As America fiddles, Mexico reforms

It's early, but Mexico's new pretty-boy president is showing signs of progress.  Maybe Washington should look south for some ideas:

Giving Barack a few pointers

WHEN Enrique Peña Nieto won Mexico’s presidential election last year, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had run the country for 70 years, was restored to power after a 12-year gap. Many of those, including this newspaper, who liked the telegenic 46-year-old’s reformist rhetoric were worried that once the PRI was back in power it would revert to its old, authoritarian ways.

So Mr Peña deserves praise for his first four months in office. Having signed a pact with the two main opposition parties to overcome the gridlock that has prevented reforms, especially to the monopolies that hold Mexico back, the new president has targeted the monopolists. An education reform is aimed at seizing control of schools from the teachers’ union, whose longtime leader, Elba Esther Gordillo, was promptly arrested on charges of embezzlement (which she denies). Then came a potentially far-reaching measure to force more competition on the telecoms firms that have made Carlos Slim the world’s richest man, and on Televisa, a mighty television network which his critics claim did Mr Peña favours during the campaign. This week the president signed a new law restricting injunctions, abused by the rich and powerful to block regulatory or legislative measures.