In praise of parliamentary systems: if Mexico had a prime minister

One thing positive about the Chavez regime in Venezuela is that it has cured me once and for all from the idea of a presidential system as a desirable form of government. As far as I can tell there is only one case of a well functioning presidential system: the USA. But before I go and discuss this, for this post I would want to indulge in a speculation game: how would have it worked with the same electoral results of Sunday if Mexico were a parliamentary democracy, instead of the strong presidential system it is. Note: all the following speculations do not fall too far from many provisions of the Mexican constitution, they only require to create a head of government, the prime minister, and a head of state, the president, plus some electoral changes.

How Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador became prime minister of Mexico

The elections of July 2006 kept the country in suspense. In polls the two main contenders, Calderon and AMLO, were running neck a neck and the only question was whether the PRI would place itself well enough to become the king maker. Very popular prime minister, Maria de Ixtochimilcopan, was barred from running again for a congressional seat due to Mexican strong term limit laws which allows deputies to serve only two consecutive 3 year terms. Thus the new Congress would have to name a new prime minister.

Early results showed that Calderon alliance was surprisingly ahead in the polls but would fail to gain an outright majority, be it in the Senate or the House. By midnight of July 2, the PAN had almost the majority in the senate. President Fox called for Calderon at Los Pinos on Monday afternoon and asked him to form a government since his party was the one with the most seats won.

Unfortunately Calderon started a series of long and difficult negotiations with the PRI, once the PRD had flat out refused to participate in the new government unless it was AMLO who was named prime minister. On Thursday the IFE gave the final results where the PAN got effectively 48% of the seats in the House and Senate. But the minor parties refused to sit in the new government. Anyway this would not have helped Calderon much as the minor parties would have given him a one vote majority only in the House. With the floundering negotiations with the PRI, Calderon was back at Los Pinos on the following Monday to announce to Fox that he failed in his coalition building. Fox had no other option but to call for AMLO.

The negotiations of AMLO were hardly any easier than the ones faced by Calderon once it became clear that the PRI was aiming at a grand coalition such as the one presided by Merkel in Germany between Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, except that in Mexico the PRI wanted an “independent” Prime Minister while it could rebuild its organization. Eventually when AMLO let the PRI know that if it were going to be an independent prime Minister the “coalición de ancha base” would not include the PRI, this one relented and AMLO was able to form a government including the PRI and small parties which gave him a narrow 6 seats majority.

However there was a final hurdle as AMLO and Fox disagreed on foreign policy which was the prerogative of the president of Mexico. Fox vetoed the choice of AMLO, Juan Perez, who was rumored to be the next in line in the PRD, a strong rival of AMLO, and to his left. In a surprise move AMLO relented and gave the plum choice of the foreign ministry to the experienced Rosario Green from the PRI. With this bold move, AMLO at once cemented his coalition with the PRI, avoided direct conflict with Fox who still had 5 months in office, and pushed aside with a great excuse a potential rival. Juan Perez was sent as ambassador to Venezuela to repair the frayed relations since there was no way Chavez could refuse Perez as the new ambassador, thus forcing him to renounce to the apologies from Fox he was vainly expecting.

AMLO was officially named Prime Minister by Fox on August 3 and received the required confidence vote in both houses of Congress on August 5.

Calderon became the head of the opposition. If his party had done better than expected, it remained that he would have to wait for the elections in three years to get again a chance as prime minister. Mexican law dictated that for AMLO to be ousted once he got the confidence vote, Calderon would have to prove that he had more than half of the votes of Congress. That could only be done if the PRI abstained or switched sides outright. And if it happened, AMLO would be allowed to remain as a minority government as long as Calderon did not receive the votes of the PRI, a very unlikely possibility for the next couple of years.

But by the next congressional elections Calderon would suffer of the term limit law and could only exert for three years, if he were to win a majority. This already weakened his hold within the PAN as this one preferred a “new” candidate to improve its chances at holding government for 6 years. Thus he decided to throw his hat in the ring for the presidential election of November and let another PAN figure assume the leadership of the party.

Since the presidency of Mexico has limited powers, mainly focused on defense and foreign policy and internal order, the president is elected federally by an electoral college which gives each state as many votes as its electoral representation. In each state the electors are the members of the local legislature, its congressional representation and the governor. No one had a clear majority but the PAN was ahead and there were enough local variations that it was possible that enough PRI supporters would go over the PAN. Indeed Calderon was narrowly elected on the second round of balloting and succeeded Fox in December as the new 6 year president of Mexico. Thus, through the arbitrage of the PRI, both AMLO and Calderon had to work together for the remaining two and a half year of the AMLO term, setting the set for a very contested elections in 2009 to define clearly the political orientation of the country.

But the political crisis had been successfully avoided, or at least postponed.