| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | September 2009 
Third State of the Union Address by President Calderón on Public Television
 Presidencia de la República
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September 03, 2009
| | President Calderón delivers 3rd State of the Union address. | |
Yesterday, in compliance with Article 69 of the Mexican Political Constitution, I handed the Honorable Congress of the Union a written report on the general state of Public Administration.
This year has been different, due to various conditions that have severely affected the life of our Nation and tested the strength of institutions and our society.
I will now highlight the main actions we have carried out in each of the axes we have undertaken for the nation since the beginning of this administration.
Regarding the rule of law and public security. Our aim has been to confirm Mexico as a country of laws and institutions and guarantee citizens' public security.
During these three years of government, we have seized nearly 50,000 weapons and nearly 22,000 vehicles while the amount of drugs we have confiscated would suffice to provide all Mexicans between the ages of 15 and 30 with over 80 doses.
In the past 12 months alone, 1,400 kidnappers have been arrested, over 200 gangs have been dismantled and over a thousand kidnap victims have been released.
All these results have been possible thanks to the bravery of the members of Federal Police, the Federal Attorney's Office and the Armed Forces.
These model citizens have responded with determination and sometimes their lives to the nation's call to guarantee citizen's safety.
During this administration, we have also set ourselves the goal of transforming out economy to make it more competitive and able to create the jobs we need.
But it is also true that during the second half of last year, in 2008, Mexico began to suffer the effects of the international economic crisis.
Indeed, this has been the worst economic crisis in decades, but thanks to everyone's efforts, its impact on Mexicans' employment and income has been considerably less than that recorded in previous crises.
Concrete measures taken to protect Mexicans’ jobs include the following:
The Job Preservation Program. This program protected workers, particularly those in the export industries, who were the most severely affected by the fact of our foreign sales.
We expanded the Temporary Employment Program. Thus, during the first six months of the year, we provided job opportunities for half a million Mexicans, whose families would not have had the possibility of an income without these activities.
Lastly and most importantly, we have continued to promote the largest Infrastructure Program in contemporary Mexican history. In less than 3 years, we have invested over 100 billion pesos in highway projects.
The Administration has also adopted an integral social policy designed to provide equal opportunities for decent lives for Mexicans.
Through the Opportunities program, we are already supporting 5,200,000 families, in other words, nearly one out of every four Mexican families, with grants and financial support for school supplies, health services and food supplements.
We have expanded health service coverage to include those that need it most. Nowadays, the Popular Insurance Scheme protects over 10 million families. Medical Insurance for a New Generation provides health services for over 2,200,000 children and their families.
In conjunction with the local authorities from the Federal District and the State of Mexico, we are rehabilitating the infrastructure of the Cutzamala Basin, to reduce the effects of the drought that has caused the severe depletion of its dams.
With the same conviction, we are working with local governments to provide an underlying, sustainable solution to the supply and recycling of water in Mexico City. We are working shoulder to shoulder to solve the serious problem of their inhabitants.
As I said, this has been a particularly difficult year for Mexicans. Once this difficult time is over, the priority must be to recover the path of sustainable human development by alleviating poverty, and promoting rapid economic growth with justice and job creation. This is a task for all of us and to achieve it, Mexico requires unity of purpose and action.
In order for Mexico to change, those of us with responsibilities entrusted to us by the voters must also change. We have an opportunity, now that the Chamber of Deputies has been renewed, together with its leaders.
Because in any change, there is always an opportunity to re-establish priorities and strategies. And those of us with public responsibilities cannot allow the greatness of Mexico, which lies in its people, resources and history, to be frustrated by the lack of vision of political stakeholders which prevents us from reaching an agreement on changing and about how to change the country.
It is time to change and time to make radical changes.
That is why I would urge Mexicans to use the enormous capacity we have to create a better future. I urge you each to contribute what you can.
Change should contain at least 10 elements.
The first and main one has to do with the poverty in which over half the population lives, particularly extreme poverty, suffered by one in five Mexicans.
I propose concentrating the Mexican state’s strength and resources into a combined effort to stop the growth of poverty and offset the negative impact of the world food and economic crisis on our population with the lowest income.
Second. Mexico can and must achieve universal health coverage during this administration. Today we have a unique opportunity to ensure that there are doctors, medicine and treatment for any Mexican who needs it, regardless of his social condition.
Third. Achieve quality education. An education that will truly promote human beings and prepare our young people for a world that competes ferociously and that will enable Mexico to overcome the mass of interests and inertia, and use quality education to create a large door to emerge from poverty
A fourth point is a profound reform of public finances. We will have to do more with less.
That is why Federal Government will be the first to set an example. We will do this through an extraordinary effort to achieve austerity and rationalization within Public Administration, by arranging priorities on the basis of essential expenditure and eliminating all the programs and sectors that do not directly contribute to the objectives I mentioned.
As a fifth point. We must undertake a profound reform of public firms to eliminate privileges, abolish opacity and corruption and orient their performance towards public service through a profound restructuring and modernization.
Sixth. A reform of the Telecommunications Sector, because Mexico needs this sector to respond to the needs of development, guarantee greater service coverage, the convergence of available technologies and competition between stakeholders.
Mexico must become a country in which the majority of its inhabitants have access to telephony, the Internet, radio, television and all the telecommunications services, which are triggers for development.
Seven. Coping with economic adversity would not have been possible without the responsibility of stakeholders in the world of work. It is important to suggest a transformation of the sector with the aim of facilitating the access of millions of women and young people to the world of work, to economic life and a decent income. This reform will increase productivity and do so with full respect for trade union autonomy, the right to strike and to collective bargaining, and reinforce accountability and workers' rights, the most important one of which is the right to find a job.
Eight. In government, we will undertake a wide-ranging regulatory reform, a process that will enable us to revoke all the agreements, decrees and regulations that are either unclear or not fully justified.
The point is to facilitate citizens’ lives, to simplify all the paperwork done by firms and to bring government closer to people's needs.
Nine. We must increase the fight against crime, to ensure citizens' safety.
At the same time, we must speed up efforts at all levels of government to have an effective police corps system.
In this respect, I also urge citizens to play a much greater role in crime prevention. I am not asking citizens to do the authorities’ work but I do ask for everyday acts of public spiritedness, legality, denunciation, occupation of public spaces, promotion of culture, sports, and the prevention and treatment of addictions among young people and addictions. There we all have a great deal to do and there is much we can do.
And lastly, the last element on the agenda I propose corresponds to the need to undertake a far-reaching political reform. The political reforms that have been carried out in the past two decades have permitted better relations between political stakeholders to live and act in democracy and have opened the door to Mexico's democratic life.
But they have yet to translate into solving citizens' problems or guaranteeing better governments. That is why we must undertake a new generation of Political Reforms.
Let’s face it. Citizens are dissatisfied with political representation and perceive an enormous gap between their needs and the behavior of their leaders, representatives and politicians.
I propose another review of electoral rules to enable citizens to regard the elections as an effective instrument of democratic participation, and for politics to be synonymous with citizenship.
We must shift from effective suffrage to effective democracy.
I propose that we all check the rules and change what has to be changed so that politics is no longer synonymous with conflict and paralysis, so that politics becomes an instrument of change at the service of society.
We are facing a defining moment. It is in our hands to decide whether we continue with inertia or whether we promote wide-ranging changes to transform the country.
Let us be the generation that put Mexico's interest above any other particular interest. Let us be a generation on a par with our history and desires and lead Mexico into the future.
It is time to change.
Viva Mexico! |
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