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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