Interview: A 'Dysfunctional' System; The former foreign minister, now running for president, argues that institutional change must be a priority.(Interview)

Byline: Scott Johnson

Jorge Castaneda, Mexico's foreign minister from 2000 to 2003, last week announced that he was running for president in 2006. Castaneda, a former columnist for NEWSWEEK International, hopes to run as an independent candidate, but must petition the government to waive a law prohibiting anyone not affiliated with a party from seeking office. He discussed his ambitions with NEWSWEEK's Scott Johnson. Excerpts:

Why did you decide to run?

CASTANEDA: The country needs change. The 2000 [presidential] election was a referendum on the PRI. Now the kinds of changes needed are much more complex, much more subtle, but aren't possible with the current party system. I have a series of ideas to make things happen.

You've said that the Mexican political system is broken. Why?

There have been two breakdowns, one of Mexico's institutions and the other of its parties. Mexico went through the 20th century with an authoritarian system [that] worked in ways not stipulated by laws. Now that Mexico's institutions do follow the letter of the law, it turns out that they're dysfunctional.The best example is that the Congress is not accountable, because its members can't be re-elected. Also, with the three-party system, it's [virtually] impossible to have a [legislative] majority. We had three years of a PRI president without a majority, and now we will have had six years of a PAN president without a majority. The next president, whoever's elected in 2006, will not have a majority. So we have total political paralysis.

How do you propose to change the system?