President, Officials Move Quickly to Reassure Mexicans Over Oil Plan Anthony Harrup and Jose de Cordoba - WSJ.com
go to original August 13, 2013

MEXICO CITY — One day after Mexico's government announced plans to end the state monopoly on oil and gas production by inviting private companies to take part, it launched a public relations effort to convince a skeptical populace that Mexico, the country that invented oil nationalism, won't be selling out to foreigners.

Finance Minister Luis Videgaray went on a Tuesday morning radio show hosted by one of the leading government critics and stressed that the Mexican government won't be privatizing state-run oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos or the oil reserves themselves.

"We are not selling off the oil rent," he told radio host Carmen Aristegui, echoing a similar phrase used on national television late Monday by President Enrique Peña Nieto.

... The proposal, which is expected to win congressional approval, has already been called "treason" by nationalistic politicians including former presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who narrowly lost the 2006 election and led months of street protests. Mr. López Obrador is planning on street protests against the bill in early September, when it is due to be taken up by congress.

Another leading figure on the left, former presidential candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, said only hours after the proposal that he would do everything he could to block the bill. Mr. Cárdenas is the son of Lázaro Cardenas, the Mexican president who expropriated the industry.

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