Student Protests Challenge Mexican Political Establishment
On March 10, over 30,000 students at the University of Veracruz took to the streets to protest against the budget and policies of state governor Javier Duarte. Proceso reports that faculty joined the students and others, where they braved heavy rains and packed public spaces in the state capital of Xalapa. The protesters demanded that the government of Veracruz honor the debt of over 2 billion pesos (over $110 million) owed to the university system and even called for Duarte to resign. Protesters also demanded that the state government set aside five percent of its budget to fund universities, instead of the three percent proposed by Governor Duarte. The government has acknowledged the demands of the demonstrators and agreed to repay the university system, beginning with a payment of 40 million pesos: only a small portion of the total debt. In response, university rector Sara Ladrón de Guevara has described the government’s actions as insufficient and behind schedule. “The debt keeps growing. Why? Because in the year 2016 we have yet to receive a single peso from the state budget as set in the Laws of Expenditure.” Unlike public universities in the United States, where tuition can cost thousands of dollars a semester, public counterparts in Mexico run virtually tuition free; the only expenses include learning materials, residence, and a small enrollment and tuition fee, typically less than 200 dollars a semester. Under the budget proposed by Governor Duarte, the University of Veracruz would have to charge its students tuition, which university administrators such as Ladrón view as unwelcome privatization of higher education.
Because public universities operate tuition free, Mexican states spend tens of thousands of pesos per student and often amass significant debts.Veracruz represents only one of many states to see such unrest. Dominio Radio’s Juan Teniente reports that Nuevo León has seen similar protests, with students voicing their displeasure with the incumbent government,the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The PRI, the party of current president Enrique Peña Nieto which ruled Mexico uninterrupted for most of the 20th century, makes up the political establishment. Pew Research Center polling indicates that Nieto’s government has faced sliding approval ratings due to perceived corruption and its handling of education and law enforcement.
The protests in Veracruz may represent just one face of the anti-establishment political sentiment which divides Mexican politics. In 2015, voters in the state of Nuevo León elected Jaime Rodriguez Calderón, a PRI dissenter and the first person to win a Mexican state gubernatorial election as a political independent. The demonstrations against Governor Duarte, whose term ends this year, suggests that a similarly seismic shift may come to Veracruz.