Ambassador Visits San Diego : Mexican Envoy Vows Cooperation With PAN

The Mexican government, long dominated by a single political party, is committed to cooperating with state governments of opposition parties in Baja California and elsewhere in the nation, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States pledged Friday.

“We are prepared to work with the opposition,” Ambassador Gustavo Petricioli Iturbide said during a news conference in Coronado.

Petricioli, in the San Diego area for a two-day visit as a guest of Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego), addressed a range of Mexican and binational themes, including a number of U.S.-Mexico border issues, but the results of last Sunday’s elections in Baja California clearly constituted the most timely concern.

The wide-ranging comments by Petricioli, who has been credited with energizing the Mexican embassy in Washington, adhered to the official viewpoint that has emanated from Mexico City.

Official Results Sunday

Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as PRI, acknowledged this week that the gubernatorial candidate of the opposition National Action Party, known as PAN, was the likely winner in Baja. Official results are scheduled to be released Sunday.

If the opposition is victorious, it will mark the first time in modern Mexican history that the PRI has recognized the loss of a governor’s post. Opposition leaders have charged that other such elections were rigged to ensure PRI victories.

Petricioli, like other Mexican officials who have commented on the event, portrayed the recognition of an opposition triumph in Baja as evidence of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s commitment to increase democracy. Salinas, who appointed Petricioli to the sensitive United States post, was elected last year by barely 50% of the voters in an election that critics say was fixed.

“This (the Baja result) shows that there is democracy in Mexico, that Mexico complies with the law and respects the will of the people,” said Petricioli, 60, a former Mexican finance minister who has a master’s degree in economics from Yale. “If people want to vote for the opposition, then the government is going to respect that result.”

There will be no effort to undermine state administrations of the opposition, vowed Petricioli, who arrived in Washington in January. “We and the opposition will work together in the best interests of the country,” said the ambassador, a member of the PRI.

Border Issues High Priority

On other topics, Petricioli said border themes would be important concerns of high-level binational meetings slated in the coming months, including next month’s scheduled visit to Mexico City by Secretary of State James Baker and a future visit to Washington by President Salinas.

“The border issues are going to be (among) the highest priorities,” Petricioli said.

One proposal that might be considered during the talks, Petricioli said, is a suggestion to swap part of Mexico’s more than $100-billion debt--much of it owed to U.S. banks--for a Mexican commitment to finance development projects on the Mexican side of the border. Such projects, Petricioli said, could include new border crossings, sewage-treatment plants, roads and other sorely needed infrastructure in the fast-growing region.

As for the controversial United States plan to build a ditch along the border in San Diego in an effort to stem illegal immigration, Petricioli repeated the official Mexican view that such a barrier would not send a message of international cooperation. “We need to build bridges, not ditches, between us,” Petricioli said.

On another high-profile issue, Petricioli said he will recommend that Mexican officials study a preliminary proposal to build a joint Tijuana-San Diego airport along the border. The proposal, he said, seems like a “good idea in principal” but needs to be reviewed by both Mexican and U.S. experts before advancing.