Mexican lawmakers stage lock-in to block oil reform bill

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/mexican-lawmakers-stage-lock-in-to-block-oil-reform-bill/



Mexican lawmakers stage lock-in to block oil reform bill
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 17:59 EST

Leftist lawmakers locked themselves inside Mexico’s chamber of deputies Wednesday to prevent the lower house from debating a controversial oil reform bill that passed the Senate hours earlier.

Around 20 lawmakers took over the chamber’s podium, unfurling a banner with the words “traitors” in big letters after wrapping chains around the handles of a door and piling up chairs.

“We cannot allow a handful of people to take and give away the nation’s property,” deputy Maria Luisa Alcalde of the Citizen Movement Party said from the podium, joined by members of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and the Workers Party.

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The legislation would let private firms explore and extract oil and gas, as well as share profits, production and risk with the state-run energy giant Pemex, ending a ban cemented in the country’s very constitution.