more than 30 years until he was toppled by revolution in 1911. It applied again in the heyday of the PRI’s one-party system. With the defeat of the PRI in elections in 2000, Mexico gained political freedoms, but not the rule of law or accountable government, as Luis Rubio, a political scientist, explains in an essay for the Wilson Centre, a think-tank in Washington.

The power once monopolised by the PRI presidents is now shared with state governors and with the two main opposition parties. But there are still no checks and balances on its exercise, as the larceny of governors illustrates. And government is ineffective: Mr Peña has been unable to implement fully some of the reforms he enacted at the start of his term. If he thoughtthe PRI’s old method of central command would work in a more sophisticated country, he has been disabused. He is widely reviled: his approval rating is only 25%.

If he wants to rescue his reputation he should use the remaining two years of his term to deal with the problem of governance, in two ways. First, he could appoint a genuinely independent attorney-general—an essential first step to establishing the rule of law. His government pushed through a law to grant autonomy to the office from 2018, but with the proviso that the incumbent would continue in the job for another nine years. His critics’ fears that the change will be merely cosmetic were raised when last month Mr Peña appointed Raúl Cervantes, a PRI senator and formerly the party’s