Yearly Archives: 2024

Luis Rubio In his novel on Argentina entitled Zama, Antonio Di Benedetto speaks of the “victims of expectation,” which Michael Reid, the Latin-American expert, interprets as the victims of waiting, a metaphor on the permanent expectancy of achieving the progress and prosperity that in Mexico would seem to be an interminable struggle to reach  the […]

   Luis Rubio March 4, 2024  Electoral contests are akin to military campaigns: an objective is contested, weapons and tools of combat are deployed, and the aim is to defeat the enemy — in this case, the contender. In his biography of Napoleon, Andrew Roberts states, “It was a measure of Napoleon’s resilience and ingenuity — and […]

Luis Rubio Electoral contests are a little like military campaigns: an objective is disputed, arms and instruments of combat are deployed, and the defeat of the enemy is sought, in this case the contender. In his biography on Napoleon, Andrew Roberts states that it was “a measure of Napoleon’s resilience and resourcefulness –and of the […]

    Luis Rubio February 27, 2024 It is not difficult to name the problems confronting Mexico; the hard part is to identify suitable solutions and create consensus for their implementation. The problems are in good measure ageless and known to all, but their causes, consequences and potential solutions are always controversial. That’s why the […]

Luis Rubio It is not difficult to elucidate the problems confronting Mexico; the hard part is to identify suitable solutions and to create consensus for their implementation. The problems are in good measure ageless and known to all, but their causes, consequences and potential solutions are always controversial. That’s why the old notion that the […]

 Counterpoint Luis Rubio The great magic of the old political system lay in the expectation that there would always be a new opportunity to reinvent the country with the change of governments. When a government was bad, the saying went that “there is no evil that lasts six years nor a people that can endure […]

Luis Rubio February 13, 2024   Problems pile up when the capacity to respond diminishes. Even more so when those responsible appear utterly unwilling to respond. It comes as no surprise to anyone these days that problems such as insecurity, criminality, corruption, racketeering and electoral conflicts continue to mushroom while candidates for office are assassinated, […]

Luis Rubio Paraphrasing Albert Camus in his speech on receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, “all governments doubtless feel called upon to reform the world.” Few achieve it. As soon as their mandate ends, the reverberations begin: what remained inconclusive, what was not done, what was done wrong. Or worse. In the Mexican post-Revolutionary era, […]

Luis Rubio The problems pile up while the capacity to respond diminishes. If to this one were to add the utter unwillingness of the government to find solutions to the problems that appear (and to those that it unnecessarily generates), the explosive potential, above all in an electoral year, intensifies without limit. It comes as […]

Luis Rubio A “trilemma” occurs when there are three critical objectives but only two are attainable at the same time. From the time that I became acquainted with this formulation it seemed to me that it described well the contradictions that characterize Mexico: the search for political and economic stability above the disorder, the violence […]