Right up to the immediate aftermath of the midterm legislative elections, the opposition Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI) was talking about reaching a consensus with the government on the reforms it had been unsuccessfully trying to push through congress. No longer. On 13 August the PRI's new line emerged: no support for Fox's reform proposal, but instead the PRI's own agenda. And the message was conveyed by none other that PRI secretary-general Elba Esther Gordillo, the PRI leader deemed to be closest to Fox and, particularly, to his wife Marta Sahagún.
According to Gordillo, the PRI will propose an economic programme which will reject `the excesses of neoliberalism' without abandoning its `positive aspects' - a neat way of sidestepping the fact that it was the PRI that introduced neoliberal policies to Mexico.
At the top of the PRI's new legislative agenda, she said, will be the design of an improved agrarian policy, measures to reduce unemployment, and `reducing the cost of democracy for the citizens.'
Fox's immediate response was a call for congress to approve his proposed reforms of energy legislation so as to allow greater private participation.
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