| | A demonstrator of Mexico's former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wears a helmet that reads in Spanish 'Pemex is not for sale' during a protest against the energy reform bill, in Mexico City, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008. The Mexican Senate has passed a controversial energy reform bill meant to revitalize the nation's oil industry, but it has held back voting on three measures before sending it to the lower house. Pemex is Mexico's state-run oil company. In background, police officers. (AP/Eduardo Verdugo) | | |
Mexico City - Leftist legislators stormed the podium of Mexico's lower house of Congress on Tuesday to try to halt the final vote on reforms to energy legislation.
Some two dozen deputies occupied the podium, waving Mexican flags, just before the start of debating and voting on the seven-bill energy reform package backed by conservative President Felipe Calderon.
The legislation was expected to pass comfortably as the government has secured the support of the largest opposition party as well as many leftist lawmakers. But analysts say the changes do not go far enough to turn around the struggling industry.
Mexico, the world's sixth-largest oil producer, has seen its oil production fall to a 13-year low as output from the aging giant Cantarell field has tumbled.
The oil industry, nationalized in 1938, is viewed by many Mexicans as a bulwark of national sovereignty. Opponents of the energy reforms argue they are in fact a back-door measure to privatize the industry. |
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