April 21 2009

Constitution
With the PRI dominating, it was kind of hard to classify Mexico’s system,
and we call it a democratic system today. Under the PRI, it was part-free,
part-authoritarian, and then over time, in the 80s and 90s, it was a system
that became increasingly competitive in its elections as the PRI became
less and less able to pull off voter fraud. With that change, the system in
Mexico is more committed to fair and honest elections. Mexico has had a
modern authoritarian regime that under the PRI dealt successfully with
recruiting elites to run for political office and then managed to get them
elected. The system was always one under the PRI that tried to co-op rather
than eliminate or crush pesky political forces or groups that were being
critical. Under the PRI, the Mexican government tried to have the broadest
range of social economic and political interests all inside the PRI or
inside the PRI within its mass organizations. As potential opposition
groups would appear, usually their leads would be co-opted into existing
government organizations, or new ones would be created to meet the needs.
Historically, opposition which could not be co-opted was dealt with
harshly. Ordering the army into the state of Chiapas in 1998 when EZLN came
out of the jungle and refused to negotiate. Another example would go back
to 2000, when more than 2000 federal police stormed Mexico’s largest
university to oust radical students who had taken over the campus. The
students had taken over the campus, barricaded building, forced classes
closed for nine months. Government put up with it, dealt with it
differently than they had in 98, when they killed 300 rebellious students.
The police this time do not injure anyone. The 2000 dispute with the
students also kind of illustrates the types of problems that Mexico faces
as it becomes more modern. The university students who took it over took an
old line dinosaur approach and were demanding a free education. The
increasingly technocrat government of Mexico wanted to modernize the
university, and they had proposed raising tuition from the current tuition,
two cents a year, to $140 a year, which is a steep change. This proposal
sparked a backlash from students, their parents, and university alumni, and
many left-leaning political people who all strongly endorsed the
university’s 89-year tradition in providing a free education to anyone in
Mexico who could gain admission. Under this protest, the government drops
the proposal for tuition, and then the students, rather than stopping and
going back to class, began to press for more admittance, and they began to
demand that they be given more time to complete their education. They were
also calling for relaxation of admissions standards.

On paper, the Mexican government looks very much like that of the US. They
have a president, three separate branches, checks and balances, and clearly
it is a federal system ON PAPER. In practice, especially during the PRI,
the government acts very different. Some differences:
1.      Mexican President elected for six years, no opportunity for reelection.
Other than that, president must be native-born with Mexican parents and at
least 35 years old
2.      There is no Vice President
3.      Elections are held if the president dies or becomes disabled in the
first two years of his term. After the first two years, if the president
dies or becomes disabled, the Congress will select a substitute to finish
out the term.
4.      Mexico has a two-house legislature, but it’s chosen by a system of mixed
single-member districts and proportional representation.
5.      There is a federal judiciary, headed by a Supreme Court with 21
magistrates appointed for life by the President with the approval of the
Mexican Senate.
6.      The federal courts in Mexico have the power to invalidate a law or an
act that it finds to be unconstitutional. However, in Mexico, a Court’s
decision, even by the Supreme Court, does not nullify the law. Instead, if
a court finds the law to be unconstitutional, it suspends the law in the
case they’re looking at, but it still applies in every other case.
7.      In Mexico, five consecutive decisions without an intervening contrary
decision have the effect of a precedent. So if a law is challenged in
court, and the Supreme Court strikes it down five times, it’s no longer a
law.
8.      According to the Mexican Constitution, judicial review does exist, but
the Supreme Court during the years of PRI dominance, cooperated with the
PRI presidents on political matters, and in all those 70 years of PRI
dominance, the Supreme Court never invalidated any major policy of an
incumbent PRI president. They break that after the 2000 presidential
elections. When Zedillo comes in, the Supreme Court pretty much stunned the
country by ruling against Zedillo in a dispute with the Congress. The Court
rarely strikes down a President still, though.  Constitution was written in
1917.