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 foreseen, and, above all, that there are no prefabricated solutions. All presidents come to understand that the true powers of the presidency are many fewer (and today, infinitely fewer) than they supposed beforehand. Those who are successful in the end, in Mexico and everywhere, are those who recognize that, beyond what the credentials state or what tradition dictates, true presidential power resides in the moral authority with which they act.

In his book on his experiences as a presidential advisor, Stan Greenberg affirms that a successful leader is one who carefully and minutely explains to the people the challenge confronting their nation, and convinces the population of the importance of embarking upon transcending actions: their function is rather one of creating a spirit than undertaking myriad affairs, because attitudes can either add and transform, or subtract and defeat. Primarily, says Greenberg, the key lies in the narrative that the president establishes, not only to convince, but instead to procure the understanding of the citizenry concerning the dilemma and make the presidential response their own. The wisdom for presidents to heed is that they cannot govern with speeches lacking in transcendence, because what is important is that there is a narrative in existence that is intelligible for everyone: this is how to construct support bases, and these, in turn, make it possible to make a difference.

It is easy to exaggerate the momentousness of a leader in great social processes. No country advances to a great degree because it has individuals endowed with exceptional charisma. What makes the difference, at least at the time, is the existence of equal opportunities for all and the proper conditions for every individual to develop his abilities to the maximum. However, there are moments when exceptional leadership can take on transformer dimensions if the leader is able to build a support base that develops a new reality. When things are at such a standstill and in such decline that they require fundamental reconsideration, a leader who understands the moment can be the factor that unfetters shackles, affects interests, and posits foundations for a new era.

Mexico does not have the conditions that augur well for its development. For decades we have been erecting obstacles, putting up barriers, protecting interests, to the point that everything has ultimately arrived at a state of paralysis. Every person, group, union, enterprise, and entity in the country has structured mechanisms of protection that allow them to contend with (when not taking advantage of) the circumstances. Some enjoy fiscal exemptions, others receive subsidies; some survive in the informal economy, others grease palms; some come by soft jobs, and still others simply opt for the status quo in the face of whichever alternative, because their experience has taught them that any change implies something worse. The tangible fact is that the Mexico of today is one in which everyone is displeased but no one is disposed to change anything.

A University of Pennsylvania study* on presidents asserts that “history rewards presidents who take risks”. I have no doubt that we live in an era of leadership crisis, which is, as Einstein once noted, a crisis of incompetence. For decades we have had bad governments and anodyne presidents who agreed to preside, in a word, over decadence. Along the way, they tolerated, when they did not indeed precipitate, the consolidation of all these vices and interests that have come to incapacitate the country. Of course, no one did it on purpose –that would have been even more Machiavellian than our illuminati would countenance- but the fact is that, between those who would save the third world and those who would administer the riches, not to mention those who sought to change the model only to leave the country in the worst crisis in its history, what is left is a country clogged in the mire which no one wants to change even one iota.

And this is where effective and intelligent leadership, leadership that transcends the quotidian discourse and embarks upon an honest, believable, transforming, and non-threatening narrative, can contribute decisively to breaking the impasse.

From his defeat in the midterm elections, Felipe Calderón understood that the time has passed for attempting to save the country one more time. His recent speeches reflect a new tonic, a wish to explore opportunities that he had not contemplated previously as being possible or, even, desirable. Save for a few partisan speeches, his most recent rhetoric assumes something transcendental: that a country is not built in six years, an insight to which very few of our presidents have been privy. The task of a president is not to change everything, but, strictly speaking, to advance solutions, many of which can take decades to bear fruit.

The change in tone has been noteworthy, but the method has not. The president continues to believe that a speech is all that is required to govern. Instead of a narrative that evolves and builds, we continue to observe a spate of disunited individual discourses that fall short of transcending the immediate objective. There is no understanding that the population needs to be convinced, that it is not an inert mass incapable of understanding the dilemmas and the problems. When a succession of presidents -and, in fact, the entire political class- addresses the population with contempt and treats them with scorn, the citizenry not only ridicules them, but also takes refuge in the form of entrenchment, which is characteristic of our present reality.

Everyone knows that fundamental changes are required to be able to go forward. In technical terms, it is not difficult to diagnose the wrongs and to spell out the options that we are confronting. But our problem is not technical: an overtone more, an overtone less, but the solutions are known. Our problem is to shatter the inertia in order to emerge from the gridlock. Effective leadership could make an enormous difference.

Mexicans want a leader who confers upon them a sense of strength, trust, and self-esteem. A leader who transcends the speech and its partisan lures and fears to make it possible to begin to walk. President Calderón already knows that he cannot do what no president can; perhaps this is why he could do what they all should. Galbraith observed that the common characteristic among great leaders is their disposition to confront their people’s sources of anxiety in unequivocal fashion. This would be a worthy challenge for our president to brave.

*Ten Ways to Judge a President, July 22, 2009, in Knowledge@Wharton

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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 is now denominated the European Union (EU). The poor, or less rich, countries that make overtures toward nations that are already developed do so in order to accelerate their own economic process on the basis of the strength of the latter. But, as illustrated by the case of Greece, and similar to that of Mexico with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the association creates the opportunity, but this only becomes a reality when the less economically buoyant country decides to make it its own.

There is great controversy concerning the differences and similarities between the EU and NAFTA. Although the objective of associated nations is similar -all seek the development of their economies- the European mechanism and that which characterizes NAFTA are very distinct. To be an EU member country, a nation must substantially modify its judicial and regulatory structures to conform with the norms of the entity. Throughout several decades, the EU has been perfecting the package of measures necessary for unleashing development: a country that becomes incorporated into the EU and that carries out the changes exacted by the Brussels bureaucracy entertains an extraordinary probability of achieving development, and, as demonstrated by Spain and Ireland, of approximating the income level of the remainder of the Continent. However, experience has also shown that although all EU member countries change their structures and norms (this is de rigueur), not all are successful. The sole fact of modifying the form does not resolve the matter of the underpinnings.

For its part, NAFTA does not entail a political union nor does it propose changing internal structures, except those regarding commercial and investment policy, i.e., the essence of the agreement: the three NAFTA nations, Mexico, the U.S., and Canada, recast the pertinent laws and regulations to conform with that established in the agreement, and nothing more. Many, above all in Europe, have been arguing for years that this difference is what has held Mexico back from attaining an integral transformation of its economy, and from being the paramount star of Latin-American development at present. These critics, principally in Spain, depart from the supposition that mere adoption of the European norm is what leads to a country’s transformation.

The case of Greece affords us a distinct perspective: development is not something magical; it materializes when a country decides that it will transform itself, and from that point, pulls itself up by its bootstraps and gathers together all of its forces and resources to reach this end. That is, development does not come into being as the result of modifying a set of laws or regulations (many in the case of Europe, few in our case), but is, rather, the product of the decision of the society as a whole to relinquish what it has always been and what keeps it in the throes of poverty and inequality. The latter would appear to be excessive verbiage, but it is not: a country such as Switzerland, already wealthy for a long time, could have chosen to join the EU, but refrained because it saw no benefits sufficiently large to justify changes in its nature. On the other hand, Ireland, Spain, or Greece, as well as the Eastern European nations, recognized that their structures or ways of doing things would not lead to development. Thus, they joined the EU. Mexico did its own thing with NAFTA. Looking beyond the financial crisis of the last several months, some of these nations have achieved their objective, but others have not.

In this regard, the mechanism -NAFTA or EU- is less important than the internal transformation: despite all of its European normativity, Greece continues to be very similar to how it was before; without European normativity, Mexico has not reached the development to which it aspires. The lesson in both cases is that development is concerned to a greater degree with the internal disposition of the nation to achieve it than with any external conditioning.

In recent weeks, the EU announced a set of measures to aid Greece in emerging from its crisis. Time will tell whether the Greeks will board the train or miss it again. But the example is relevant: we, the sons and daughters of the Lampedusa character who remarked “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change,” have been experts at reforming everything so that everything can continue as it is. Reform in oil matters over the last few years ago is a good example: the original bill was modest, and what emerged was a thicket of entanglements that was even less functional than what had existed in the first place. The EU will oblige Greece to correct its fiscal accounts and to adopt the many European norms that it has eluded to date. Although this form of “neocolonialism,” as it has been denominated by many critics, will surely correct fiscal disequilibria, it is not obvious whether it will consolidate a platform for long-term growth. In 1995, we in Mexico underwent a similar process and ended up with more restrictions for development than there were before, and with poor results in terms of growth.

These two examples confirm that economic growth is not achieved by means of imposition. Countries must desire to transform themselves and to be willing to carry out the changes that this transformation demands. For example, growth requires the elimination of abuses and privileges -those that are enjoyed by unions and entrepreneurs, bureaucrats and citizens in general, that is, by all of us- with the goal of achieving great benefits later on. Although a government can modify laws and regulations, only popular concurrence and support of the transformation can achieve it. After decades of dictatorship, in the 1970s the Spanish embraced the idea of joining Europe because they saw it as the key to development. Their disposition for transforming themselves and their nation was the key to its success. Their lags also provide evidence of their own decisions: in the last year, for example, Spain’s economic contraction was not very different from that of Germany but, due to its labor policies, unemployment shot up from 8% to 20%.

Mexicans have for years had open access to the greatest and richest economy on the planet, but only part of the population has taken advantage of, or been successful at it. There has not been a development strategy such as that in Spain or in Ireland when they joined the EU, nor has Mexico had the political leadership capable of steering it into a good port.

In Mexico, as in Greece, what is important is not so much what the wealthy countries with which we are associated want us to achieve, but instead, what we are willing to do to end obstacles to development. This is the flip side of sovereignty.

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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 bases for two years of non-stop wins. Unfortunately, the reality will have been cruel, with the one or two triumphs that the PAN could have achieved. As the great North American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson would say, “We learned geology the day after the earthquake.” The discussion will surely become heated: some will attempt to explain the phenomenon, and others, to find the guilty parties. A few, perhaps the least in number, will begin to speculate upon the implications of the disaster and the possibilities of the remainder of the presidential term. The new geologists will be very busy.

By Monday morning, July 5, 2010, the country will be another. The question is whether the government will continue to be the same: Will it continue to ask itself,  as it did after the interim elections a year ago, Who did this to us?, or, with greater sensitivity, How will we fix it? Last year, the answer was categorical: the government had done everything correctly, but the PRI governors, the television networks, and the economic crisis caused the defeat. Hence, their inevitable reaction: go after them all.

The government’s alternative at present is very simple: to reconsider its strategy for constructing whatever is still possible, or to strike out on a new crusade for the destruction of the PRI that, by that time, will presumably have reached a new milestone in the process of reconquering the presidency. The chip that dominates the government has not been that of the construction of and search for consensus, but instead, that of reaction against “the bad guys,” and that day, the PRI will be the worst of all of these. But by that time the alibi will no longer be convincing: while a year ago the governors continued to maintain control over state processes, the notion that an out-going governor could ordain voting fancies will no longer be persuasive.

The situation of the government will not be simple. If the result that appears to be nearly inevitable materializes, the PRI will be emboldened and probably indisposed to enter into negotiations in which they do not perceive a better opportunity. The government will find itself in the face of the limits of excessively reduced governability and authority, in addition to that the entire political world will look to the PRI, inexorably viewing it as the 2012 victor.

There are two elements to consider. First, the position of the president as he confronts the two years that remain of his term and, no doubt, before history. Second, the atrophy that increasingly characterizes the country because everyone is mostly concentrated on winning (or on the other one losing) than on governing, legislating, or constructing. And third, the relative position of each of the parties in the grips of the mother of all battles, that of 2012. This latter point is easy to elucidate: on following the pathway that it has taken to date, the government will guarantee that 2012 will be a field day, but for the PRI.

The day after the election events, the government, along with its party, will be required to rethink the rash wagers that they placed on the alliances and to define its strategy once more. Indubitably, the most difficult part will be the role of the president in the face of the new reality. Regrettably for him, the bet on the alliances on which he gambled did not guarantee any victory, but did indeed ensure the PRI’s hostility, without whose countenance the legislative front was an impossible course. The president will now have the option of correcting or of attempting novel madness: to correct so as to attempt to construct something relevant during what is left of his term, which would entail clear readiness to negotiate, create common spaces, and forsake the temptation of winning 2010 at any price. Or, on the other hand, to attempt a new alliance against the PRI, whatever the cost. Deep down, what the president would be required to define is whether he is capable of overcoming his gut anti-PRIism in order to hand down a minimally relevant legacy.

In contrast with the midterms of a year ago, the president is now in an acutely dangerous position. A year ago, there was the option of placing himself above the daily conflict with an eye toward advancing, and possibly transcending, the national agenda. Now the theme will be survival.

Although the symbolism of the result of these July 2010 elections will be enormous, electoral history is not written until it is written. As recently illustrated by the antagonism among PRI contingencies in the Legislature (each representing the interests of opposing pre candidates), nothing is ensured for anyone in this game, nor should anyone underestimate the complexity of the other. The perception of a poor government has made it very difficult for the PAN to maintain the presidency, but this is not an absolute. Nonetheless, given the experience of these past few years, it appears reasonable to suppose that if the president does not modify his strategy, his principal legacy will be exactly the opposite of that of Fox: to return the presidential sash to the PRI.

The choice is clear: find the guilty parties, or construct a new strategy. If he opts to search for scapegoats, the sky is the limit. The alternative of devising a new strategy does not guarantee victory for the PAN, but it does confer upon the president the possibility of bequeathing a legacy that transcends the necessary but interminable war against the narco. Will he be able to recognize errors, convoke political forces, and salvage whatever is possible of political civility?

In the scenario of construction and the search for agreements, minimal though they be, it would be mandatory for the government to redefine its objectives; develop an ambitious strategy for transforming communications into an instrument of governing; rethink its team, above all in what concerns political operations; and focalize its efforts. In first place, it would need to define its priorities, no longer in the abstract manner of a beginning term-of-office, but rather, in that of what remains of an administration that, after four years, has few results to show.

The experience of Nelson Mandela in South Africa is exceedingly eloquent: what Mexico needs is reconciliation, to leave the past in the past, and to begin to look ahead. The basic question is whether the government will continue to be guided by phobias, or by the desire to build the future.

The position of the government is not lost. Today, six weeks prior to the elections, it can begin to consolidate an action and civility pact for the post-election stage. It can also initiate agreements for damage control and for facilitating the growth of its own contingencies in the next few months. Its problem is one of strategy, but also of attitude. Both are crucial at this time.

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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”, and the party as its central figure, did not constitute a lasting solution, and we are now paying the price.

Decades of political peace and economic growth cannot be denied with a pithy affirmation such as that of the previous paragraph, but if we analyze the coming-into-being of the country throughout the post-revolutionary period, the result is not as benign as it would appear at first glance. It is indubitable that between the end of the 1920s and the 1960s, the result is spectacular by any skimmer. However, the economic as well as the political performance of the country from the mid-60s onward has been pathetic. The economy has grown barely a little over 1% on average per capita in this period, and the crises to which we have been witness -electoral, currency exchange, legitimacy, guerrillas, political assassinations, kidnappings, narcosis- reveal a much less kindly and promissory reality.

The point is not to blame or to accuse, but rather, to analyze the ills that beset us. The system that was constructed from 1929 on (and that, for all practical purposes, continues to be the same one) emphasized loyalty and discipline, but not by way of the development of strong and transcendental institutions, but instead, by means of the development of a cultural hegemony based on the revolutionary myth, and, above all, on the exchange of loyalty and discipline for benefits in the form of appointments and access to corruption. The system achieved control of the country and of the population by means that were as benign (e.g., economic growth) as they were authoritarian. But it did not procure, nor even attempt, the assembly of an institutionalized system of government.

While the Callistic system was able to eradicate caudillismo, at least at the presidential level (and those who tried to restore it were crucified, in manner of speaking), it was unsuccessful in achieving that the country cease being one of people rather than institutions. The system was supremely successful in creating a class of competent political operators, responsible and capable, experts at problem-solving, at avoiding crises, and emerging, time and again, from the mire, but it did not generate a capacity for building a developed nation. The contrast between feeble institutionality and the fortitude of individuals with political skills is noteworthy: it is two sides of the same coin.

Of course, all countries generate competent public officials and politicians, but the exceptional feature in Mexico comprises the petty institutionality that characterizes them. The system generates absolute but impermanent allegiances, and all have their counterpart in the guise of personal perquisites; however, as soon as the six-year term dematerializes, loyalty recedes from view. The king is dead, and, as with the British Crown, long live the king. But the king in Mexico is the person: the individual politician who lives from post to post, surviving and attempting to become rich and powerful along the way. Here there are no institutions -no loyalties- that survive the presidential term. The problematic has persisted in the post-PRI era. Entities such as the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), Transparencia, and other like bodies were generally constructed with nary a care for protecting their institutionality and are vulnerable in the extreme to the pummeling of personal political interests.

The cost of this reality can be appreciated in all circuits, and more so when they are in contrast with other nations that, little by little, have come to break with being condemned to underdevelopment. We can see this in everything: in the nonsense to change all public policies -such as taxes- at every juncture; in a business community that, with few exceptions, has no long-term view; in an infrastructure fabricated to breach the gap (for example, Ciudad Juárez was the locus of the greatest economic growth and employment in the Mexican Republic between 1980 and 2008, but investment in infrastructure has been infinitesimal); in the paucity of attention to the obvious problem of oil production; in an education policy intent on satisfying the teachers union and not to preparing the country, beginning with the children, for the world of competition based on the creative capacity of people. Examples abound.

There are so-called “de facto powers” because there are no institutions with effective counterweights obliging them to contributing and adhering, instead of plundering. The networks of interests and privileges -economic and political- hold fast and multiply because there are no institutional mechanisms –checks and balances- that limit and obligate these to abide by the law. The “real” rules of the game are not the same as the written laws, and as long as there is a cleft between them, institutionality is impossible: everything depends on people, with their fallibilities, interests, and preferences. The Mexican political system continues to be hierarchical, virtually monarchal, and has never developed effective counterweights or institutional devices that confer upon it the necessary flexibility for adapting itself and responding to growing challenges. In a word, the incentives that engender our reality induce political operators into blackmail and wounding the institutions. The question is how can we break this vicious cycle and get ahead.

Today’s problem is not, in essence, distinct from that faced by Calles. The country depends on people whose interests and objectives are not (nor can they be) those of the country. What we require is an institutional framework that allows for the capacity and ability of all of these individuals in all spheres of life to flourish: businesses; the countryside; politics; professions, and all the others. That is, what we need is an arrangement among all the forces and political forces and groups so that the issues of power and monies are defined, thus permitting the remainder of society to develop. The theme is not one of the law or of public policies that no one respects, but is, rather, one of the essence of power: how it will legitimize and institutionalize the system of government so that it can be effective.

Agreements of this nature arise under three types of circumstances: a consensus that translates into a pact (as in Spain); a crisis that makes a response inevitable (as in Germany and Japan after WWII), or great leadership that forges a transformation (as in South Africa, Brazil, or Singapore). There are no perfect models, but what is for sure is that the train conveying the Spanish-style pact never arrived at the Mexican station. It will have to be one of the other two types.

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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 explanation of another facet of the cultural phenomenon: the shock found within each culture itself. The disputes that often characterize us transcend the limits of traditional rationality and can only be deciphered as owning to contradictory views, irreconcilable differences, and the inability to secure common solutions.

I have been reflecting for years on the phenomenon of the internal struggles emanating, at least in part, from cultural differences, but it was the reading of a recently published and exceptional book* that allowed me to assume a much keener perspective. On scrutinizing the Arab world, the book describes two manifestations of the shock of civilizations, which appear to have been adopted from a Mexican novel of manners.

Lee Smith comes to grips, on the one hand, with the differences characterizing the internal dynamic of Arab societies. The author observes that, contrary to what one could deduce from press reports and opinion articles regarding Middle Eastern societies, there is no one way that embodies the general sense; thus, the argument employed by political leaders to justify their inaction ‒that is, as not to stir up the “Arab steet”‒ is no more than a stratagem to skirt modification of the established order. From an analytical vantage point, the very notion of monolithism is absurd; however, if one reflects upon the history of the PRIist era, monolithism was precisely what was the pride of the system: i.e., there was a truth, and that was the one that counted.

The second manifestation of cultural struggles according to Smith refers to the incapacity of recognizing any responsibility: someone else is always guilty of the things that happen every day, of the problems the country faces, and of the impossibility of acting in the face of the evident evil characterizing the region’s economies and societies. Confronted by the inability to recognize and confront the problems, the solution has been to blame someone else, and, notes Smith, from decades past, the guilty party ‒and the convenient scapegoat‒ has been the U.S.

Some conclusions that the author advances are particularly relevant for our own reality. Certain phrases evoke sanguinity with our culture that makes us pay special attention. Some textual phrases: “the problem of Arab democracy is not the lack of supply, but the lack of demand”; “the people prefer a strong horse to a weak one;” “understanding the region is impossible if one fails to recognize the meaning of violence, coercion, and repression;” “the strength of any society depends on its cohesion… of the narrative that shapes it;” “tribalism ‒the sensation that society is defined, in essence, by the clash of groups and positions‒ is a formidable force”; “full recognition and respect is reserved only for believers”; “there is no disinterested intellectual… everyone is at the service of the powers-that-be”; anti-Americanism is not the result of U.S. policies, but rather of an organic element of local politics”, and “society changes, but the social narrative remains intact.”

Mexico is not an Arab country, but on reading the pages of this work, one is unable to stop meditating on the evident similarities. In Mexico, it is possible to observe two phenomena: the raw struggle for power and for personal and group  objectives, and the employment of external resources (like the US, the PRI, the private sector) to evade responsibility and to allocate guilt. PRIist culture and narrative always bestowed privilege on national unity, a certain distancing from the rest of the planet, and, above all, a one-way world view. The system exploited (and manipulated) the population’s fears, the history of the American invasion, and the apparently endemic poverty to maintain and nourish the legitimacy of the system. Foraging for popular support, above all from the populist governments of the 1970s, never contemplated the consequences of their rhetoric or of their reinvention of history.

The Niños Héroes/Child Heroes narrative is paradigmatic. Created during Miguel Alemán presidential times to commemorate 100 years of the American invasion, the legend leaned heavily upon all of the utilitarian elements in order to be believable and generalizable: heroism; childhood; school; the flag. It was an essentially inoffensive narrative because it was constructed from within and did not generate a hostile climate. During the 1970s, the utterly nationalistic aapproach became aggressive and defensive, acting as the context for modifying many rules of the game in economic matters and finally beginning an era of crisis from which, all things considered, we have never emerged.

The PAN has not been reticent: its historical cohesion arose from its opposition to the PRI, but once it came into power, it did not know how to develop a positive program with a vision of the future. Instead of building a novel narrative, which focused perhaps on the development of institutions or on the development of a truly market economy, the PAN continued in its Manichean logic: the other is the guilty party. It is not different for the PRD: here we observe the use of the spurious argument by Andrés Manuel López-Obrador. Cohesion of the Mexican political class has depended on assigning fault to others instead of constructing a future.

Perhaps most symptomatic of the cultural war described by Huntington and Smith, each in his own, is that the country presently finds itself in the midst of internecine combat conditions in which the particular interests representing, or leading, many of our politicians are disguised in benevolent positions, when in reality they constitute fundamental threats to the development and well-being of the country. Irreconcilable positions may generate cohesion, but do not provide the country with viability, and even to a lesser degree, the possibility of emerging from its stagnation.

The internal feud, which has come to be called “the dispute for the nation,” is alive and well. Years, decades, of attempts on behalf of change have not yielded the fruits that satisfy the population, although the productive apparatus has been greatly transformed. The country will remain the same to the extent that we continue to simulate and pretend that defending particular privileges and interests exacts no price: change, but with no sense of direction. The lesson of the Arab countries -as illustrated by those with no oil- is that development cannot be feigned if everything to render it possible is rejected out of hand.

*Smith, Lee, The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations, Doubleday.

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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 government officials not committing to and acting upon approving “the reforms”, thus forfeiting the opportunity for the country to get ahead. However, it is not obvious whether the diagnoses have become unsullied truths, or whether the content of the reforms, reiterated ad nauseam, are correct. While the country evidently is in need of innumerable reforms, the content of these is important, and no less than key, for leading toward the objective of getting out of the rut and giving free rein to development. Nothing courts danger more than doing the incorrect correctly.

The essence of our problematic centers on a sole concept: conflict. Conflict is inherent in any society. As homogeneous as it might be, there is no community of humans that does not manifest differences, interests at odds, or incompatible perspectives. Ralph Miliband, one of my great teachers, affirmed that without conflict, it is impossible to understand human society. Conflict is part of the daily life of the most institutionalized and civilized, as well as the most contentious and violent of societies. The difference between these does not reside in the existence of conflict, but rather, in how conflict is processed and revolved.

The prevailing diagnosis trusts that the problem of institutional paralysis lies in our incapacity to agree on something. Thus, the argument goes, it is urgent to find a way to bridge the gap among positions; this done, the country would begin to flourish. Thence, proposals that are that are oriented not toward channeling conflict but, instead, to suppressing it: to create majorities, even if they are artificial, so that, this time, we can emerge from the impasse. In essence, there is nostalgia for the presidential solutions of yore, and concurrently, for the Spanish and Chilean transitions in which all political forces agreed to disregard the past in order to construct a new future.

Contemplated in retrospect, the circumstances of these two nations prior to the end of dictatorial government were very distinct from those of our reality. Both Spain and Chile built legal systems that functioned as mechanisms to settle disputes, and that afterward served as platforms for the transition itself. In Spain, there was an explicit agreement to maintain the post-Franco Constitution, not because it was good or because it had the blessing of the new political structure, but because all forces recognized how fundamental it was to maintain a legal regime to which everyone was obligated and that set down the rules of the game. In Mexico, the rules of the game were those of the PRIist system, and were based, not on a functional legal system, but on the power of the president. This system eroded and finally collapsed in 2000. In contrast with Chile and Spain, Mexico entered into a political transition process without a map, without game rules, and without institutions capable of channeling and resolving political conflict. Viewed in this manner, it should have been obvious that a transition such as those in Chile and Spain was simply inconceivable in Mexico.

Then along came what Joaquín Villalobos denominated “the democratic deception syndrome.” For those who expected a smooth transition, disenchantment has been major. The greatest problem at present does not lie in lack of action, but in error in diagnosis and closed-mindedness when faced with the desideratum for analysis. Rather than recognizing the inevitability of conflict as a component of human nature, the debate has been absorbed in the need to impose majorities and to returning to what supposedly worked under the PRIist regime that, in all fairness, had it been so marvelous, would not have fallen as it did…

Democracy is inevitably conflictive; it generates uncertainty and opens spaces for the public and political participation of all social actors, including those who are undesirable. Democracy requires rules for it to be able to work, and these are the product of negotiations in which all of the actors relinquish the privileges of the old order in exchange for institutionalism: it is not a simple process, nor is it one lacking in contradictions. The old establishment attempted absolute control over minds and souls, and by this route, the suppression of conflict. As imperfect as our democracy may be, the opening inexorably entails the presence and involvement of indigenous and narco communities, the opinion makers and the politicians, businessmen and unions, leaders and citizens. What in the past appears not to have existed –because it was suppressed- is now an inherent part of the social debate. Therefore, the notion that an artificially created majority constitutes a solution is absurd: what is quashed in one space will reappear in another. In a certain manner, this is the main lesson learned from the Zapatista uprising: conflict exists and will surface in some form or another; if there are no institutional mechanisms for conflict to manifest itself, it will materialize in other, less attractive, behaviors or conduits.

The country is experiencing conflict in all of its ambits, many very sensitive. Differences in perspectives and clashes of interest are ubiquitous. Much of the disjointedness in which we live has deep roots in reality, a reality that is easy to thrust aside. For example, the underground economy perhaps employs at present an absolute majority of the urban workforce in the country. It can be claimed that the underground economy does not exist, but this does not nullify it, and, more importantly, it does not change the fact that the incentives for those who inhabit it are distinct from those belonging to the formal economy. It is here that Mexican society comes face to face with a little understood schism: on the one hand there is the formal economy (which includes professionals and bureaucrats on an equal par with the de facto powers), and the other, the underground economy (which incorporates narcos and street vendors, the latter extraordinarily vulnerable to the networks of corruption and violence of the former.

The solution to this state of affairs does not begin with legislation. Without an elementary political pact or arrangement that precedes any reform, no law will alter the reality. The underlying matter to resolve is how to channel the conflict and confer legitimacy upon the instruments of government, including those that assert the law on those refusing to be part of the political regime resulting from this arrangement. Denying the inevitability of conflict is tantamount to preserving the status quo.

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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 able to construct one, we would of necessity have to free ourselves from myriad myths, dogmas, and truths that are not true. Perhaps we could begin with themes such as our inability to develop a long-term view, so that the country would not have to reinvent itself every six years.

Our current governmental system was born after the Revolution and as a response to the Porfirio Díaz regime. Faced with the chaos in the wake of the Revolution, the National Revolutionary  Party (PNR), grandfather of the present PRI party, was built as a unifying structure of the political forces, groups, militias, and gangs of the moment, but above all, as a mechanism devoted to disciplining these contingents, structuring a system of government, and providing a sense of direction for the country. If one were to take a glance backward, it is evident that the PRI system stabilized the country and, employing virtually any instrument that it considered necessary at any given moment, afforded Mexico years of political peace during which the economy prospered.

But this system responded not only to the chaos of the moment, but also to the Porfirio Díaz government and its sequelae. In the constitutional structure of 1917, and later in the system established by Plutarco Elías-Calles, two principles were adopted that became the norm for Mexican political development for decades that, viewed in retrospect, have had atrocious effects. On the one hand, the system was founded on the principle of no-reelection, which instigated the revolutionary movement. Rejection of the despotism of the Porfiriato was transformed into a one-term system of government, a mechanism conceived of as a way to avoid perpetuation of power and to which the popular catch phrase “no ill can last six years” was consigned.

The second component of the PRIist system, also a response to the Porfirian government, was, as scholar Roger Hansen argued, the institutionalization of the Porfiriato: it eliminated permanent personalism and edified an institution capable of shaping Mexican politics. Perhaps our greatest problem today resides precisely in the manner in which PRIism imbued political continuity.

The no-reelection regime was developed with the objective of avoiding perpetuation of power. In this, the logic and imperative of history was evident and necessary. What this regime did not resolve, or rather, what it did in actuality engender, was the articulation of a system of incentives that in essence thwarts the country’s development. Perhaps this appears too harsh, but let us espy the inherent logic in the non-existence of reelection as viewed from both sides: that of the politician or public official, and that of the citizen.

A system without reelection perverts democracy because it concedes to it a limited period of government (three or six years, according to the office), within which the system has no responsibility at all. During this period, doings or undoings may be undertaken without accountability to anyone, without compliance with campaign promises, and without being required to confront the electorate for the latter to qualify by means of the vote. The structure of incentives deriving from no-reelection in effect removes the citizen from the political equation.

If we place ourselves in the shoes of the legislator, governor, politician, or civil servant, the logic of the six-year term creates perennial uncertainty regarding their subsequent job situation and obliges them to engage in the inexorable manufacture of our next post from nearly the day they get to where they are. In some cases, the search is limited to the political/electoral world, and the sole potential impropriety in which they could engage is to attempt to bias the results in favor of their party or their next electoral race. However, in many others, the system is party to the development of businesses of every ilk, as well as obscure agreements with the media, the unions, or the entrepreneurs. Presidents will be concerned with their legacies and with how they will be remembered by history, but all the rest permanently lie in wait.

The system is so perverse in this respect that no true civil service career has even been created that would confer continuity on public policy in excess of the six-year presidential term-of-office (and sometimes, not even that). While in other nations there is a senior civil service that in fact leads the management of government affairs, in Mexico we have entrusted tenderfeet with the most sensitive responsibilities. For example, no Parisian or Londoner would believe that a metropolis such a Mexico City does not have a city manager who remains independent from the political circuit.

But even more worrisome than these subtleties is the fact that no one is responsible for what transpires in the long term. A Canadian functionary who makes a decision today will most probably be around ten or twenty years from now and will pay the consequences if the decision made was found to be in error. In our case, the system eliminates people in wholesale fashion and releases them, for all practical purposes, from any responsibility.

Perhaps the greatest expense generated by this structure of incentives is that no one thinks in the long term; only individual career trajectories are constructed. Instead of decisions of State, with all of the considerations and consequences that these entail, decisions in Mexico tend to be makeshift, oriented toward what is expedient: they save the day at the moment, but do not solve the deep-rooted problem.

No-reelection has entertained the virtue of favoring the circulation of the political class, of accommodating groups, and of creating space for all of the currents of each party, but it has not impeded the consolidation in state governments of personages who are more appropriate to the feudal era, nor has it stopped sinister figures from going from post to post ad infinitum. The price of no-reelection has been immense. At the same time, installing it would not be easy precisely because of the deeply rooted species of feudalism that we have.

Some years ago, at an encounter between the Mexican and Brazilian presidents, I asked the Mexican Secretary of State what similar meetings there had been between the presidents of the two countries during prior presidential terms-of-office. His reply was that there was no registry, nor were there any minutes, of these presidential rendezvous. A system with no sense of State is also bereft of an institutional memory and does not back continuity of its personnel. This provokes poorly meditated decisions that translate into magical solutions, with the expected results. A country without counterweights ‒and a well-structured reelection system can be literally that‒ does not have the capacity to respond; thus, it becomes paralyzed and is prone to causing a crisis. It is time to begin to construct a real country.

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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 better products, prices, terms, or quality. The logic of promoting competition is absolute and transparent.

This is more complex in practice. Monopolies (or monopolistic practices) can only prevail as the result of three circumstances: the existence of “natural monopolies” (such as the electrical grid or railway distribution networks); the presence of legally sanctioned control of an activity or sector, as occurs with oil or electrical energy in Mexico; and the protection that is directly or indirectly conferred by the governmental regulations upon an enterprise or sector when these constitute virtually insurmountable barriers to entry that impede access to competitors.

Conceptually, there are three ways to control monopolistic activities: through legislation; by means of regulations, or through the sector’s being the property of and operated by the government. None of these is perfect. Enactment of antitrust law is costly and complex, and inexorably susceptible to abuse. Government monopolies always generate rent seekers, above all the labor unions. The majority of monopolistic practices are generated because companies capture the regulating authority and get it to produce regulations that protect and benefit the incumbents. Once these exist, they operate under the aegis of “what God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” The overwhelming majority of cases in the country in which anti-competitive practices endure derive from the regulatory framework. Thus, the efficient way to purge Mexico of its monopolies is by means of deregulation and radical modernization of the regulatory framework currently in effect. In addition, if we want a truly competitive economy, we are obliged to confront this same theme with respect to government monopolies.

George Stigler, an expert on the theme, said that the merits and advantages of a market economy have much less to do with the theoretical sustenance of competition than with the structure and organization of each specific market. Therefore, the key is to understand the regulatory framework’s origin and functioning. The corporatist structure that characterized Mexico’s economy and politics throughout a substantial part of the 20^th century was characterized by countless mechanisms committed to controlling unions, companies, and people. By the same token, it constructed a regulatory framework oriented toward the functioning of economic activity within the enclave of a closed economy. The government granted exclusive manufacturing or import licenses guided by the principle that industrial development would be promoted in this fashion. Independent of the results of the import substitution and control strategy, the scheme rendered businesses dependent on the government, because, through regulation, it determined their own viability and profitability. Therefore, it is not surprising that, due to its origin, the regulatory framework not only did not promote competition, but instead, it drove the creation of barriers to it: in fact, everything was done to protect companies from competition. Although many directives were eliminated when imports were liberalized, others persist and have multiplied.

Additionally, the anti-inflation pacts that were implemented in the 1980s entailed tight cooperation among businesses in each sector, since these concordats were based on agreement among producers to break the inertia of inflation. However, from the perspective of competition, doing away with inflation came at great expense, because companies became accustomed to communicate among themselves; thus, not to compete. This is another “sin” of our past that weighs heavily upon the present economic structure as well.

The combination of weak regulatory structure, institutions with little credibility, and “de facto powers” with veto capacity that are not subject to the exercise of any authority obliges us to conceive of novel and creative ways to advance competition in the country. Faced with a similar situation, at least in certain aspects, the European Union devised a regional competition authority. Something similar could be explored in our situation: a North American authority in this matter provided with the institutional strength, neutrality, and credibility necessary for successful operation.

The bill proposed by the Executive Branch to reform the law in matters of competition constitutes a significant improvement in that it takes steps toward professionalization of the Federal Competition Commission (COFECO). However, the initiative does not deal with the central problem: the fact that the entity retains its mix of prosecutorial and tribunal, that is, it is judge and jury, which creates a permanent inclination toward partiality. The absence of counterweight leads to excesses, starring roles, and decisions to act or not to act based on the preferences of the members of the Commission or those of its president, to a greater degree than to a detailed and defendable analysis proceeding from incontrovertible evidence. The current structure confers excessive discretional faculties on the COFECO president and poses no limits on the president’s playing field. A poorly understood autonomy and one without counterweights ends up being another de facto power.

At present, the sole resource that a defendant company possesses when faced by COFECO decisions is the amparo mechanism, a procedure that may take years to reach a conclusion. What is truly required is an effective counterweight that does not lend itself to delay tactics, but that does curb abuse. The ideal mechanism would be a Federal Tribunal that specializes in the matter without resort to the amparo, similar, in concept, to that currently taking place in the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) and the Electoral Tribunal. This structure has proven to be efficient, to avoid protagonistic conduct, and to generate expedited decisions: both entities are cognizant of the fact that there is an institution of reference, which prods them into acting with the greatest of care.

The essence of the new bill resides in the possibility of imposing severe economic anc criminal penalties on businesses and their officials engaging in anti-competitive practices. Given our history, a qualitative change of this nature may have a good rationale, but cannot be advanced in the absence of an institutional equilibrium that guarantees impeccable, professional application of the law.  Without counterweights that work, a law of this nature would, of necessity, be inquisitorial.

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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 for the return of the PRI to power. What is not as obvious is that the PRIistas are ready.

A little while ago, I read an interesting story about Einstein that is applicable to the PRI. On one occasion, his students protested about the grades they were given on his examinations. Their protest was that the problems that they were called upon to solve were exactly the same as those in the exam of the year before. Well, yes, responded Einstein. The questions are identical. However, what you have to understand is that the answers have changed. Apocryphal or not, this story serves as a metaphor for the reality with which the return of the PRI could be accompanied.

The answers have changed, but it is not obvious that the PRIistas have understood this. If the PRI returns, it would be nothing more than a caricature of its former self, but its objective is to restore what existed before, beginning with the old-style presidency. The PRI that has escalated in the surveys is not different from the PRI of yesteryear, reformed and transformed: it has not been required to do anything more than wait for the lack of a vocation for government to quash their historical opposition.

What no one can deny is that today’s reality is not the same as that when the PRI was in power, and for this reason, the answers can not be the same. The relevant question at present should be: How should a modern country be constructed under the present circumstances? But the most prominent PRIistas in the contest are not asking themselves this: evidence shows them to be much more concerned with restoring their capacity for the imposition of former times than with developing novel and creative forms of governing with a vision of the future.

The defeat of the PRI in 2000 changed the reality of power because it decentralized it and was swiftly taken captive of by the governors, legislative leaders, and the “de facto powers”, which took on a life of their own at the fringes of, and beyond, the PRI. It will not be possible to restore the way it was before. As Lech Walesa declared shortly before the defeat that his party suffered at the hands of the old Polish Communist Party, it is not the same making fish soup from an aquarium as making an aquarium from fish soup. With all the advantages that it possesses, the PRI that would reappear would be structurally distinct from what it was.

The structure of power changed, but the country has not found an effective way to govern itself. Surely part of this has to do with the personal abilities of those responsible for driving the fate of the country, but a great deal is the result of the real dislocations that have taken place. The country has a poor governmental structure and lacks an effective system of checks and balances that plainly defines the spaces of action of each of the branches of government (thus, so many attempts at political reform directed toward biasing the rules in favor of one or another). An internecine struggle is taking place between those who desire perfection and those who want all of the benefits for themselves, ignoring the experience of multiple countries, which demonstrates that a country triumphs when the best possible arrangement that makes it work –rather than a perfect one- is achieved.

Unfortunately, none of the political forces, or the political potentates, is  thinking or operating under this logic. All want the presidency, and many are skewing everything to maintain their coteries of power in case they do not win. No one is developing a long-term view that constructs and sets the bases for a distinct country. The latter is particularly true of the PRI. More worried about returning to power than envisaging what to do afterward, they have sought to strengthen their territorial structure, but also to “correct” the “errors” of democracy, undermining and marking off the autonomous entities (such as the electoral institute and tribunal,  and Transparency), and promoting political reforms to match.

The country of today is no longer that of the era of PRI dreams in which all was internal negotiation and in which everyone, including the losers, came out winners. The Mexico of today is a very decentralized country in which the logic of the producers is that of their clients and markets, that of the governors is to feed their fiefdoms (and their wallets), and that of the run-of-the-mill Mexican, to attempt to survive. It is paradoxical that the PRIistas are so content with their conceivable return to the presidency with only 38% of the electoral preferences. What this tells me is that 62% of the population is not equally happy. The era of overwhelming majorities disappeared from the political map some time ago, and it is not probable that these will return, no matter how many stratagems are devised.

Surely there is no guarantee that the PRI will come into power again. Rather than a plan to return to, arrive at, or stay in power, respectively, for each of the large contending parties, what Mexico requires is a strategy of development that recognizes such a complex political reality. The pendulum moves because the population is fed up, but this, in turn, comes and goes.

The current reality is complex for two reasons: one, because the power is, in effect, decentralized, and those who hold it have distinct perceptions of the reality. For PRIistas, Mexico always was democratic, for PANistas democracy arrived in 2000, and for PRDistas, it has yet to arrive. Having a legislative majority does not resolve these differences, nor does it diminish the incentive to boycott and undermine the president. The other source of complexity comprises our possessing a dreadful institutional structure, and there is no reason to think that this would be any other way: cases such as that of Spain –where all the political forces came to an agreement to work together towards the transformation of the country- do not come about frequently. Therefore, instead of envisioning what will not come to pass, it would be much more productive to observe the few successful countries that have achieved a process of consolidation despite the absence of initial consensus.

India and Brazil are two good examples. We have been blinded for years to their changes, due to the attractiveness that the elegant solutions illustrated by Spain and Chile appear to be to us. But the success of these other countries should alert us to what really allowed them to emerge from their plight: leadership, and clarity of course. This powerful combination has come about in both cases: parties and presidents or prime ministers come and go, but both India and Brazil have experienced more than fifteen years with a sole development strategy each. Our failure does not lie in the impossibility of constructing a functional democracy, but rather in ignoring that what is important is that the economy advances to concede space to everything else. Whoever wins.

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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 reasonable change. Despite this, once in a while we witness examples of great daring, sudden decisions to act, as if celerity were an alternative to logical reasoning and the proper understanding of public affairs. The combination of inaction and intrepidness, besides its perversity, is, above all, risky because it is sustained in a self-serving and fallacious world view. Nothing good, nothing that contributes to the well-being of the life of the population, can ensue when the political class acts in such a manner.

We are entering into a process of debate concerning the type of political and institutional reforms that the country requires to be able to function. As is natural, the proposals that have been presented reflect contrasting stances. Certain politicians, beginning with the president and the PRI leader in the Senate, have issued strong and clear statements. Diverse analysts and observers have afforded valuable perspectives and evaluations on the costs and benefits of the distinct reform possibilities. All of these recognize something essential: the design of the institutions -the incentives that these harbor for those who direct and operate them, as well as for the citizenry- is the determining factor in the attainment or failure of the reform. Good design could open opportunities and generate positive responses, while poor design could translate into yet more paralysis.

In recent years, we have had vast opportunities to observe failed attempts at reform. The way in which the banks were privatized -with minimum capital requirements- led to their disastrous collapse some years later. The electoral reform of 2007 did not resolve electoral problems, and did, on the other hand, polarize the society. The structure and content of the reforms is key for the success of the latter; good intentions are not enough: the reverse is true in the reform process itself, in which it is fundamental to recognize that there are always opportunistic and abusive individuals who will make the worst possible use of the institutions. Consequently, it is crucial to meditate on the complete panorama and not be misled by fallacious or purely self-seeking conceptions of the reality.

The executive-legislative debate has focused its attention on a series of themes that would revamp the relationship between the two public powers. Among the topics under discussion, we find ratification of the cabinet by the senate, re-election of legislators and municipal presidents, and the constitution of an executive figure appointed by the legislative power: a cabinet head. Each of these themes would imply substantial reconformation of the political functioning of the country. Cabinet ratification would submit, for legislative consideration, the appointments, which have to date been the privilege of the executive branch. Re-election of legislators and municipal presidents would modify the relationship between legislators and voters, and would in turn transform the ties between candidates and parties; re-election of municipal presidents would change the relationship between voters and legislators and of these with their parties, altering the incentives of the administrative authority in closest proximity to the population to carry out longer-term projects, and above all, there would be someone responsible for project results. The creation of a semi-parliamentary Prime Ministerial figure, such as that in France, would change our presidential model by the roots.

Each of these themes and proposals merits serious discussion. As thoughts and ideas, they are exquisite, and permit us to imagine substantial alterations in the inducements that drive our politicians and representatives at present. However, none of these can be carried out in practice if they do not consider, and resolve, all of the perimeters that they entail.

The matter of re-election of legislators and municipal presidents is particularly sensitive. The advantages of re-election are many and eminently obvious. The absence of re-election engenders incentives for poor achievement and promotes the irresponsibility of the officials who enjoy -at least in formal terms- representation of the populace or those charged with local administration. From the citizens’ perspective, re-election would enable professionalization of legislators and municipal presidents, in order to empower both with a closeness to the citizenry, and would strengthen the permanence, all of this subject to voter decisions, of trustworthy officials savvy in issues that are key for the country. Although circulation of politicians in power has its benefits, it can in no way be compared with that produced by experienced legislators, who are able to be reliable counterparts within their immediate environment, as well as in the totality of public life. What is not obvious is whether any of these advantages would be achieved with the proposed reform.

As is everything in our sparse debate, the problem lies in the reality. In the real life of our country, the state governors own the electoral procedures, the nomination of candidates, and the flow of resources. A great project of institutional re-design could be shipwrecked at the most vulnerable point: that over which the governors exercise absolute control. Unfortunately, the governors own the political parties at the local level, dominate the distribution process of public funds, and control the state electoral institutes. Given this frame of reference, the notion that the citizenry would decide on the re-election of municipal presidents and legislators appears somewhat naive. It is not difficult to imagine the scenario in which re-election would become an instrument in the hands of the governors, so that, through the party, they would impose their preferences on who, and who not, to re-elect, for the sake of perpetuating their power: precisely contrariwise to what is proposed by the reform initiatives.

The true Mexico is much more unrelentless and complex than what is suggested by the ideas debates. The view that modifying one aspect, however crucial, of our political life would lead to a general transformation of the country is extraordinarily ingenuous. But it does not have to be this way: for example, as one part of the reforms, a National Election Institute could be created -an IFE, endowed with responsibility for elections in the country- with the purpose of protecting the candidates, restricting gubernatorial might, and providing a better opportunity for the success of a reform as ambitious as this one. Without this, the proposed reforms will do nothing but further tighten the noose.