Why Mexicans don't support Enrique Peña Nieto's Energy Reform?

1. Lack of trust on the private sector. According to a poll published by the newspaper El Universal, about 62% of the people is something/very against private investment in the national Mexican oil company (PEMEX). If we look at the recent past this is no surprise: in 1990 President Carlos Salinas amended Mexican Constitution to allow private investment in the banking system, and created a fund in case of contingency – the infamous FOBAPROA. In 1994 most of the banks had severe financial problems. Government needed 100 billion dollars plus interest to bailout its recently privatized banks and the FOBAPROA was not enough. During 1998, the private debt of the banks was converted to public debt. Today Mexicans are still paying.
   This is not an isolated case: Government had to bailout private Highways companies just 8 years after their privatization. Another case: Mexico spent 110 million dollars to expropriate sugar mills in 2001 because private owned companies were in bankruptcy.
   Even private investment in PEMEX has not done so well. Private companies extract oil under the multiple service contracts modality at the Chicontepec basin and the results is a steady decrease in oil production meanwhile oil production is increased at Tabasco's coastal region with PEMEX working alone.
2. Privatization will trigger tax raises. Mexican Oil Company handles 70% of its income to the Federal Government. This money is used to build infrastructure, to pay the wages of the bureaucracy and to pay the welfare. President Peña's proposal is to create profit-sharing contracts with foreign private oil companies. Any share has to come from the oil rent so it'll be less money to the government who is going have to find another source of income. José Angel Gurria Secretary-General of the OECD said Mexico must increase the VAT - shortly after meeting President Peña. Now Peña said he will send a Fiscal Reform to the Congress on early September.
3. PEMEX can do well without private investment. Two core ideas of the state campaign on Mexican media to promote the Energy Reform are: PEMEX has neither the money nor the technology to keep working, so needs private investment. The Senator and Economist Alejandro Encinas has challenged both ideas. First PEMEX is the fouth oil producer of the world and the thirteenth of the Americas in order of income. The problem is PEMEX has to pay 70% of this income to the government. PEMEX's fiscal burden can be relieved by eliminating tax exemptions and loopholes to biggest private companies. This loopholes are tantamount to 3.87% of the country GDP more than the 1% of GDP the Energy Reform allegedly will boost. PEMEX will have the money if some fiscal arrangements are made without changing the Constitution.
   Secondly it's said Mexico has no the technology to drill on deep-water. Mexicans engineers built the oil industry from scratch after its nationalization in 1938; an ensuing international boycott thwarted the new state-owned company to acquire technology from abroad, but today here is PEMEX 4^th oil producer of the world. The most recent achieving is drilling successfully the Supremus-1 oil well over 9000 feet on deep-water on 2012.
4. Reduced electricity bills seem unfeasible. President Peña is promising to lower electricity bills. Both right-leaning ruling parties -PRI and PAN- have tried to match the domestic gas prices to US prices by eliminating subsidies. It's logical to think they'll do the same about electricity bills. Currently the price of a kilowatt hour in Mexico varies from 2.1 to 2.9 MXN ( average 19 American cents). Meanwhile in the US prices go from 6.8 to 32.9 cents per kWh (average 19.85 American cents). There's not much room for improving the rates.
5. The Energy Reform is not environmentally friendly. Greenpeace stated this Energy Reform is not green, because it relies on fracking as a method to reach the shale gas. Also implies a risk of a new Gulf of Mexico oil spill accident while searching on deep-water. Television advertisements urge to do not leave the oil underground, but because oil is a non-renewable resource it makes more sense if it's carefully administered.
6. Increasing dependency on the US and loss of sovereignty. To Mexicans Globalization means to buy almost everything from abroad and export nothing but our brothers and sisters. Jobs must be created in Mexico to hold Mexicans from crossing to the US risking their lives and leaving a worried family behind. As show in a study of Tufts University the NAFTA affected negatively small Mexican farmers who cannot compete with the US subsidized corn, soy and wheat. Most stores bought cheap imported grains and seeds rather than expensive domestic production. So after NAFTA was signed a great wave of unemployed farmers rushed into the US looking for work. What will happen if the US can't sell us food and gasoline anymore?
   Back to oil: Mexico is importing more than 50% of the gasoline in spite of being the 4^th world oil producer. There's one refinery every 2,213 persons in the US and one refinery every 19,568 persons in México. The problem of sky rocketing prices of gasoline can be tackled by building more refineries thus generating jobs inside Mexico.
7. The lies about Lazaro Cárdenas. Lazaro Cárdenas was the Mexican president who expropriated private oil companies in 1938 because of their failure to abide by the law. Now President Enrique Peña Nieto is airing a heavy campaign on the 2 main TV networks presenting Cárdenas as favorable to foreign investment. Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas, son of Lazaro Cárdenas, regarded as “ofensive” the misuse the figure of Lazaro Cárdenas for something he did not stand for. Mexican Historians Pedro Salmerón, Luis Fernando Granados and Halina Gutierrez have also condemned the government lies.
   Cuauhtemoc Cardenas made a proposal to involve all society on the discussion of this Energy Reform and a popular consultation. To this day Government officials deny the possibility of direct democracy even though the fraction VIII of Article 35 of the Mexican Constitution allows referendums about national importance topics