By Barbara Gutiérrez
UM News

With center director Susan K. Purcell at his side, Luis Rubio discussed the progress, or lack thereof, of Mexico’s reforms.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (June 11, 2015)—As a country, Mexico is schizophrenic. While it enjoys a stable economy, a growing middle class, and the fourth spot on the list of the world’s top automobile exporters, its government is dysfunctional and hesitant to fully implement reforms already inscribed in the constitution.

This was the assessment of Luis Rubio, chairman of the Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo, an independent research institution devoted to the study of economic and political policy issues, who spoke last Wednesday at a University of Miami Center for Hemispheric Policy (CHP) breakfast. The forum, titled “Mexico: Reforms without a Vision for Development?” was held at the Westin Colonnade Coral Gables Hotel.

CHP director Susan K. Purcell introduced Rubio to about 40 people in the audience, which included members of the business community, journalists, academics, and the Consul General of Mexico in Miami, José Antonio Zabalgoitia.

Rubio attributed the stalled implementation of reforms to education, the energy industry, and telecom sector to President’s Enrique Peña Nieto’s insular way of governing, as well as his fear of losing power after last September’s kidnapping and murder of 43 students, which was carried out with the help of police officers in the state of Guerrero. That case outraged citizens who came out to protest by the thousands and set off a political crisis from which the government has not recovered.

“At heart Mexico’s problems are not about corruption or violence or crime, but the absence of a functioning government,” Rubio said.

Mexico is also burdened by a historical authoritarian system of government that makes it different from other countries in Latin America, he said. In part, that system led to the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) seven-decade rule. Although Peña Nieto is a PRI member, he was elected in December 2012 under a modern platform that included numerous reforms that promised to modernize Mexico.

Rubio believes that Peña Nieto’s promises remain unrealized. But Zabalgoitea, the Mexican consul in Miami, had a different take. Standing up during the question-and-answer period, he expressed optimism about Mexico’s future.

“The reforms have to go forward,” Zabalgoitia said. “The president knows that his legacy will be tied to the reforms and that is the key to the future.”