On 29 July Fox announced two cabinet changes. He moved Rodolfo Elizondo, hitherto his spokesman, to the tourism ministry, replacing Leticia Navarro, who resigned saying she wanted to return to private activity. He then appointed Alfonso Durazo, hitherto his private secretary, to Elizondo's position - with a twist: he also expanded Durazo's role, so that he is not only his private secretary and spokesman, but also head of the presidency's social communications area and coordinator of the information offices of all government agencies. In other words, Durazo has become the government's information czar.
Reactions with a subtext
The influential columnist Manuel Jáuregui sentenced, 'The cabinet changes, if that is what they can be called, come late and, moreover, are insufficient.' The opposition Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which had been clamouring for a wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle as a public recognition by the government of the adverse verdict it had received from voters in the midterm legislative elections (WR-03-26), downplayed the importance of the changes in similar terms. Party spokesman Carlos Jiménez said, 'The President really took a long time to react to the message sent by the voters in the last election. We think the decision should have been taken immediately, and should have gone much deeper.'
The President's own Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) was visibly cool towards the reshuffle. PAN chairman Luis Felipe Bravo Mena confined himself to saying, 'I think that if the President has considered these changes opportune, they will be positive, and we hope they will be for the good of service to the country and the efficiency and efficacy of the government.' Translated, this means that he suspects the changes will not do any such thing, at least as the PAN understands them.
The reason for this was hinted at by newly elected PAN congressman Federico Doring. 'Durazo cannot be considered a panista,' he said. Indeed, for 27 long years Durazo was a member of the PRI - whereas Elizondo, shunted away from the centre of power, has been a loyal panista for the last two decades. In the same vein as Doring, Javier Livas - a member of the Amigos de Fox, the organisation that raised funds for the President's campaign - suggested that the concentration of so much power in Durazo's hands will be negative. 'The problems,' he said, 'far from being solved, will stagnate, because absolute power corrupts absolutely.'
What appears to be happening is that Fox is preparing the ground for his wife, Marta Sahagún, to mount her bid for the presidency in 2006, a prospect which does not particularly please the PAN. In this light, the changes make sense: with Elizondo's removal, panista influence over the President diminishes; with Durazo in control of the government's information output, a formidable propaganda machine is placed at Marta Sahagún's disposal.
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