National Action Party Mexico: Encyclopedia II - National Action Party Mexico - Right-wing politics

National Action Party Mexico - Right-wing politics

The PAN occupies the right of Mexico's political spectrum, advocating free enterprise, reduced taxes, smaller government, and reform of the welfare state. Its philosophy has similarities with the Republican Party of the United States, the Conservative Party of Canada or Europe's Christian Democratic parties, and many of its members are also advocates of Roman Catholicism as a political inspiration. The PAN is a member of the Christian Democrat Organization of America (CDOA). The PAN officially claims to be a non-confessional party in a country that is 90% Catholic; however, while on the campaign trail in 2000, Vicente Fox appeared holding a banner emblazoned with the revered icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe – and was fined MXN $20,000 for mixing religion and politics.

In certain extreme cases, individual PAN mayors and governors have banned public employees from using miniskirts (Guadalajara, Jalisco), clamped down on the use of profanity in public marketplaces (Santiago de Querétaro), and – in one particularly notorious case in the northern state of Baja California – brought extreme religious and political pressure to bear on a teenaged rape victim to dissuade her from terminating her pregnancy, as she was legally entitled to do. Such extreme stances are not, however, shared by many of the PAN's middle-class rank and file members, who traditionally saw supporting the party as the best way of preventing the PRI from remaining in power.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Right-wing politics", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki