Politics: Zero-Sum Congressional Politics
Congress just convened this month but politicians are more cognizant than ever of how their words and deeds must be tailored to enhance the electoral prospects of their respective parties, and their own chances of appearing on the ballot next year. Actual campaigning will not get underway for several more months, but the 2018 election process has formally begun, and members of Congress are already locked into a zero sum game that weighs against action on the issues of greatest importance to the country.
The PRI’s main objective will be to shelter the Peña administration from any unexpected surprises by passing the 2018 budget without making too many concessions to the opposition and by kick-starting the confirmation of National Anticorruption System officials, whose nominations are years overdue.
The PAN hit the ground running by formally registering its alliance with the PRD and MC and quickly unveiling a joint legislative agenda tailored to push all the populist political voters it hopes will lead it to victory at the ballot box next year. But it must also find away to avert the sort of debilitating split in its own ranks that could sink the future coalition’s electoral chances. The front’s unity will get its first major test when lawmakers debate the National Anticorruption System nominations, and the issue of eliminating the attorney general’s "automatic pass" to get a nine-year term as the country’s first general prosecutor.
And Morena, which has long had the privilege of denouncing everyone else as part of a corrupt “mafia” that has wrecked the country, finds itself walking a realpolitik tightrope between the PRI and the PAN-PRD bloc.
A failure to act on the key issues and appointments facing Congress will add to political and market uncertainty, as well as to voters’ deep distrust of political parties for prioritizing their particular interests over those of the citizenry. But the negotiations that failed over the past two years or more to produce the consensus and political horse-trading necessary for making such progress probably won't even get started this session as no one wants to run the risk of handing their political opponents any advantages on the campaign trail.
Now read on...
Register to sample a report