Democratic Consolidation and Mexico Institutional Reform

In his contribution, the author states that, within the context of the political change process, institutional reform represents the missing link on Mexico’s road towards democratic consolidation. Delving into this position, the author examines the constitutional reform initiative presented by the President in December 2009. The document is placed within proper context and analyzed with a critical view. The author concludes that despite being the first ambitious proposal since the beginning of the democratic transition in 1977, the initiative was sent to Congress without a previous agreement between political forces and containing dysfunctional proposals from the perspective of a constitutional state. By contrast, the document was well designed to pursue covert purposes, namely: raising presidential power, diminishing the power of Congress, reinforcing lack of political responsibility of government leaders, eroding political pluralism, reducing political representation options as well as facilitating agreements within a reduced number of political leaders.