The following are EIR News Service news bullets covering the latest developments in the defeat of Mexican energy privatization:

[Source: Mexican dailies, int'l wires, April 27]
IN ANOTHER BLOW TO INTERNATIONAL FINANCIER PLANS TO SEIZE MEXICO'S POWER INDUSTRY, THE MEXICAN SUPREME COURT RULED A FOX PRIVATIZATION SCHEME UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
It took the Supreme Court two lengthy, and somewhat contentious sessions to finally reach the decision, by a vote of 8 to 3, that a decree issued last year by the Fox government which opened the door to private sector generation for the public market, was unconstitutional. The court ruled it was "an authentic fraud upon the law," which if allowed to stand, would "de facto and de jure," permit the privatization of electricity.
Fox's decree was blatant: it allowed industrial companies owning generators to power their own plants, to sell up any "excess" energy produced, up to 50% of their capacity, to the Federal Electrical Commission. At the initiative of the PRI and the PRD, the Congress filed a suit before the Supreme Court, charging that with this decree, that Executive Branch's decree was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court agreed, ruling that the Constitution is clear, that the generation, transmission, distribution and supply of electricity for public use belongs exclusively to the State, as established in Article 27, Point Six, of the Mexican Constitution.
Voice of America issued an unhappy wire, protesting that the Mexican Supreme Court had ruled out private participation in the energy industry, just after "obstructionist opposition parties in the Congress have also blocked any hope achieving a change in the Constitution." An analyst from London's Economic Intelligence Unit glumly told Bloomberg, "I doubt they'll get energy reform through under Fox."

[Source: La Jornada, El Universal, April 25]
THE MEXICAN SENATE VOTED DOWN PRIVATIZATION OF ELECTRICITY LAST NIGHT--A VICTORY WITH "LAROUCHE" WRITTEN ALL OVER IT.
Various variants of how to change the Constitution to allow privatization were on the table, including schemes to establish an electricity market. After a heated debate lasting more than four hours, Senators from the PRI, PRD and Green Party (PVEM) teamed up to shoot down all the initiatives, passing instead a ruling which "definitively" tables all the proposed initiatives, by a majority of 28 of the 42 Senators present (sufficient for a quorum). PRI Sen. Manuel Bartlett, a key leader of this battle, declared the vote "a victory for Mexico." PRI Sen. Dulce Maria Sauri called it "the definition of the future of the country."
The vote came one week after Nevada State Sen. Joe Neal, LaRouche spokesman Harley Schlanger, and MSIA leader Marivilia Carrasco met with Senators and Congressmen to warn of the destruction caused by deregulation in the U.S. Six major dailies of Mexico covered the Neal-Schlanger-Carrasco intervention on April 18.
The debate was shaped by that intervention. PRI Sen. Genaro Borrego stated that, what is at issue, "is the concept of a public service, and the essence of this is the right of all Mexicans to have electricity." PRI Sen. Martha Tamayo charged that the PAN's reform was concerned solely with profits.
PANista Sen. Juan Jose Rodriguez Prats became so angry at the resistance to his plans for an electricity market, that he denounced the Mexican Constitution as a "hodgepodge," and "legal gibberish." This was so outrageous, that fellow PANista Jorge Zermeno stood up to clarify that the the PAN respects the rule of law and does not share Prats' view of the Constitution.

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