Mexico’s do-nothing legislature: The siesta congress | The Economist →

Building coalitions is harder in Mexico, where congressmen are wedded to their parties and hard to buy off. No politician, from president to mayor, may stand for consecutive re-election. This quirk means that politicians depend on party bosses, not voters, for their next job, making it essential to toe the party line. (Mr Calderón’s political reform included re-election, but was crushed in Congress.)

Voters are unusually loyal too. Mr Lapuente and José Fernández-Albertos, of the Institute of Public Goods and Policies in Madrid, found that in Brazil parties often do well in presidential elections but badly in simultaneous congressional races, or vice versa. In contrast, in Mexico they tend to register near-identical levels of support, as voters rarely split their ballots. This link gives lawmakers every incentive to scupper the president’s agenda.