LEGISLATORS SCUFFLE AT MEXICAN CONGRESS


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit




        MEXICO CITY, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- A scuffle between two legislators
briefly suspended a congressional appearance by Mexican Finance Minister
Guillermo Ortiz (``gee-YAIR-moh ohr-TEEZ'').
        The tiff between ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party legislator
Rafael Oceguera and Maximino Barbosa of the opposition Party of the
Democratic Revolution escalated during a heated discussion on the
economic well-being of Mexicans.
        Congressional president Porfirio Munoz Ledo said the incident was
``regrettable,'' and blamed it on ``verbal violence'' during the session
to question Ortiz on the content of the Sept. 1 state of the nation
report delivered by President Ernesto Zedillo.
        The scuffle began after a conservative opposition member decried
``the scandalous loss of purchasing power with 40 million Mexicans
plunged in poverty'' and criticized Zedillo's assertion that it would
take 20 years to double the current per capita income.
        Ortiz said Zedillo's words were twisted out of context because, ``the
president said population growth was such that even with 5 percent
economic growth each year, it would take 20 years to double per capita
income.''
        Mexico had more than 5 percent economic growth in 1996, after
suffering in 1995 its worst recession since 1930. Annual population
growth is a little under 2 percent.

 
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