Mexico's Political Left Unable to Derail Pemex Legislation Richard Fausset - The Los Angeles Times
go to original December 22, 2013

A lawmaker reads a newspaper this month, a day after leftists tried to block discussion of Mexico's energy reform bill. The legislation's advance is the latest blow to the Mexican political left. (Marco Ugarte/Associated Press)

MEXICO CITY — Mexico's leftist politicians have watched hopelessly in recent days as a center-right coalition secured passage of a sweeping energy reform bill that will allow foreigners to drill for oil on Mexican territory for the first time in several decades.

It was a move that once would have been unthinkable in a country that still celebrates the 1938 nationalization of the oil industry with a national holiday. And it remains a sore topic for many Mexicans: In a nationwide poll released in June, 65% said they opposed opening Pemex, the state-run oil company, to private investment.

The failure of Mexico's leftist leaders to capitalize on that sentiment is the latest setback for a movement that can still jam the streets with thousands of protesters but has struggled in recent years to yield real power. A leftist party has yet to win a Mexican presidential election in this young century, despite a national poverty rate hovering just under 50% — and despite the wave of neo-Marxist enthusiasm that has swept across other Latin American countries, including Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil.

Given their numerical disadvantage in Congress, leftists had little chance to thwart the move. An alliance between President Enrique Peña Nieto's centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, allowed the bill to easily achieve the two-thirds majority needed for passage in each house of Congress this month.

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