Tremor in Mexico’s Congress

Mexico’s four opposition political parties have proclaimed a working coalition in Congress that, if it holds, should put a more democratic stamp on the way the body operates, challenging the long and authoritarian rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). An effective coalition would produce a real separation of powers between the executive branch and the legislature for the first time in Mexican history.

Effectiveness may be a problem. No single party, or the new coalition, has a majority in the 500-seat Congress. Parties opposing the PRI hold a combined majority of 11 votes, but the four opposition parties hardly speak with a single voice, ranging from hard right to liberal left. This diversity tends to lessen the coalition’s political strength.

The main stated goal of the new alliance is to place members in key posts in the Chamber of Deputies in an effort to ease the heavy-handed control long wielded by the PRI. Specifically, the target is to establish consensus rule of Congress’ important Government Commission under a rotating presidency, with control in the hands of the three main parties: the PRI, the Democratic Revolutionary Party and the National Action Party.

Success could force the PRI to share power when Congress convenes in September, not a small accomplishment.