Saturday, January 15, 2011

More on Peña Nieto's Crime Strategy

Macario Schettino agrees with Boz:
Mister Peña ends up offering a strategy almost exactly like that of the government: professionalizing the police, making the judiciary efficient, confronting the problems of the most violent cities, coordinating the three levels of government. There will be those who believe that the first pillar of the proposal, widening the social safety net, is different from what the government is doing today, but that is difficult to prove, above all with the growth in the coverage of health, education, hosing, and anti-poverty programs under this administration. But, again, this is about appealing to sentiments, and taking advantage of Calderón fatigue. That's how you fight for power.
He goes on to say that the plans for congressional majorities are an insufficient, because the real problem is that the real dividing line in Mexico politics is not between the different parties, but between those who want to modernize the political and economic system, and those who want to maintain their privileges under some version of the old system. And each party has significant chunks of both groups; the economic liberals and the conservative right wing in the PAN, the AMLO wing and the New Left in the PRD, and the reformers and the dinosaurs in the PRI.

2 comments:

RG said...

What's ironic is that both the Peña Nieto and the "new improved" Calderón proposals also borrow heavily from Lopez Obradór's campaign and "alternative presidency" rhetoric. Nothing sinister in that, and no reason to indulge in "what ifs" about the 2006 election results, but just that the political left is much more influential than reported.

pc said...

Which part are you referring to? (Been a while since I looked at AMLO's program's main points.) For the most part, I dont see the proposals as being influenced by the political left, nor the right, for that matter just that a lot of the proposed changes are pragmatic, non-ideological fixes. I dont think being on the right or the left influences perceptions about the need of a more efficient criminal justice system.