MEXICO

Political Regime

Political Institutions

The Constitution

On paper, the Mexican regime does not differ markedly from that of the United States although much more power is granted to Mexico's president. The Constitution calls for a presidential legislative-executive system, a separation of judicial, legislative, and executive power, and a system of federalism that gives Mexico's states considerable power. The seventy-one-year domination of the political system by the PRI, however, rendered this formidable Constitution largely meaningless. Mexican presidents enjoyed near-dictatorial powers and faced few checks on their power. Through their domination of the PRI, Mexican presidents controlled not only the judiciary but aso handpicked state governors. The Mexican legislature might have served as a check on the PRI, but until July 1997 it was controlled by the PRI. Elections at all levels were largely a charade, and elections served mainly to validate PRI appointments to all elective offices. Even the president was not truly elected, since incumbent presidents ritually designated their successor. Campaigns were more celebrations of PRI's power than of genuine political contests.

How then did the opposition manage to win local and state elections in the 1980s, and how did the opposition unseat the PRI in the 2000 presidential elections? Part of the answer lies in the growing illegitimacy of the regime during the 1970s, when Mexico's economy began to deteriorate. But the erosion of PRI legitimacy was also the result of widespread outrage caused by the PRI's blatant and unabashed disregard for the rule of law in the 1980s and 1990s. As opposition to the PRI grew, and as the PRI resorted more openly and regularly to widespread electoral fraud, sectors of the PRI pushed for democratization. The PRI sought to polish its image and passed a number of reforms that favored the opposition.

One important set of reforms passed in 1993 changed the electoral law (implementing some element of proportional representation) in order to guarantee the presence of the opposition in the legislature. Other reforms passed under the last PRI president Ernesto Zedillo gave the legislature control over judicial appointments and imposed electoral safeguards that greatly reduced the ability of governments to steal elections.

Branches of Government

The Presidente

Because of their immense power and unchallenged authority, Mexican presidents have often been viewed as "elected monarchs." The 1917 Mexican created a far more powerful president than in the U.S. model. The Mexican president can issue executive decrees that have the force of law. He can directly introduce legislation in Congress and can veto legislation initiated by Congress. Mexican presidents have extensive power to appoint and remove judges. As late as the 1982 President JosŽ L—pez Portillo essentially decreed the nationalization of Mexico's banking system.

Mexican presidents serve a single six-year term. They must be at least thirty-five years old, native-born, and cannot be a member of the clergy or an active member of the military. During the seventy-one-year reign of the PRI, the power of the president was greatly enhanced by his ability to handpick his successor, generally from among his cabinet members. Mexican presidents have enjoyed enormous power, in part because the state has played such a leading role in Mexico's economy. Control over key natural resources and infrastructure (for example, oil, electricity, and communications) historically put key economy levels in the hands of the executive.

Mexican presidents appoint and preside over a large cabinet of ministers who oversee the various government departments. In recent decades the Secretariat of Government (which controls internal political affairs) and the Secretariat of the Treasury (which oversees the economy) have been the highest-profile cabinet posts and have often been stepping-stones to the presidency. Vicente Fox's reorganized cabinet includes nineteen cabinet secretaries in addition to seven policy coordinators whose job it is to ease communication among ministries. ¹ In the first two years of his administration Fox's inexperienced cabinet was characterized by chaos and confusion, which was a radical departure from the PRI era. Since the historic victory of Vicente Fox in 2000, Mexico's president has been faced with an unprecedented lack of a majority in Congress. As a result, some of the constitutional checks on presidential power that were long absent in the Mexican system have become more effective.

The Legislature

Mexico has a bicameral legislature ² called Congress ³ composed of a lower house (The Chamber of Deputies) and an upper chamber (The Senate). The five-hundred-member Chamber of Deputies has the power to pass laws (with a two-thirds majority), levy taxes, and verify the outcome of elections. Mexico's upper house is composed of 128 members, with four Senators from each state and the federal district. The Senate has fewer powers than the lower house, but it does have the power to confirm the president's appointments to the Supreme Court, to approve treaties, and to approve federal intervention in state matters.

Both houses have a committee system that, on paper, looks much like the American system. In practice, however, Mexican legislators, and the legislative committees, lack the teeth of their northern counterparts because of one key difference: according to Article 59 of their Constitution, Mexican legislators cannot be reelected to consecutive terms. As a result, from 1970 to 1997 only about 17 percent of Mexican deputies entered the lower house with any previous legislative experience, effectively depriving Mexico of the kind of senior lawmakers who dominate the US system. ⁴ Most legislators were from the PRI, and they could not afford to cross the leadership since they depended on the party for future political appointments. Even after the demise of the PRI, one-term legislators are still reluctant to disobey their party leadership if they hope to be nominated for other posts in local or state government. Ironically, the PRI (its founding principle was "no reelection") is now the strongest advocate for ending term limits.

The Mexican legislature is currently in transition. Until 1988 the PRI regularly won over 90 percent of lower-house seats and never lost a Senate seat. Between 1970 and 2003 the PRI averaged 66.9 percent of seats in the lower house, which dwarfed the presence of its nearest rival (the PAN, Vicente Fox's National Action Party, averaged about 17 percent during that same period). ⁵ In 1997 the two main opposition parties were able to form a coalition and take control of the lower house. After the 2000 elections the PRI remained the strongest party in the lower house but fell well short of a majority of seats. In the Senate, the opposition controlled 53 percent of the seats.

Before 1997 the lower house approved about 97 percent of legislation submitted by the executive. That percentage dropped precipitously after 1990 and continues to fall. Moreover, the number of laws originating in the legislature (instead of from the president's office) has increased dramatically. With divided legislature and a president who enjoys far less control over deputies from his own party, the lower house has resisted many of Fox's policies. Despite his inaugural pledge to respect Congress, Fox began his term acting very much like past PRI presidents in his relationship with Congress: he designed legislative proposals without any input from Congress. ⁶ Fox's imperious behavior only emboldened the legislature. It blocked some legislation and radically altered other measures. For example, the lower house modified Fox's indigenous rights bill, which emerged from the legislature so weakened that the Zapatista guerrillas rejected it. Fox's proposed reform of Mexico's tax structure was torpedoed by PRI and PRD opposition, and Congress blocked his effort to negotiate a reduction on tariffs for imported sugar. Mexico's upper house even used its constitutional power to bar Fox from traveling to the United States in April 2002, complaining that the president was not paying enough attention to domestic politics.

Since Mexican legislators can't be reelected, and since the majority of them are unlikely to receive presidential patronage, there is little disincentive to end the executive-legislative gridlock. The stubborn opposition to Fox by PRI and PRD legislators could have been predicted. The lukewarm support for Fox's legislative proposals from members of his own party has been more surprising. In short, Fox has attempted to govern like past PRI presidents, but without the benefit of the PRI's system of political control.

The Judiciary

Mexico's judiciary is structured according to the U.S. model. Like the United States, Mexico has a Supreme Court as well as courts at the local and state level. The eleven Supreme Court justices are appointed by the president and are confirmed by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. They serve terms of up to fifteen years. The Mexican judiciary has important formal powers, but under the PRI the Supreme Court never overturned any law, and it tended to view its jurisdiction in very limited terms. During the last PRI presidency, dramatic changes were introduced to give the Supreme Court far greater jurisdiction and power. The Supreme Court can now determine the constitutionality of legislation upon the request of one third of the lower house, but it can only strike down a law if a supermajority of eight out of eleven justices agrees.

During the last years of PRI rule, and in the early years of the Fox administration, the Supreme Court has assumed a much more activist role. For example, the Supreme Court ordered President Zedillo's administration to release records relating to the banking industry, and it struck down Fox's attempt to privatize electricity generation. Despite this progress, Mexico's judicial system is severely hampered by a widespread perception that judges, especially at the local level, are corrupt. Zedillo and Fox have both made it a priority to enhance the prestige and power of the beleaguered court system.

The Electoral System

During the last two decades of PRI rule elections were widely viewed as corrupt. The 1988 presidential election was probably the zenith of PRI electoral fraud: over thirty thousand ballot boxes disappeared, and in an effort to cover up its thievery the federal government declared the final ballots to be a state secret. Only in 1996 did the PRI succumb to pressure and create a truly independent Federal Electoral Institute, taking power away from the government-controlled Ministry of the Interior. Elections since then have been remarkably clean.

Voting is compulsory in Mexico, although enforcement of this law is sporadic. In part because of this law and in part because the PRI traditionally used its power to encourage electoral turnout, Mexican elections have generally had very high turnout, usually around 80 percent.

Mexico's current electoral system for the legislature dates from reforms implemented by PRI president de la Madrid in 1986. Mexico now has a mixed electoral system for the lower house, with three hundred single-member districts and two hundred proportional representation (PR) seats. Deputies in the lower house serve three-year terms. Mexico's electoral system for the upper house is unique. Senators serve six-year terms and three are elected from each state (and the federal district). The party with the most votes wins two senate seats, while the party finishing second is automatically awarded the third seat. An additional thirty two seats are allocated according to proportional representation. Mexican presidents are directly elected every six years in a single round of voting. Senators are elected every six years at the same time as presidential elections. Parties must get at least 2 percent of the national vote in order to win seats from the PR lists.

Local Government

Despite being formally federal, Mexico operated very much like a unitary political system under the PRI. Excessive localism and a history of instability and political violence caused by the absence of a weak central authority favored the PRI's centralizing tendencies, despite the federalist constitutional rhetoric. Federal authorities control local elections, local budgets, local police forces, and so forth. Until 1997 the leader of Mexico City was a cabinet member appointed directly by the president.

Mexico currently has thirty-two states plus the Federal District of Mexico City, each with its own constitution and unicameral legislature. ⁷ States are subdivided into county governments (called municipios). State governors, county councils, county presidents are elected directly, although until recently PRI leaders handpicked them. Until 1988 all governors were from the PRI, although in the 1980s only widespread electoral fraud prevented opposition victories. Indeed, some of the first serious opposition to PRI hegemony came at the local level, especially in Mexico's prosperous north, when unpopular PRI local leaders and state governors were successfully defeated by opposition candidates. The PRI's use of widespread electoral fraud at the local level helped ignite regional opposition to its heavy-handed centralist policies. The first opposition governor took power in 1989 in the state of Baja California Norte. In the 1990s the PRI began to accept opposition victories in numerous local elections, and by the end of that decade opposition parties controlled seven governorships.

Mexican states do have important powers, but their sovereignty is far more circumscribed by federal authorities, especially the federal bureaucracy, than in other federal systems like the United States, Canada, or Germany. The PRI regime limited local autonomy by retaining tight control of public funds, controlling about 85 percent of all revenues collected. Under Fox this figured has been substantially reduced, suggesting that local government will play an enhanced role in Mexico's future.