Mexico Congress OKs Political Reform, Paves Way for Energy Bill Gabriel Stargardter - Reuters
go to original May 17, 2014

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's Congress early on Friday gave final approval to a political reform bill that will help clear the way for the passage of legislation needed to implement a major energy reform.

Setting out details of a law to allow lawmakers to serve consecutive terms and establish rules for coalition governments, the so-called secondary laws for the electoral reform were given the green light by the lower house in a vote of 311 in favor and 91 against.

The legislation, which lawmakers left unchanged from what was passed by the Senate on Wednesday, won preliminary approval from the lower house on Thursday. The reform now heads to President Enrique Pena Nieto to be signed into law.

Mexico's opposition conservative National Action Party (PAN) had demanded passage of the political reform before it would vote for Pena Nieto's energy reform, which forms the central plank of his vision to breathe new life into the economy.

Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is relying on PAN support to see through the energy reform, which ends a 75-year-old oil and gas monopoly in Mexico.

The PRI lacks an outright majority in Congress.

Read the rest at Reuters

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!