In defense of PRI - of sorts. The return of the PRI as a "tragedy"

In a friendly crowd of PAN supporters, Felipe Calderón celebrated 10 years of PAN rule in Mexico, dropping a few controversial lines: "...Mexico does not deserve to be stranded in the middle of the road to democratic change that we have undertaken, much less the tragedy of going back to the old, to the authoritarian, to the irresponsible."

It is an inherent problem of presidentialism that no separation between head of government and head of state exists - the president, despite being an obviously highly partisan choice, also is supposed to represent the country as a whole. Statements like that, though said in the context of a PAN celebration, which were clearly signaled at the PRI, is about as far away from such a mandate as possible. It sadly reminds one of the clumsy and idiotic intervention by Vicente Fox in 2005 and 2006 on behalf of PAN. Moreover, despite all the criticism - and lawdy lawd there is much to chose from - of PRI's authoritarian streaks, should Mexico's president be in the business of deeming a possible PRI return to Los Pinos as a "tragedy" in advance, whomever the candidate may be? While I, too, would personally would consider in particular a Peña Nieto win to be, to be sure, tragic for Mexico, I am not the president of Mexico, and as such have a bit more leeway to say so than Calderón.

Moreover, and more concretely, it may make the passing of any significant legislation the coming two years even more difficult: Chamber of Deputies President Jorge Carlos Ramírez Marín, for one, issues such a warning. One should not forget that like it or not, for the next two  years, PRI will still have a majority in Congress.