Leftist Leader Cardenas Wants to 'Modernize, Not Privatize' Mexico's Oil Industry Tracy Wilkinson - The Los Angeles Times
go to original August 21, 2013

Leftist leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas delivers a speech on energy reform at the Revolution Monument in Mexico City. (Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg)

MEXICO CITY - Mexico’s most prestigious leftist leader has challenged President Enrique Peña Nieto’s proposal to open the national oil industry to private investment, setting the stage for what is sure to be a pitched political battle.

Cuauhtemoc Cardenas said the state oil monopoly, Pemex, is in dire need of repair, but that amending the Constitution, as Peña Nieto plans, is unnecessary and makes Mexico’s resources dangerously vulnerable to outside exploitation.
 
Instead, Cardenas offered an eight-point plan that would give Pemex financial and administrative autonomy, relieving it, he said, of the onerous state bureaucracy that cripples its ability to grow and become more efficient [link in Spanish]. The plan would also lower Pemex’s tax burden; currently, the company pays up to 70% of its revenue to the government.
 
Cardenas also called for a national referendum to measure public opinion on the sensitive issue. The goal, he said, was “to modernize, not privatize” Pemex.

Read the rest at The Los Angeles Times

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