Luis Rubio

Now that we are full swing, on all flanks, in the process of presidential succession, it is important to reflect on the opportunities and risks that the country is confronting. The external context is not particularly generous: the NAFTA negotiations have not advanced in terse fashion and the upcoming U.S. Congressional primary elections will surely reopen much of the anti-Mexican discourse that has characterized the Trump administration from the time of his campaign. In the domestic ambit, turbulence is ceaseless, all of which inflates the level of conflict in view of the moment when the voters will decide who it is who will govern us.

In addition to this, we are facing real risks concerning which, above the strategies that the candidates themselves and their parties come to employ in matters of the social networks and manipulation of the electorate (all legitimate and increasingly normal in election processes), other interests -internal or external- devote themselves to influencing the proceedings due to reasons extraneous to those of direct interest to the electorate. Today it is clear that there were external interventions in the British elections that decided on the so-called Brexit, in the U.S. elections Trump won, and in the Catalonian referendum. There are no grounds to suppose that Mexico’s case will be distinct; one must not forget that Mexico, like Berlin and Vienna and other strategic places in the Cold War era, were protagonists in the intrigues swirling among the powers.

The question is how the external interact with the internal interests. That is, who benefits from or is damaged by these deceits and collusions. One obvious perspective is whether the interest of the U.S. is the same as that of Trump and, in any case, how this will play out in the elections to come. I am absolutely sure that the U.S. national interest privileges the stability and prosperity of Mexico and that this interest extends beyond the specific candidates. It is not similarly evident to me that Trump’s interest is the same: in his proclivity for advancing a public agenda that many people in the U.S. reject, he can end up propitiating, consciously or not, results that do not coincide with the general interest of his country. From this perspective, I estimate that Trump, to a much greater extent than NAFTA, will comprise an integral part of the Mexican presidential election.

I return now to the opportunities and risks: for many, this election is especially sensitive because what is involved is of enormous magnitude. Part of what explains this appreciation lies in the nature of the reforms undertaken during Peña´s presidency (above all in educative and energy matters), touching upon as they do two or three nodal precepts of the 1917 Mexican Constitution. Another component of the explication resides in the substantial loss of prestige accompanying the exiting president due to the corruption and his dearth of leadership, lending credence to the numbers characterizing López Obrador in the polls.

But the greatest sensitivity does not dwell in the specific factors that denoted the outgoing government, whether the reforms that it promoted or the way in which it conducted the affairs of State, but rather in the immense power that the presidency concentrates. Concentrated power utilized for carrying out positive changes –those driving greater economic growth in the long term, better quality-of-life levels and increased general well-being- should be welcome; but the self-same power employed for destroying and dividing is in the end pernicious under any yardstick. Mexico’s main problem –which may be observed since the invention of the “non-heritable six-year monarchy” in the immortal words of Cosío Villegas- is that one never knows what the next government will do. And that engenders uncertainty and even fear.

In a recent article, Janan Ganesh compared the U.K. with other developed nations. His foremost argument is that England is typified by a system that concentrates the power in the Parliament, allowing it to effect huge reforms but reforms that, at the same time, can be bad, everything depending on the degree of excellence of the Prime Minister at any given moment. That characterization, unusual for a developed country, poses a contrast with the U.S. (where Trump has encountered colossal difficulties in making headway with his agenda due to the solidity of the checks and balances) but also with France, where the immensity of the presidency is curtailed by the commanding mayors and extra-parliamentary powers such as the unions and the bureaucracy.  Ganesh resolves his commentary by remarking that the pathetic state of the U.S. infrastructure, the resistance to change of the French and the scarcity of reforms in Italy mirror infirm central governments that are curbed by strong institutions that protect the citizens above everything else.

In Mexico we lack strong institutions that protect the citizenship and we do not have world-class statesmen capable of bringing the population on board for the sake of integral and evenhanded development. If the candidates endeavor to achieve a stable 2019 they had better begin to respond from now on to the cry for certainty and clarity of course which the citizenry demands and requires.

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@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

In one of the thousands of memes that I have received in recent weeks, the question is “Will the lists of candidates for pluris federal legislators (through lists) register with the National Electoral Institute or the Attorney General?” The question is obviously ironic but reflects the popular sentiment: political parties, particularly Morena, have chosen a bunch of candidates of dubious reputation for their lists of legislators by proportional representation -those who do not owe loyalty to anyone other than their party leaders- leaving behind any pretense of representing the citizenry or being accountable to it, two of the nodal elements of representative democracy.

In its broadest sense, the relevant question is for what and for whom politics are. The issue that concerns me is not the evident abandonment of ideologies in the formation of party lists and coalitions, but the total absence of convictions that define a clear political or even pragmatic orientation. Opportunism has taken over Mexican politics and manifests itself in all areas; opportunism has the immediate virtue of bringing a party or candidate closer to power, but at the cost of risking the little legitimacy that is left to the political system. When that happens, the collapse of the political system could begin, as happened in Venezuela two decades ago.

The problem is aggravated now that Mexican politics have taken a dangerous course in recent months, turning electoral processes into a judicial flight and leading politics into a space conducive to revenge and vendettas. The sum of these two elements -the almost criminal isolation of politicians and the turning of street fights into imprisonment or threat of incarceration by political opponents- entails a deterioration that does not promise anything good.

The first to initiate this path was the PAN with the arrest of a PRI operative in Coahuila for his imprisonment in Chihuahua, a process that would never have occurred in a serious country: kidnapping, imprisonment with an arrest warrant without a name, et cetera. The governor of Chihuahua squeezed the matter to its maximum potential, politicizing it to the utmost without, until now, having published elements that justify his actions. Was it justice or political-electoral promotion?

Neither slow nor lazy, this week the government seemed to respond to the PAN affront with an accusation of money laundering against Anaya, the PAN presidential candidate. As in the case of Chihuahua, the facts are vague, suggesting a political, rather than a motivation of justice. Of course, it is possible that both of these cases do have merit, but given the electoral moment, it is at least equally probable that this is the beginning of a series of capricious actions in the hands of authorities with too much power in their hands and no scruples. The ease with which these arrest warrants are issued suggests that no one is safe. Worse, it signals that the political leaders have opted for an open war at the most delicate moment of national political life and with the weakest -and directionless- electoral authority.

Both cases manifest two things: on the one hand, the defects of the criminal reform in that it makes it possible to initiate criminal proceedings with the mere mention of a protected witness whose name does not have to be published or known. This could be appropriate in a country where there is rule of law and due process is followed, but certainly not in Mexico, which has not even been able to legislate clearly and concisely. On the other hand, these examples show that, in the Clausewitz style, politicized justice has become a means through which political accounts are settled: politics by other means. The criminal reform created a new avenue to distort justice, obscure corruption and politicize daily life even more.

As Corral and his PAN acolytes found, in the new justice system mere presumption of guilt is enough to grant an arrest warrant. With that instrument in the hands of pernicious and unscrupulous rulers, protected witnesses can been invented and, as the French say, voilà!, everything is solved. With this instrument, the door opens to the use of the mechanisms of justice to address political issues and, even worse, to the politicization of justice. And none of our political masters has clean hands in this area.

The big question is where this path takes us. In countries where democracy has led to the independence of law procurement and enforcement, as has been the case in Brazil, their societies have managed to build an alternative footing to the legitimacy of the system, facilitating (at least potentially) the transition to a new, stable, regime. Paraphrasing Joaquín Villalobos, when justice is politicized, it is impossible to seek political agreements, fight corruption or guarantee macroeconomic stability and social inclusion.

The parties, the government and the candidates that promote this anti-political thrust are taking Mexicans on a slippery path that cannot result in anything positive. Opportunism serves for a moment but sooner or later it reverts into crisis, if not chaos. It is still time to avoid such a destructive closure.

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Luis Rubio

“I am God”, the brand-new Attorney General told me. “This institution confers upon one enormous power to persecute or pardon.” Those are the words that I remember from a visit to the Attorney General’s Office some time ago and they did not seem surprising to me: the power of the Mexican government has no parallel in the civilized world; when a civil servant accumulates such power –faculties so vast as to unilaterally decide who lives or dies, who goes free or who goes to jail- civilization simply does not exist; we are all losers. In the era of the old system, many believed that the country was buttressed by strong institutions when, in reality, there was an authoritarian system that maintained discipline through mechanisms of control and loyalty that, in retrospect, typifies the enormous primitivism that characterizes Mexico’s polity.

The power evidenced by the then freshly minted Attorney General is nothing exceptional. From the most eminent public servant to the most modest of these, the entire country functions like this: all of the operators of all of the systems –ministers, attorneys general, inspectors, auditors- possess prodigious powers for pardoning or persecuting, each in their own space and circumstance. A citizen who makes a small home improvement –an additional room, remodeling- comes face to face with that excess of faculties in the person of the municipal inspector: attributions so massive that they can make the difference between “resolving” the matter in a few minutes or spending the rest of the citizen’s existence immersed in bureaucratic intricacies that would make Kafka the famous author of daily life in Mexico.

All Mexicans exist within that interlining of potential abuse. Anyone who has perused the newspapers in recent months knows that no one is safe: “Are open investigations being conducted against Marcelo Ebrard (a former Mexico City governor) in the capital’s Attorney General’s Office?”, the City’s Governor Miguel Ángel Mancera was asked: “We in Mexico City have no open inquest”, he responded. The phase is revealing: we do not have an inquest, but one can always be initiated; yet more important: I decide. It does not matter how powerful the functionary has been in the past, today he is subject to the whim and fancy that propitiates the immense bureaucratic power enjoyed by functionaries-in-turn. A few weeks ago, the victim was Manlio Fabio Beltrones, probably Mexico’s most accomplished and effective politician: no one is safe from the all-powerful one of the moment.

All depends on how the winds are blowing, not on adherence to or violation of the law. Examples are infinite and proliferate in all ambits; in some cases, perhaps the majority, the arbitrary powers relished by the authority-in-turn exists to advance the enrichment of the functionary; in others, the most visible of these, those attributions comprise the instrument by which those in power castigate, control or subordinate their enemies.

The first case concerns municipal inspectors, who can permit or stop a construction work already underway, a nightclub or bar, a street or a restaurant. How long were the main traffic arteries under construction in the Condesa borough of Mexico City a few months ago as a means of amassing “donations” for the political campaign of the area’s delegate? What distinguishes that tactic from that of those who demand protection money from local businesses? Only the subsequent use of the money. Under the same rubric we find the Federal Commission of Electricity (CFE) inspectors, who come around to a house to count the number of light bulbs, but whose purpose is none other than to utilize their credentials to take a bribe, something not distinct from what transit police officers do on a daily basis. All have such broad powers to “persecute or pardon” that are nothing more than means of extortion.

If the previous examples explain part of the hatred that the citizenry has with respect to the authority, then the following illustrate the personal and political use of the State institutions: the businessman who is audited for supporting the wrong candidate or the politically incorrect cause; the candidate who is suddenly found to have links with “money laundering”, and thus finds his personal banking accounts, and those of his or her relatives, frozen, so that, once the election is over, a statement comes out declaring that “there is no accusation,” once the harm has been absolute.  The use of the State institutions -in this case the National Banking Commission, the Office of the Attorney General, the Bank of Mexico- for the personal ends of the powerful one of the moment.

If there is a measure of civilization or of primitivism, surely judicial persecution is found at the top of the list because it concerns freedom, the most basic human right. That power, manifest in distinct ways at every level and variety of authority, brings to light everything that Mexico is still to address and how far from reality the daily political rhetoric is found. The reality evidences a primeval country; the rhetoric attempts an inexistent concretion, and all of the functionaries and governors, without distinction of party, work the same way, when they are in power: power for personal and party ends, not for the development of the country.

The day that those excessive, arbitrary powers disappear, Mexico will begin to live the world of civilization, while in the meantime    those who aspire to remove those lusting after power do not perceive that, sooner or later, they themselves will be on the other side. No one is safe.

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Luis Rubio

In one of the great gaffs of the Second World War, France assumed that, when a new confrontation would come about, Germany would repeat the invasion pattern of 1914. France prepared with that logic to respond to the failures of the prior confrontation, and ended being invaded. I ask myself whether our focus -of Mexico and of our two North American partners- could be sinking into something similar.

Mexico has become a manufacturing power on a worldwide scale, a circumstance that has permitted the reduction, though not the elimination, of the restrictions that historically had imposed the balance of payments upon us and that were the last cause of many of the financial crises and debacles of the past decades.  Exports have changed the face of Mexico’s economy and have created a powerful growth engine, well-paying jobs and opportunities for development. Those exports, the product of the change of course that the country took in its economy in the eighties and that was consolidated with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), have alleviated some of our problems, but this obviously comprised only one element among many that should be attended to in the national panorama.

The strategy of economic liberalization, insertion into the commercial, technological and financial circuits of the world –all of this discernible in the exports- continues in such force today as thirty years ago. Many of the wealthiest nations on the planet have been following that strategy, achieving enormous stability and progress, the latter not limited to nation-states, such as Hong Kong and Singapore, nations totally incorporated into those circuits, but instead including countries like Chile, Korea and Taiwan, in addition to the more developed countries. From this perspective, it is evident that what is required is greater and better incorporation into those circuits and not retraction from them. That is to say, our challenge is to be found in the enlargement of the framework in which the modern economy of the country functions: incorporating the part lagging behind, and those who have not had the opportunity to break with the traditional forms of producing, into the successful part.

The challenge is not merely economic or regulatory, although there is much to solve on those planes, but it also encompasses a massive complexity of situations in ambits such as the educative, the infrastructure and, without doubt, the political. Oaxaca and Chiapas have not fallen behind because of lack of infrastructure and the old Mexican industry that continues to lag has a plethora of political contracts that protect it, thus condemning it.  As in so many other milieus of national life, our main obstacles are internal and, in nearly all cases, perfectly visible and explainable in the form of special interests, benefits and privileges.

However, I fear that the challenge is greater and more complex than what these matters involve. A recent visit to a factory in the northern Mexico led me to reflect on the more generalized version of the triumph of Trump a year ago: according to that narrative, the lower manpower costs in places such as China and Mexico have displaced U.S. manpower. That would imply, to be consequential, that job losses in states like Michigan and Ohio would translate into job wins in other latitudes. Some of that has doubtlessly occurred, but what I observed in the plant that I visited was an impressive proliferation of huge robots that are operated by a handful of workers. The hundreds of thousands of jobs that have been lost in North American industrial regions in recent decades are not in Mexico. No way would the ten or fifteen employees that I saw have had a cascade effect the size of which occurred in the U.S. for the Democratic candidate to have lost in traditionally industrial states.

My point is that the great challenge does not lie in the manufacturing industry in which Mexicans have placed their hopes but rather in that this industry is not going to be the solution to the employment problem, as it has not been in traditionally industrial countries for some time. Manufacturing plants and exports will continue to grow, but not so employment, a distinct affair. That is, the technological change is dragging Mexican employment down as it did before with European and American employment. With things going this way, the question is what are we doing in this respect and, in any case, what should be included in the NAFTA negotiations in order for the region’s three nations to adapt with haste to this new era, without negative political consequences for Mexico.

The digital revolution is imposing itself on Mexico’s economy in unanticipated ways with a population that is not prepared to assume it, to benefit from it and to come out on top.  In contrast to former revolutions, such as the Industrial Revolution, the capacity for adaptation in the digital era entails a new focus not only of the educative and the health apparatus, denominated human capital, but also of the manner in which the person is conceived in political terms. Industrial-era workers were organized into unions, citizens of the digital era employ social networks and are highly mobile.

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Luis Rubio

The proposal of Enrique de la Madrid makes it imperative to discuss the matter: recognize the reality and make our tourist destinations safer by removing one of the causes of insecurity, the one caused by the illicit and highly violent market of drugs, especially marijuana. The mere mention of a proposal as serious, but controversial in our political environment, has led to connect two things that have no connection, at least not the one the critics of the security strategy started a decade ago claim.

There are two relevant issues: on the one hand, the liberalization of the drug market and its potential effects; on the other, the potential links between security and drugs. These are two distinct issues that, although obviously linked, follow different dynamics: the factors that regulate the functioning of the drug market, whether legal or illegal, are not what determine the behavior of the drug trafficking mafias and their peers in organized crime in general.

The starting point is obvious because only now has an authority dared to say it: the consumption of drugs in Mexico exists and is easy to access. That is, although drugs are prohibited, there is a market in which it is easy to buy some drugs, especially marijuana.

The countries that have walked the path of legalization offer valuable lessons: when liberalizing, consumption increases because the previously existing, but unrecognized, market becomes transparent. These experiences show that the risks associated with consumption decrease because the product becomes standardized (eliminating toxic substances that are often associated with the black market), as well as that, this now being an open and legal market, the violence and risk inherent to the process of acquiring the product disappears. In other words, the advantages and virtues of liberalization in terms of consumption are obvious.

The problem of international references is that they are not very relevant to the  Mexican reality in a crucial aspect: all the significant experiences, starting with the Netherlands, Uruguay and more recently Colorado and California, presuppose the existence of a government capable of regulating the market that is now liberalized. In all these cases, the government has assumed the role of supervisor that ensures the quality of the product, the limits to consumption and the requirements that the consumer must meet, especially age.

When one assumes the existence of a functional government, capable of supervising a market and maintaining the safety of citizens, the discussion about drugs acquires an essentially moral nature: either the government must take care of the health of the citizens or it is the responsibility of the citizens themselves to take care of their own lives. That is an essentially philosophical discussion that quickly acquires an ideological connotation that generally becomes impossible to break.

In Mexico we are peculiar because we have a double moral regarding drugs or a great confusion regarding the relationship between these and safety. The discussion about liberalization generally supposes that public order would be restored as soon as the ban was removed. And there lies the fallacy of the drug-security binomial.

My position is that drugs, at least marijuana, should be legalized, but not under the expectation that this would solve the problem of security. Undoubtedly, the elimination of rents (excessive profits) enjoyed by drug mafias would reduce their power and, therefore, help to balance the relationship between police and gangsters. However, beyond the immediate space (it is certainly possible to improve security in a neighborhood or city), the relevant market for these purposes is not the local one, but the American one, and the most important one is not that of marijuana (of which Mexico exports ever less), but that of the most profitable drugs for the cartels, such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines.

It is crucial to recognize that Mexico’s problem is not drugs, corruption or violence per se, but the absence of government and that absence is due to two factors: one, that the centralized political system of yesteryear was created a century ago and nothing has been done to adjust it to the era of political decentralization. In one word, the now very powerful governors have not built police, judicial and administrative capacity to improve the lives of their citizens. The other cause of the security problems is due to the enormous power that the mafias derive from their billionaire businesses in another country. Thus, the liberalization of drugs in Mexico would not change the dynamics of the cartels or affect the industries of kidnapping, extortion and theft.

Therefore, the insecurity stems from the absence of government and the enormous power (corrupting and violence) of the mafias and that would not be affected more than marginally by the legalization of marijuana in Mexico. We must discuss these two issues -drugs and safety- as two independent matters and be honest about the urgency of attending each of them in their proper dimension. Liberalizing marijuana is necessary, but it is not a panacea.

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@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

Presidential elections nearby
by Qrius,  January 28, 2018
in Evening Edition, Recent Articles, World

Mexico is currently going through three simultaneous social shifts that feedback into each other and may change the face of the country. First of all, it is undergoing a lengthy economic, political, and demographic transition. Second, the country is experiencing a difficult relationship with the US, its main business partner and, through NAFTA, Mexico’s principal source of stable trade. Finally, a presidential race is underway, which will take place July 1. All this is occurring in a context of unusual physical and political violence and great anger among the electorate.

Political instability as Mexico democratises

Mexico’s ongoing and drawn-out transition to democracy has often been compared with Spain’s, but the differences are vast. Spain began to change after the death of a dictator and with the support of its European neighbours while, in the case of Mexico, the change was never about a person but rather about a political regime personified by the PRI. This political movement created a system of political control that has exhibited an extraordinary capacity for adapting to the times, which is why it never disappeared.

In this way, Mexicans have experienced a process of political change that has been largely reactive in nature and with no clear aim in view. In consequence, despite significant advances, elements of the old political system continue to remain entrenched. Instead of opening the system to true competition, the opposition parties, PAN and PRD, were incorporated into the old system of privilege. All of this creates an environment of conflict, especially with regard to economic policy.

A three party system

The electoral scene in the country is dominated by three people. First is Andrés Manuel López Obrador (called AMLO) who, in his third attempt to win the presidency, is running ahead of his opponents. José-Antonio Meade, the candidate for the PRI, is distinguished by his successful experience as a public servant under two governments of different political parties, but his primary characteristic is not having being a longterm member of the PRI; the party put him forward in order to distance themselves for their unpopular current president, Peña-Nieto. Finally, Ricardo Anaya, the candidate of the so-called Frente or Front—which groups together the more conservative PAN, PRD, and MC—has begun his campaign with a progressive approach that has moved the party little by little toward a rhetorical position not so different from that of AMLO.

To these three candidates, one may add two or three independents who, although without any chance of winning, could exert an important effect on the outcome by drawing votes away from the main presidential aspirants. It is still too early to be able to anticipate the result because, given that there is no run-off in the Mexican system, the weight of the party machines to get out the vote can be determinant as the country enters the last five months before voting day.

The rise of left-wing economics

Disagreements with respect to whether the Mexican economy should be an open one or should move more towards autarky, lie at the heart of the presidential race. In the eighties, Mexico opted to liberalise its economy and join various commercial alliance around the world, which led to the country’s accession to NAFTA. An offshoot of the PRI party has rejected those reforms and continues to do so as the Morena party.

All of these strains have been exacerbated by Trump’s threats to cancel NAFTA, which is the main engine of the economy and a crucial stabilising factor in promoting the Rule of Law in Mexico. Thus, Mexico is going through a unique and very sensitive moment that, with or without NAFTA, would obligate it to deal with international uncertainty by establishing stability at home. However, a huge challenge for Mexico’s system of government is that it endows the winner with enormous, even excessive powers, which does not help in overcoming the country’s internal conflicts.

Featured Image Source: Flickr

La Razón -España –
Luis Rubio

Mexico is going through three simultaneous, but different, processes that feedback onto each other. First off, the country is undergoing a lengthy economic, political, social and demographic transition without anyone managing it, but one that has consequences in all ambits. In second place, the country is experiencing a difficult relationship with the U.S., its main business partner and, up to now, through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexico’s principal source of stability and legal certainty. Finally, next July the citizenry will vote for a new president, in a context of physical and political violence and great anger among the electorate. Each of these affairs entails its own dynamics that, on interacting, generate imbalances and clashes of expectations.

In Mexico the changes that the nation has sustained during recent decades are often compared with the Spanish political transition. However, the differences are much more considerable than the similarities: to start with, in Spain the death of Franco determined the initiation of a new political era; in the case of Mexico, this was not about a person, but rather about a political regime personified by the PRI, a system of political control that has exhibited an extraordinary capacity for adapting to the times, which is why it never took its leave. In this manner, Mexicans have been privy to a process of political change that has been reactive in nature, without even having presented a clear definition by consensus with respect to the end of the process. In consequence, although it has adopted diverse initiatives in electoral matters, and of transparency and of justice, including a set of formidable electoral institutions, the political system continues to remain entrenched and protected regarding the citizenry. Instead of opening the system to true competition, the PAN and the PRD (in their prime the parties positioned second and third after the PRI) were incorporated into the system of privilege that hallmarked the old regime. All of this creates an environment of conflict, one at the razor’s edge and that involves feuding concerning the country’s future, especially with regard to economic policy.

The electoral contention has three personages who define it. In first place, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) who, in his third attempt, it at the head of electoral preferences with a persistent accusation of inequality, corruption and poverty. José-Antonio Meade, the candidate for the PRI, is distinguished by his successful experience as a public servant of two governments of different political parties, but his core characteristic is not being a member of the PRI, the party putting him forward; this fact constitutes evident recognition of the discredit typifying the government of Peña-Nieto. Finally, Ricardo Anaya, the candidate of the so-called Frente or Front (which groups together PAN, PRD and Movimento Ciudadano) got underway with a liberal proposal that has been moving little by little toward a rhetoric not very different from that of AMLO. To these three candidates one may add two or three independent candidates who, although without possibilities of winning, could exert an important effect on subtracting votes from the main presidential aspirants. It is still too early to be able to anticipate the result because, given that there is no run-off election, the weight of the party machines can be determinant and there is as yet no way to gauge the latter five months before voting day.

The tensions and disagreements with respect to whether the Mexican economy should be an open one or one with a tendency toward autarky and, in particular, with regard to the role of the government in the management of public affairs, are outmoded and not very productive, but they lie at the heart of the presidential race. In the eighties, Mexico opted for liberalizing its economy and incorporating itself into the commercial circuits of the world, from which the NAFTA negotiation derived. An offshoot of the PRI party rejected those reforms and continues to do so to date under the Morena party placard, whose owner is AMLO.

All of these stresses and strains have been exacerbated by the threats of Trump to cancel NAFTA, the main engine of the economy and the crucial stability factor in that it represents an exceptional space where the Rule of Law reigns. Within this context, Mexico is transversing a unique moment, one that is so remarkably sensitive that, with or without NAFTA, would obligate it to construct internal sources of certainty, that is, limits on the arbitrary powers of the government, something that one administration after another in the last half century has refused to do. The challenge is enormous particularly because of the excessive powers that tne new administration will have in its hands.

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https://www.larazon.es/damesuplementos/Otros/2018-01-31_DossierGlobal2018/48/

Luis Rubio

In an interview once, Woody Allen said “I am astounded by people who want to ‘know’ the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown”. That’s how many of the changes that the country has experienced in recent times appear to have been.

In the past five decades, the country has undergone a great collapse and two incomplete responses. The political and economic system that was constructed at the end of the revolutionary feat had given its all, even to the point of ending up in collapse. Those who lash out today at the diverse changes faced in these decades assume that the reforms in political as well as in economic matters were voluntary when in reality, they were the product of the lack of an alternative. In the seventies, the country commenced living through the beginning of the end of the old system. On the economic side, the balance of payments braved the havoc that emerged as the consequence of the accelerated diminution of grain exports, the latter key for financing machinery and equipment imports. In the absence of that source of financing, the whole strategy of import substitution stopped being sustainable. On the political side, the 1968 Student Movement heralded the instigation of the vehement tensions that had accrued over time, until the monopoly of the PRI hegemony was extinguished.

In this manner, with greater or lesser clarity of direction and common sense, from 1970 the country began to experiment in both terrains, but it was not until the eighties, after populist crazes whittled away at the government, that a process of reforms was initiated in earnest, first in the economy (with the evident intention of rendering any political reform unnecessary) and later, when that premise resulted unsustainable, in the electoral ambit. In both ambits, but above all in the economic, Mexico was exceptional in taking the bull by the horns, at least in terms of vision.

The two great reform processes embarked upon in the last thirty years speak volumes about our way of being and conducting ourselves: enormous ambition for dreaming, but little disposition for grounding these dreams; grandiose objectives but modest goals; comprehending the urgency for change but without altering the essential; grandiloquent discourse but tolerance for interests closest by; understanding that the status quo is untenable but lack of conviction, or capacity, for actually delivering on the reforms that the country embarked upon.

That is how Mexico has ended up with incomplete reforms, many of these extraordinarily relevant and transcendent, but notwithstanding this left unfinished in the end. The transformative vision, in the 1980s and 1990s as well as in these past three years, culminated in being outrun by the dogged reality. Some reforms became bogged down because they encountered powerful interests that squelched them; others were trounced due to the pettiness and/or errors of the implementers, the conflicts of interest to which they gave rise and, in general, due to the perception of excessive costs impacting the beneficiaries of the status quo, in many cases the selfsame reformers and their allies. Reasons for the reformist stagnation are many, but the consequences are few and specific: the economy does not grow and the costs of the paralysis in the form of poverty, growing informality and unemployment, all this adding to the contempt for the governors and their growing lack of legitimacy.

In the political milieu there never has been a visionary and integral project like that which, from the eighties forward, was present in the economy. In the electoral realm, the process was one of partial negotiations that finally sanctioned a platform of fair and equitable competition from the year 1996. While talk of transition was bandied about, it was never understood that a transition requires a precise and consensual definition of the point of departure and that of arrival. For all practical purposes, no one knows when the Mexican political transition began nor is there agreement on when it will end. The prevailing levels of conflict are not the product of chance.

The heart of the matter is that, whatever the cause, we Mexicans have not been able to carry off “the great leap forward.” This contrasts with the findings of Hillel Soifer in his historical study on State building*. According to Soifer, Mexico excels, together with Chile and in contrast with Colombia and Peru, in having built a strong State, the result of the abilities of their elites for organizing themselves, imposing an order and developing a common ideology that would afford coherence to the nation. Soifer’s study also suggests some of the grounds for which some states or regions of the country (for example the South) never consolidated an effective system of government. But the essence, what is of interest about the book, is that from the end of the XIX century there was a great capacity for State building, which was resumed after the Revolution. The question is why we are paralyzed now.

The decision-making paralysis of the government –some call it ochlocracy- is a frequent theme worldwide. Consolidated democracies have been enduring the phenomenon of the existence of interest groups that, to defend their positions, have paralyzed the taking of decisions. Examples abound not only in Mexico but also in the U.S. and in many European countries. It is within this context that the Pact for Mexico was so highly acclaimed throughout the world because, while not very democratic, it appeared to make possible a breakthrough of the state of paralysis. It is now obvious that, to achieve this, we must acquire the knowledge of something more than navigating through Chinatown. And only the society will be able to do this.

*State Building in Latin America, Cambridge, 2015

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@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

Mexico has been paralyzed ever since the Trump novel (tragedy?) began. During his campaign, the US president used a series of symbols -like the wall and NAFTA- that were easy to visualize by the electorate, and which proved critical in winning his election; many of these were contrary to Mexico’s interests and demeaning to Mexicans. During the electoral stage, there were good reasons for not responding to his accusations and insults, thus avoiding giving more powder to his threats and insults. In fact, there was an analysis by Nate Silver that showed a correlation between the statements made by Vicente Fox and Trump’s performance in the polls: when Fox raised his voice, Trump’s numbers improved, a factor that was further enhanced with the odd invitation by the Mexican government for him to visit during the campaign. The strategy of not responding during the campaign had an impeccable rationale but, once that contest was resolved, it no longer makes sense. Despite that, this conception seems to persist in the way Mexico is conducting the negotiations on NAFTA, which, clearly, is not working.

In the novel To kill a Mockingbird there is a passage in which somebody spits on Atticus Finch’s face (the lawyer), to which he does not respond, in fact, remains undaunted, without any reaction. Later he explains that it is preferable to let himself be spat on that to have his client -the victim of a racist rape- beaten. In contrast to Finch, who understood perfectly the context with which he had to deal, the Mexican government does not seem to understand the powerful symbolism that the wall and the call for cancelling NAFTA represented for Trump and his base. In a word, Trump has to achieve a victory, even if it is symbolic, that allows him to tell his base “I delivered.” The Mexican negotiating team does not seem to recognize this element in its strategy.

The Mexican team (in tandem with the Canadian government) has acted in an absolutely professional, organized and intelligent way along this process. It studied each of the proposals and claims raised by Trump and the US negotiating team with care and depth and has sought solutions within the context of a technical negotiation. In this regard, it has proposed ways to improve trade, eliminate obstacles and improve the numbers related to the trade deficit that lies at the heart of Trump’s obsession with NAFTA and, thus, his characterization of it as a failure. Along the way, it has made intelligent and creative proposals to improve the existing NAFTA and take it to a new stage that will make exchanges more efficient and facilitate trade and investment. That is, it has done an impeccable and absolutely professional job. However, many months into these negotiations, it seems evident that Trump remains dissatisfied, repeatedly threatening with the cancellation of the NAFTA.

Some believe that these threats are nothing more than a negotiation ploy and, undoubtedly, they are right. His book, The Art of the Deal, summarizes a whole way of being and seeing the world: in essence, everything is negotiable and all in life is a permanent negotiation in which some win and others lose, so every interlocutor has to be put against the wall. From this perspective, there is no doubt that much of the theater that surrounds the negotiation rounds entails a continuum of attempts to “soften” the negotiators. But, beyond the specific issues that are on the table, this negotiation does not refer to the acquisition of a property or a hotel; rather, it involves an innumerable set of actors and interests -including many of the states that concentrate Trump’s hard-core base- and before which he needs to save face. That is, even though the negotiation refers to technical issues -trade deficit, dispute resolution, rules of origin, government procurement, intellectual property, online commerce and so on- behind it lies a political commitment that was key to its electoral triumph. Without his rioting about the wall or his promises to end the NAFTA, Trump would never have been president. Consequently, he needs more than technical solutions: he requires symbolic satisfactions that respond to his campaign promises.

It is clear that Mexico is not going to provide funds to build a wall or compromise on the key factors that make trade and investment flow efficiently. However, just as there has been enormous creativity on the technical side of the negotiations (something that has characterized the Mexican negotiating teams ever since the first negotiation began in the early 1990s), it is imperative to find ways to satisfy the symbolic requirements. First of all, Mexico must recognize that these are at least as important to the US government as the rest. Maybe more.

A few months ago, Paco Calderón, my neighbor on this page and a dear friend, proposed that the negotiating team adopt a purple cow -as if it were something sacrosanct- as a means to have a credible asset to give up during the negotiations. It is time to recognize that Trump has very large purple cows in his mind and that Mexico must find a way to let him give them up without, on the way, losing his credibility with the electorate. This is certainly not rocket science.

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@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

The presidential race hasn’t even started and it’s already running at full steam. The candidates do their best to grow their presence, attract new voters and respond to the challenges (and tight spots) in which their contenders put them. Despite the excessive noise produced by the interminable spots in the electronic media that the law mandates and all the fuss, this is part of normality in a democratic process. The candidates do what they have to do to raise their visibility, hoping to get the additional vote that would allow them to win. The question is what are the citizens doing to demand answers from candidates. Noisy campaigns without an active citizenship are nothing more than an invitation to the perpetuation of impunity.

Perhaps the most relevant question is where is Mexico today, because only that clarity would allow us to respond to what’s truly the transcendent: how do we fix it. Each of the candidates goes out of his way to advance his message and attack his contenders, but that does not answer the core issue that interests citizens: how is Mexico going to get out of the hole.

By the sheer nature of things, the candidate that emerged from the party that is in the government today has the difficult situation of having to propose something different without moving away from the administration, but has too many heads, none of which understands the anger of the electorate. For their part, the two contenders have the greatest ease to attack the latter and denounce the outgoing administration, without having to propose anything new. Andrés Manuel López Obrador has distinguished himself over all these years for raising some of the most fundamental dilemmas and problems facing the country; his proposals to solve them are vague, many of them absurd and almost all a-historical, but that does not take away the merit of focusing his batteries on real problems such as poverty, inequality and corruption. Ricardo Anaya brought with him a more modern and innovative discourse, but he has dedicated himself to competing for the anti-systemic vote, losing with it his comparative advantage: the liberal legacy of his party, which is what makes him (it) different from the other two. José Antonio Meade has the experience and the vision that would allow him to break with the wrongs that keep the country bogged down, but he can only get there by breaking away with much of what he’s inheriting from the government that he served. None has it easy.

But that perspective is in the abstract. In the real world, the contest is very different from what the polls suggest at this time. A contest of more than two candidates without a runoff has very specific characteristics that determine much of the evolution of the electoral process. The first effect is that of the fragmentation of the vote; a second implication is that some portion of the population, typically close to 10% in our recent past, abandons its candidate if he or she is in the third or fourth place, to avoid an unacceptable result: that is, a portion of the electorate de facto acts as if there were a second round. The third effect is the most transcendent: with the fragmentation of the vote, the threshold of victory decreases, which gives an enormous weight to the hard core vote; that is to say, the contest becomes one in which the partisan machines become critical.

Although all the political parties have their operators and machinery, none has the organization that the PRI has, which, for obvious reasons of Mexico’s history, has a presence even in states and localities where it has not ruled for decades. This implies that if Meade manages to consolidate the PRI base, his probability of winning far exceeds the appearances that the polls reflect.

Of course, the machinery is not everything, but in a contest in which the hard-core base of the electorate is crucial, the machinery acquires an exceptional importance. AMLO has its hard base (which, according to various surveys, hovers around 25%) in a region historically saturated with political operators, clienteles and organizations: the Federal District, the extended Mexico City (mostly in the state of Mexico), parts of Guerrero, Michoacán, etc. The PRI, with the most oiled and spread out machinery, represents a hard core vote, if all those voters actually go to the polls, of around 18%, while the PAN has around 15%. If the PRI vote is joined by the Green and the PANAL, the PRI candidate practically matches AMLO. With these numbers, the real contest would actually concentrate on the additional 5%-6% that the winner would have to achieve straight from citizenship.

This analysis assumes that Meade manages to add up to 100% of the PRI members, starting with those who do not feel represented by the candidate, who is not a member of the party that nominated him, and that all of the PRI operators would act in a coordinated fashion on election day. Without the hard-core PRI vote, the probability of Meade’s success decreases sharply because the citizen vote would be very much dispersed and almost certainly would not be enough to replace the hard core base.

In this context, the Front (PAN and PRD) is faced with a situation that explains the anti-systemic discourse that emanates from its candidate, Ricardo Anaya, as well as the way the Chihuahua governor is playing with fire on (likely) trump charges. With a smaller machinery and a smaller hard-core vote, the only chance of success of this coalition, as was the case in 2006, is that one of the other two candidates fails, commits a blunder or collapses.

None of this guarantees a specific result -in fact, at this point anything is possible- but it does suggests that this race will be nail biting.

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@lrubiof