A troubling development

When the Mexican Election took place in 2006 a key reason that the right result was not over-turned was the head of the Independent Election Commission, Luis Carlos Ulgalde. Ulgalde was one of those rare public officials who stood true to his responsibilities in a very difficult situation. But over the last several months the political parties in Mexico have mounted an effort to reduce the independence of the agency. Ulgalde resigned from his position this week and made an impassioned speech which worried that the process that the parties put in place would destroy the hard won democratic gains that have been happening in Mexico over the last two administrations.

In El Financiero he was quoted as saying "Las sillas de las burocracias no son las que miden las congruencias de los hombres" (The chairs of the bureaucracies are not those that show the measure of men). All three of the major parties played in this scheme for various reasons. But the clear winner here seems to be the PRD - the party that lost the close election in 2006.

This "reform" of the IFE will substitute positional representatives for a legal structure that has served Mexico well. It is troubling that some would try to undermine the system which has worked. In these situations I am always reminded of Roscoe Conkling's comments about reform (quoted previously but worth quoting again) "Those who fear the attraction that patriotism has for scalawags and scofflaws, have not noticed the clarion call of reform." I wonder if Mr. Ulgalde (who did a PdD at Columbia) ever encountered the work of Senator Conkling (who held the seat now held by Mrs. Clinton and who resigned when he lost the patronage power of his office as a result of the adoption of the Pendleton Act).