President Enrique Peña Nieto visited China, Australia and the United States after the disappearance of the 43 students in the village of Iguala, Guerrero. As public pressure forced him to meet with the students’ families, he insisted the encounter take place not in Guerrero, but in presidential territory. Those grieving and incensed families were not at all pleased.
From the beginning of the negotiations with the Guerrero families, it appeared that Peña Nieto wouldn’t have time for them. But after a month’s worth of harsh comments and accusations from country wide demonstrators, he finally consented. His reluctance proved what was noticeable during his campaign for the presidency. Peña Nieto has peculiar ideas of what his job demands of him.
And this has bred some harsh public views. “He reminds me of Carlos Salinas de Gortari,” said Paco Muñoz, a Mexican acquaintance who was still young when Salinas was president from 1988 to 1984.
As soon as he was 18 Paco had rushed to vote. It was as a sign of reaching manhood.
That surprised me. His parents had voted for Salinas simply because no matter how they voted, the ballot outcome was guaranteed by the government – meaning the PRI. And, of course they ended up being discouraged once again with the usual faux voting process. Paco was both naive and just old enough to happily vote for the first time.
It was apparent early in Salinas’ political career that he could out-work, out-think and out-remember most people – both allies and opponents – with whom he dealt. But in 1988 voters wanted to get rid of the the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Mexico’s “ruling” party for 71 consecutive years. But neither Salinas nor the leaders of the PRI were going to bow before competitors that they viewed as inferior. The honesty of all politicians was in question in the minds of candid voters. It was a matter of whether a dishonest candidate held convictions one favored, or at least could stomach. This guaranteed that the 1988 election would clearly be a crooked one.
Both Paco Muñoz and Salinas were displeased and angry with the results. Disgusted by the clumsiness of the false election, Salinas dove into his term of office fiercely. He was going to prove that even a distorted election result could be the right one for the Republic.
But Peña Nieto is in no way similar to Salinas, who embraced free market economic views and brought on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The current president is characterized – as one financial newspaper put it – as being known for his U-turns, fumbles and gaffes. On the other hand, Salinas very early on shaped himself politically into an unmistakable caudillo, a stern political ruler. Slight of build, he charged full-tilt – exuding swiftness and mental muscle – into his presidential chores. It was clear that he was determined to restore the presidency to the former “monarchical grandeur” favored by the early PRI.
Facing a culture bulging with double talk and double dealing, Salinas’ intelligence and avaricious memory dazzled even his enemies, and were both admirable and exasperating to his allies. His cabinet secretaries were constantly bombarded with calls day and night regarding their assignments and new ideas. Insistent questions prodded them to deliver results more swiftly. What was exasperating: his swiftness of action and mind, and precision of accomplishment, his penchant for out-working others, friend and foe – a characteristic that eventually was to drift toward arrogance.
Thus, Salinas later – out of pride – was to reveal an exceptional cluster of unnecessary errors bristling with ego and presumption. But early on, not even friends of the Muñoz family could see how my old friend’s son later on could compare Salinas in any way with the gaffe-ridden, unimaginative Peña Nieto.
Why unimaginative? Because he appears to keep repeating promises that reality, and serious observers, recognize as flummery. And foreign businesses interested in investing in the Republic find them ... well, too often outright improbable, or untrue. Example: The Financial Times, reporting that “Mexico’s ambitious reform program will count for little if the scandal-tainted government of President Enrique Peña Nieto fails to rebuild shattered public confidence.” This was followed by a summary of top officials. The president, his wife and his finance minister carelessly stirring a national outcry. The cause: their “embarrassing house purchases from a prominent government contractor” actions that smack unpleasantly of crony capitalism.
Such harsh criticism surprisingly comes from Luis Videgaray, the finance minister in this tale of official and clumsy slight-of-hand, which has yet to be unraveled to impatient citizens’ – and foreign assessors’ – satisfaction. Yet Videgaray gained some ground when he – startlingly – said: “We need to address what is really important today for Mexican society.” He declared that concerned not just transparency and reform, but the “matter of trust, of confidence.” He added, “We can create energy reforms but if we do not add trust, we will not seize the full potential of the Mexican economy.”
He was asked if the entire government was committed to this stern commitment to the rule of law. His response: “I think so.”
Unfortunately, that response is not rigorous enough to convince the great number of Mexico’s huge and impatient population.
Videgaray’s words have the complacence of someone who knows what the future will bring. And that future apparently holds in it nothing that’s a threat to the Peña Nieto regime.
It’s ominous that just two years into the Peña Nieto administration, what is widely seen as endemic skullduggery by the Republic’s top-most officials, is openly referred to with the greatest of complacency by the malefactors themselves. The president’s finance minister implies that neither he nor the president apparently realizes that this diagnosis marks a significant change in an understanding of their administration. The entire administration has been amazingly slow in realizing that Mexico’s public mood has turned against it. Peña Nieto’s poll ratings are presently at the lowest level for any Mexican president in 20 years.
An increasing number of hard-eyed financial/political analysts note Peña Nieto’s languid mode of dealing with this and similar problems. “He seems to believe that such matters will somehow solve themselves, or that their urgency will simply dissipate with time.
Salinas, especially in the final year of his term of office, seemed to act similarly. As his administration was falling apart, and administration leaders and relatives were being murdered and arrested, he continued his campaign to become director general of the prestigious World Trade Organization. Then reality settled in, and soon after the end of his presidency, he went into self-imposed exile, settling in Ireland.residency.