Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Thursday he would seek to reform the country's political system and boost tax collection during the final three years of his presidency.

"I have decided to transform many things, and to throw all meat on the fire as they say," Calderon told the television news program Enfoque. "We need an in-depth overhaul of our political system, not just the electoral system."

Calderon presented a report of reforms at the opening session of Mexico's new legislature, in which Calderon's National Action Party (PAN) has become a minority for the first time in three years.

PAN lost its majority to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in July's mid-term election.

"We have to find a way for citizens to get more involved in public life. Current politics and the political system are not responding to the needs of society swiftly," Calderon said.

The current political system was not accountable, and Mexico had to revise it to make it more accountable, he explained.

Calderon went on to announce that fighting poverty would be the government's new benchmark.

Subsidies, which benefit the country's biggest landowners and those with highest incomes, would be cut first, he announced. "We will also have to make an effort to raise taxes," he went on.

"Mexico can't transform itself when tax collection from energy is less than 10 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP)," he concluded.

Source: Xinhua