Why the opposition rejects AMLO’s oil reform

The opposition party of the democratic revolution (PET) It showed this Monday his fierce opposition to oil reform proposed last Friday by the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, because, they argued, it would be an “expropriation” of private companies in the sector under the pretext of protecting national security, as experts have warned against the initiative.

The national leader of the PRD; Jesús Zambrano, assured that, like his controversial reform of the electricity sector, now held in court, which supposedly “favors the parapublic led by his political ally, Manuel Bartlett”, the new amendment to the law on hydrocarbons “the only thing they want to ‘guarantee’ is the prevalence of their small interests over that of the oil industry in the country”.

Zambrano cited two experts. According to Santiago Arroyo, an expert from consulting firm Ursus Energy, intervention under the pretext of protecting national interests is equivalent to “direct expropriation of facilities” by private initiative of the sector.

In addition, Analyst Ramses Pech says reform would leave Mexico with possible international lawsuits at the door, in addition to creating uncertainty about the evolution of the oil market. However, “the only thing the federal government has ears for is control this sector at will, as he tried with the energy sector and at the time Morena with social networks ”, declared the leader of the PRD, referring to the party in power.

Likewise, added to the disproportionate power that this initiative seeks to grant to the state, it would generate a significant impact on domestic and foreign private investment in this area.

Zambrano questioned the certainty that private companies might have in Mexico “Knowing that, from the start, the federal government can take away, with diffuse motives, what it has built in our country.”

“What the president should really guarantee is that your government stops using public resources to interfere in the electoral process, in addition to correcting the National Vaccination Plan which until now has been a failure, since it has not given the results it had so much promised, ”ruled the PRD.

Finally, the national leader of the PRD He warned of the risks that the Federal President could have spoken of putting on the table a mechanism to control water.. “López Obrador tells Chihuahua that he” is going to make decisions, he is going to put some order “in the management of the water. Why not better tidy up the corrupt and authoritarian government it has built?

In the same way, recognized that it is necessary to generate sustainable models in this regard, but that specialists in the subject must play a decisive role in the construction of public policies and not that they are made in the manner of the President of the Republic.

During, the Chamber of Deputies took turns López Obrador’s oil reform last Friday to the Energy Committee, for an opinion, and to the budget and public accounts committees, both only to give an opinion.

The intention of the new reform is to strengthen the public company Pemex (Petróleos Mexicanos). The initiative seeks to discourage various practices related to the illicit trade in hydrocarbons and petroleum products, as well as to reorganize various economic activities in the energy sector, in order to fight against corruption, guarantee supply, protect the national economy and the revenues received by the State.

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