Yearly Archives: 2010

All Mexican presidents begin their six-year terms certain in the knowledge that they will transform the country and erect the platform of development that they envisaged and that the population demands. Sooner or later, they finally come face to face with the sad reality: they realize that the solutions are more complex than they had […]

In one of his eloquent observations, Mark Twain noted that “I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.” The bankruptcy of Greece invites reflection upon the opportunities that it had, and that to a great extent wasted, during the thirty years that it has formed part of what […]

Six weeks away from the next electoral joust, it is facile to anticipate the scenario at official Mexican presidential residence Los Pinos the day after: everyone will want to know what happened. It was assumed that the new-found party alliances would permit the PAN to advance in domestic geography, weaken the PRI, and establish the […]

When Plutarco Elías-Calles proposed the need to “cease being a country of political bosses or caudillos so as to become a country of institutions”, he proposed the rough draft of the central problematic of the country. Unfortunately, viewed in retrospect, the solution that he found on constructing what ended up becoming the “Mexican political system”, […]

In his book on the “clash of civilizations,” Samuel Huntington foresaw that the upcoming era of worldwide conflict would derive from distinct and irreconcilable disputes between cultures. His vision attained exceptional notoriety with the Twin Tower attacks because it appeared to explain the new phenomenon. Nonetheless, however attractive his theory seemed, it would not permit […]

Gadfly and great satirical actor Groucho Marx once observed that “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies.” The prevailing notion in Mexico is that the country is over-diagnosed, that the problems are known and understood, and that the genuine problem lies with legislators and […]

Earl Long, the three nonconsecutive-term populist governor and self-styled “last of the red hot poppas” of U.S. politics, once affirmed that “Someday Louisiana is gonna get good government. And they ain’t gonna like it.” I hope that, one day, we will have a good system of government in Mexico, but I fear that before being […]

Competition is vital for efficient market functioning: without competition, there is permanent propensity for price growth, no incentive for improving the quality of goods and services, and innovation is inhibited. Without competition, an economy tends to stagnate, and the population lives in a state of harassment by rent-seeking businesses without even minimal interest in offering […]

All of the surveys put it in first place. With over two years remaining until the presidential contest, surveys are, to a great extent, irrelevant, but the symbolism is clear, and what underlies the growth of the PRI in terms of popular preferences even more so. It is obvious that we should be preparing ourselves […]

Mexican politicians are an odd combination of conservatism and temerity. They have abstained from the actions and responses that have been needed for years, in part because Mexican society is very divided in terms of what to do, but also because leaders have not emerged who are able to head a project of prudent and […]