Will Congress Maximize Its Power?

Democracy is coming to Mexico with an unexpected twist. On July 6, voters turned the tables and shifted power from the traditional supremacy of the president to the unfamiliar authority of Congress. Since early September, when the new Congress assembled, Mexicans have witnessed a rare political spectacle: frenzied deputies of the PRI, the longtime dominant party, desperately attempting to outlive their lost hegemony by boycotting the installation of Congress and obstructing the integration of its commissions; a staunch opponent taking over as president of the Chamber of Deputies to admonish President Ernesto Zedillo on his state of the union message; and even tumultuous fistfights on the floor of the chamber.

This new Congress results from the meltdown of the political patronage of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the anger of voters with government corruption and rampant crime. Citizens elected a plural Congress in which no single party maintains hegemony. In the 500-member Chamber of Deputies, which experienced a full turnover, the PRI retained a plurality of 239 seats but lost the absolute majority enjoyed since its founding in 1929. Four opposition parties hold a new majority (as long as they continue voting together) of 261 seats: the Party of National Action (PAN), the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Green party (including some independents elected on its lists) and the Labor Party.

In the Senate, where only 32 seats were contested, the PRI maintains a narrow majority. Although PRI’s margin in the upper house can serve as a bulwark to stop pro-democracy resolutions passed by deputies, overall the president no longer has the arbitrary power he has held as the traditional custodian of the entire legislative process. Whether the new Congress will live up to the task of restructuring political institutions and the national consensus depends largely now on the leadership qualities of the opposition forces, their ability to work together and their courage in curbing the PRI’s adamant resistance to change.

Under Mexico’s strong-president heritage, the new independence gained by Congress is a rare historic opportunity to spur real democracy. That possibility might be squandered if opposition parties, particularly the two largest--the center left PRD and the conservative PAN--instead use the opening to bargain for privileges or to try to impose a new partisan ideology. In the past, opposition parties have largely used their representation in Congress only as a side show, a protest forum to denounce the PRI, a transitory step in partisan careers and a convenient source of party funds and bureaucratic jobs.

After the opening skirmishes, the opposition deserves mixed reviews. On the one hand, it has taken the first bold steps to establish a unified front that, if it can overcome procedural matters, could be the basis of a genuine coalition, essential to democratic reforms. On the other hand, opposition forces have concentrated mostly on incidental matters and have not yet given the new Congress a clear sense of direction and purpose. In view of the strife and lack of substance of the first sessions, many observers are beginning to wonder if this static is all they were missing with the lack of democracy.

Despite the clean vote of July, Mexican authoritarian structures are intact; corrupt and entrenched interests remain in full control of most of Mexico’s centralized bureaucracy and accountability has by no means replaced impunity. The role of the new Congress, therefore, is to lead Mexico into the transformation of its political structures as mandated by voters.

The Mexican opposition can in fact seize the political initiative as the country’s democratic transition enters its most necessary, dangerous and difficult phase:

* The restoration of public trust in political institutions, with the eradication of official impunity, along with the fight against corruption and the rescue of the judiciary system.

* The search for a just peace in Chiapas.

* The reconstruction of a basic national consensus as the foundation of the democratic process.

By effectively addressing these three basic concerns, Congress will accrue the strength needed to take on larger democratic reforms.

Confidence in political institutions will not be restored and corruption and impunity will not be removed without immediate accountability. The public demands sweeping congressional investigations of pervasive abuses, for which powerful and influential politicians, many of them still in office, are directly responsible. Only when this delicate process of transparency begins will a meaningful transition be underway. When this occurs, however, the immensely powerful cartels of government corruption will not stand idly by.

Peace in Chiapas will not be established until Congress enacts fundamental rights that indigenous populations of the country have claimed for centuries. Such rights include the Indian autonomies vehemently opposed today by Zedillo and other entrenched traditionalists. Congress will need full moral and political authority to reverse such resistance.

Mexico’s economic development model is under acrimonious political scrutiny. Rampant corruption and intolerable privileges are perceived by large sectors of the country’s impoverished masses as evidence of the failure of the economic liberalization strategy, so critical for the North American Free Trade Agreement and so praised by many in the United States.

To achieve a new social consensus, Congress must quickly fashion compromises in a number of delicate and controversial areas of economic policy: social welfare, taxes, employment, trade, defense of natural resources and management of public and private debts. Such compromises are indispensable to opening the door for millions of disenfranchised Mexicans to become willing participants in the institutional transformation of the country. Without such agreements, any new political order will be extremely fragile.

The awakening of the Mexican Congress will drastically transform the process of decision making in Mexico-U.S. relations. The Mexican president no longer will be the sole voice of Mexico’s national interests. On issues of such keen national sensitivities as drug policies, immigration, trade or finance, the new Mexican legislature will claim a decisive role; we can expect the revision of many deals and agreements signed by the president in the exercise of such authority. Given the extent of intrusion by the U.S. Congress in U.S.-Mexican relations, the challenge for Mexican legislators will be, as the Mexican proverb says, to give their American counterparts “agua de su propio chocolate” (a taste of their own chocolate).

To carry out its duties, the Mexican Congress has to emerge as a truly accountable institution close to the citizenry, throwing off its traditional bondage and distancing itself from its customary partisan clienteles. The colossal obstacles it faces in this process can only be conquered if a solid, nonpartisan coalition is built around a basic parliamentary agreement for transparency.