Mexico Congress Questions President Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Mexico Congress Questions President By Niko Price Associated Press Writer Wednesday, November 5, 1997; 4:56 a.m. EST MEXICO CITY (AP) -- In one of the first challenges to the tradition of rubber-stamping presidential wishes, Mexico's new opposition-led Congress is questioning plans by the president to travel abroad. After a committee hearing that stretched into the night Tuesday, it appeared that a majority of lawmakers would vote to let President Ernesto Zedillo make the trips. But the very fact that they debated it was an indication of how much has changed. For seven decades, Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party has held both the presidency and a majority in both houses of Congress. The president could count on approval for pretty much whatever he wanted to do. But in July 6 elections, Mexicans voted in their first lower house of Congress that wasn't dominated by the PRI. Since then, the opposition -- divided mainly between two parties -- has been testing how far it can go. On Monday, the House Foreign Relations Committee took up a relatively benign request from Zedillo asking permission -- as the constitution requires him to do -- to go on four foreign trips. Zedillo plans to attend a summit in Venezuela from Friday to Sunday and to travel later this month to the United States, Nicaragua and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Canada. The Foreign Relations Committee -- led by the center-left Democratic Revolution Party -- asked for more information. ``Let the president tell us what benefit the country will derive from these trips,'' congressman Francisco de Souza of the Democratic Revolution Party said in an interview Tuesday. ``And when he comes back let him tell us how it went. That is democracy.'' For the PRI, it was also a shock. It rallied support from the center-right National Action Party and won support in the committee for the president's trips. The vote was 21-6. The full House was to vote on the proposal today. ``The president is the representative of Mexico, and it would have been lamentable if -- when he was about to leave the country to negotiate and to discuss themes of interest to Mexico -- we had weakened his position,'' said Alfredo Phillips Olmedo, a PRI committee leader. Porfirio Munoz Ledo, leader of the Democratic Revolution Party, compared it to the way Republicans in the U.S. Congress blocked former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld from becoming ambassador to Mexico -- and said it was wrong that Mexico's Congress had never challenged the president in the past. ``Congress has always voted automatically in this country,'' he said. ``I consider this to be a step forward.'' ``This should be very normal. This is the healthy functioning of a Congress.'' Legislators have made several changes since the new Congress opened in September, including banning smoking on the House floor and assigning seats to lawmakers. They also have cut travel and other perks for members. (c) Copyright 1997 The Associated Press ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-11.07.97-03:01:10-955