Monday, September 6, 2010

Gordian knot cut, for now, in San Lázaro: Jorge Carlos Ramírez Marín president of the Congress directorate

The crisis engulfing the Mexican congress regarding control over its key organs appears to be resolved, for now, yet the deal appears more than a bit shady: PRI will preside over the Congress directorate, while the PRD will get control over both the directorate and the coordinating junta the last year of the congress period.

To recall: PRI, reneging on previous accords, decided to go for the presidency for the coming year of the mesa ejecutiva or Congress directorate, a key organ, even though this corresponded to the PRD. Given that the presidency of both the directorate and the coordinating junta rotates among the three largest parties in congress, this would, given the cycle, leave the PRD in control of both of these organs the last year of congress, which would be unconstitutional. Then how was this possibly resolved?

The coordinators of the parties in congress agreed to a deal where PRD will get to preside the two organs, though a special vote of 2/3 majority will be held where the stipulations of the Organic Law regulating Congress will simply be "set aside" for that year. PRD will simply have to take their word for it, that this will actually come to pass.

Yet it gets fishier. Knowing that the part of PRD allied with Andrés Manuel López Obrador was strongly opposed to allowing the Nueva Izquirda faction obtain the Congress presidency, the deal that PRD's group coordinator and AMLO  incondicional Alejandro Encinas made appears a bit suspicious, given that Encinas himself loudly condemned as unconstitutional just a few days ago the outcome he now has apparently signed on to.

The new mesa ejecutiva president, Jorge Carlos Ramírez Marín, is considered very close to PRI national leader Beatriz Paredes, who has not given up her own presidential ambitions, or at least to be mayor of Mexico City. Even though she will step down as PRI leader, her influence will thus clearly be felt in San Lázaro the coming session.

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