Aziz Nassif on the Elections

Here are pieces from a couple of Alberto Aziz Nassif columns reacting to the results on Sunday, starting with yesterday's:

From 2009 to 2012 the PRI will be a very important actor in Congress. If with the result in 2006, which was a defeat for the PRI, it had so much influence over the legislative agenda, now it will be the vanguard of a new governing coalition. Calderón's government did something wrong for it not to have managed to conserve its place as the foremost minority. This is another of the messages that this government will have to take in. The PRI, a party that represents the past, repositions itself; a panismo that lost multiple positions in Congress and maybe a few governorships; and a fractured left, which is no longer an option for thousands of citizens. 2009, a new majority. A return to the past?

And today's:

It's also true that the PRI learns from its mistakes, closes ranks, is pragmatic, manages a good territorial structure, and, instead of diving into the fights with the PAN, simply strengthened its electoral structures, avoided the internal spats and recreated in the imagination of the country nostalgia for the old days. The PRI integrated at least two factors into its campaign: an ethereal meta-discourse that didn't commit to anything concretely, with a vision that they do know how to govern and are efficient.

The calculations about the constitution of the upcoming Chamber of Deputies have begun. The new absolute majority with the PRI and the Green Party (a party that threatens legality in a systematic way) will be the base for understanding the logic that will drive the next legislature. What will be the legislative agenda of the PRI? Are they going to redesign institutions and in what way? Are they going to again modify the electoral rules and with what project?

The fact that so many of the sharpest analysts are responding the election with questions like those above is illustrative. What happens over the next several years is a big question mark.

I assume the "redesign" of institutions refers to the imposition of a congressional ratification of cabinet members, or alternatively, as El Universal describes it today, taking the first steps toward a parliamentary system. That makes me wonder if people aren't getting a little carried away about the power the PRI wields. With the help of their Green allies, the priístas hold the scarcest of majorities in one chamber of Congress, and they are riding a wave of momentum, but there is a limit to their power. They can't override presidential vetoes, and they hold only a quarter of the Senate. They can impose gridlock, but they can't impose sweeping changes over the objection of Calderón. If we are looking at a semi-parliamentary system in three years, it's because the PAN let it happen (which I don't imagine they will), not merely because the PRI deemed it necessary.