With the future discussions of the most important reforms in Enrique Peña’s administration, tax and energy, the Pact for Mexico has proven its malleability. The agenda bifurcations between PAN members that support opening up the energy sector – something that PRI refused while in opposition – and a PRD who is eager to be taken into the picture after several years of political auto-isolation, should be handled with care if the President were to materialize his reforms. As of now, with the approval of the Fiscal Miscellaneous resolution (not quite a tax reform or a social one), the first obstacle has been dealt with. In this opportunity, PAN was the one who “lost” and PRD – or a part of it – to assume itself as the tilt of the scales. Perhaps Gustavo Madero and his group had already foreseen such a result and, possibly, this story could be told the other way around by the time of the energy debate.
The attempt of a PAN section to postpone the approval of the energy reform until 2014, as well as the voices of some of its legislators to “end the involvement” within the Pact of Mexico, have not been supported by the party’s leadership. In the Chamber of Deputies, Luis Alberto Villarreal, the PAN party whip in Congress, and Juan Bueno, vice-coordinator of economic policy, have stated that they’re ready to receive the Senate draft when it’s issued. On the other hand, David Penchyna, president of the Senate’s Energy Commission, has stated that he trusts in talking with several PAN Senators that are willing to discuss the reform. The most likely scenario is that what happened with PRD in fiscal issues will repeat once again, that is, PAN will end up enabling the approval of Constitutional modifications in articles 27 and 28, even if they don’t vote in a homogenous block. Delaying the matter until February 2014 is quite risky for PAN, especially after “failing” in the Fiscal Miscellaneous resolution. PAN members would be branded as inept in defending the interests of businessmen and middle class in tax issues, and would also be called careless by “neglecting” the energy reform as some sort of political vengeance. In any given case, PAN members could negotiate a compromise to obtain certain issues by the time of discussing secondary legislation. On the other hand, the government envisions the energy reform as the trademark of its project, which is the reason why PAN vicissitudes might end up being redeemed.
Lastly, it is worth asking if PAN could have been better positioned in the roundtable of reforms. It doesn’t cease to be surprising how the party’s members could have chosen a political/electoral reform as a “bargaining chip” to negotiate the energy reform, instead of, for example, a tax reform proposal more akin to the interests of its potential voters. Was this due to a lack of political skill or was it a strategy conceived within the Pact for Mexico? A clue might be hidden in the timeframe in which reforms were discussed. Strategically speaking, it was convenient to negotiate income and, above all, budget (which nobody is paying close attention to, particularly regarding who will receive the allocation of resources destined for political parties) with the purpose of providing the opposition (understood as the national leaderships of Zambrano and Madero) with guarantees that their adherence to reforms (PRD with the tax reform and PAN, with the energy one) would be rewarded. PRD is satisfied and may oppose the energy reform to restitute its legitimacy as opposition in the face of its clients. It remains to be seen how much PAN will be satisfied as the energy issues come along.
Negotiating the energy reform before having guarantees in tax and budgetary matters would have created more distrust towards Madero and Zambrano. Until now, everything seems to point out that the Pact for Mexico has more lives than everyone initially thought.
CIDAC
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