Encuentro de presidentes Calderón-Obama

The Chicago Tribune: A visit Obama should have skipped

January 14, 2009

By John M. Ackerman and Irma E. Sandoval

Barack Obama has made the wrong choice by beginning his dialogue with Latin America in a meeting Monday with Mexico's President Felipe Calderon. He should have chosen a more creative leader, like Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Michelle Bachelet of Chile or Cristina Kirchner of Argentina. 

During his two years in office, Calderon has driven his country into a brick wall. The Mexican economy is doing worse than the U.S., there were more than 5,000 assassinations and 400 kidnappings there in 2008 and the political situation is explosive. Calderon has preferred to hide behind military posturing, religious fundamentalism and unthinking deregulation instead of resolving problems at their roots. 

Mexico confronts a triple crisis in its economy, its politics and its public security. Calderon has sent the military into the streets with the mission of intimidating and jailing drug kingpins. This approach has been completely ineffective because it has not been backed by sophisticated intelligence or long-range planning. In addition, many of the anti-crime officials have turned out to be in the pockets of the criminals. 

Calderon has also been ineffective on the economy. Mexico's basic problems are its lack of competition and its extreme concentration of wealth. The country is the home of Carlos Slim, the richest person in the world, and more than 40 million people who live on less than $1 a day. Mexico's regulatory bodies are infamous for their passivity and ineffectiveness. But Calderon's new "stimulus plan" aims to help the wealthy instead of creating a safety net for the poor or improving competition in the marketplace.

He has also failed in the political realm. Instead of selecting leading experts to take charge of key government offices, he filled his Cabinet with inexperienced political loyalists. Mexico consistently receives failing corruption scores from international organizations such as Transparency International, the World Bank and Global Integrity. 

Calderon is desperate for international recognition to compensate for his failing domestic popularity. While Obama may believe that he is signaling an interest in Latin America by meeting with Calderon, he is actually lending support to a politically bankrupt administration.

John M. Ackerman is a professor at the Institute for Legal Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a columnist for Proceso magazine and La Jornada newspaper. Irma E. Sandoval is professor and director of the Laboratory for the Documentation and Analysis of Corruption and Transparency at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. 

Article available at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-oped0114mexicojan14,0,4021007.story

Dra. Irma Eréndira Sandoval 

Investigadora y Directora del 

Laboratorio de Documentación y Análisis

de la Corrupción y la Transparencia 

Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales (IIS)

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Tel: 5622-7400 Ext. 325

Directo: 5622-7554

Fax: 5622-7513

E-mail: irma.sandoval@servidor.unam.mx

http://www.unam.mx/iisunam

http://www.corrupcion.unam.mx