Mexico on Right Path, Fox Says

Amid mass demonstrations, economic inertia and political conflicts, President Vicente Fox used his annual state of the union address Wednesday to try to assure Mexicans that their raucous, still-evolving democracy was headed down the right path.

“Democracy is not the absence of conflict. It is the freedom to debate problems and the best way to resolve them,” Fox told legislators gathered at the San Lazaro congressional building in a nationally broadcast address.

During his speech, Fox was repeatedly interrupted by hecklers, mostly from the party of Mexico City’s mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who Fox believes should be disqualified from running for president in 2006.

Outside, about 3,500 police surrounded the building as 12,000 protesters gathered.

It was the first time in the history of the modern-day tradition of the speech that the occasion had been marred by large-scale anti-government protests.

The speech came as much of Mexico City and other urban areas were paralyzed by strikes by hospital, telephone, university and electricians unions, the latest in a series of mass demonstrations of Mexicans’ displeasure with Fox. They were joined in sympathy work stoppages by a range of labor unions, from funeral home to physical therapy workers.

The protests, including the march on San Lazaro on Wednesday night, were called to protest the Fox-supported reform of Mexico’s Social Security administration that recently was signed into law and will cut pension benefits of the agency’s retirees in a bid to save the agency from insolvency. On Tuesday, marchers vandalized the Economy Ministry’s building to protest free trade.

The address contrasted with a speech last year, when Fox struck a self-critical tone to build consensus behind his proposals to reform the nation’s tax system, electricity industry and judicial process. A year later, those reform proposals seem no closer to materializing.

This year, Fox said his government had made advances in building transparency and freedom. He also spoke of economic improvements, increased housing opportunities and a reported gigantic new find of oil reserves off the Caribbean coast.

But Mexicans by and large say they have seen little change in their daily lives since Fox, of the National Action Party, swept to office in 2000 on promises of change. In addition to failed reform initiatives, his efforts to arrest those responsible for hundreds of deaths during Mexico’s so-called dirty war from the late 1960s to early 1980s have yielded few results.

“Fox has nothing to report, his government has been a fraud, the man has done nothing,” said electrician Arturo Martinez, who took part in Wednesday’s strike and march.

Fox, a proponent of democratization, is also taking heat for what some call selective law enforcement for backing legislative action to disqualify Mayor Lopez Obrador from running for president in 2006.

In a show of strength, more than 150,000 Lopez Obrador supporters took to the streets Sunday to protest.

Fox says the mayor should face disqualification for defying a court order to stop roadwork on a piece of expropriated land whose former owner is suing the city to get it back. The mayor has said he broke no law.

In a reference that may have been aimed at Lopez Obrador, Fox said: “Everybody is responsible for their decisions and must face the consequences. We cannot make others responsible for our actions or omissions.”

The mayor’s case has polarized the nation. Historian Lorenzo Meyer said that disqualifying Lopez Obrador, a populist who leads most voter preference polls for the 2006 elections, could have violent repercussions.

“Lopez Obrador leads a leftist movement that is not revolutionary, just reformist. But if you don’t give them access to reform via the ballot box, they may take another route,” Meyer said. “It could set off a powder keg.”

Fox extolled the arrests of 5,000 drug-trafficking suspects this year and the breakup of 51 kidnapping gangs. He touted his acceptance of a United Nations study on Mexican human rights abuses, one of a few Third World governments to embrace it.

As for the unsolved slayings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez over the last decade, Fox acknowledged that the cases continued to appall the world. “My government is neither shirking its responsibility nor passing the buck,” he said, adding that his government had funded a genetic databank to help identify victims.

Fox said he would continue to press the United States for a comprehensive deal to legalize the status of millions of undocumented Mexican immigrants.

He also made a case for Mexico’s fiscal health, a point with which many analysts agree. During his watch, Mexico has seen a drop in its fiscal deficit, foreign debt, interest rates and inflation. He says he has eliminated $5.5 billion in administrative expenses and 165,000 administrative positions from the government payroll.

Leo Zuckerman, a professor at Mexico City’s Center for Economic Research and Teaching, said: “Fox has not constructed much or destroyed anything, but at least there has been that stability. But that’s difficult to sell. People don’t want to hear about that.”

Fox also said the number of Mexicans living in extreme poverty had decreased by 16% since he took office.

Some experts said that despite recent improvements, Mexico’s economic growth under Fox had been abysmal.

“On balance his performance has been a negative. The average annual growth of the economy has been 1.4% since he took office, very bad. There has been a net loss of 86,500 jobs, not the gain of 1 million per year that he promised,” said economist Raul Feliz of the Center for Economic Research and Teaching. “I think it shows the weakness of a president who lacks a legislative majority.”

With the congressional building surrounded by demonstrators, Fox made a call for unity and faith.

“All members of democracy are responsible for ensuring that society does not become disillusioned with democracy, that it does not think that the struggle of so many years was in vain,” he said.