Wednesday, June 15, 2011

On Calderón´s barrage against the PRI, and PRI's reply

President Felipe Calderón's commencement speech at Stanford was quite notable in its direct attack on the PRI's rule (1929-2000), referring directly to its repression and massacres - an historic reality hard to deny.

PRI, quite naturally, took much offense against the speech, held in English, e.g. the PRI's parliamentary group asking the president "not to get into the electoral boxing ring," and accusing him of planting "hatred and division."

One comment was particularly disingenuous: Emilio Gamboa, now head of PRI's CNOP, complained that Calderón was acting in a partisan manner and not as the president of all Mexicans.

Of course he is partisan - he was elected, in a minority vote, as a blatantly partisan choice. This is of course the very problem with a presidential regime - that a president is both a party option, with a more or less clear platform and ideology, as well as the "head of the nation." Gamboa's criticism as such is really just a critique of presidentialism per se.

Now, if PRI is serious in this critique, it should take the consequences of this line of reasoning and join what many in the PRD have long demanded: that Mexico become a parliamentary democracy, with a prime minister beholden to parliament, and with a ceremonial head of state, rather than a presidential regime.

Now, that'll be the day.