Luis Rubio
It never was going to be easy for President López Obrador. His rhetoric, obsessions and resentments entailed a permanent source of conflict, thus of polarization and feuding. Winning an election in those terms implied always rowing against the current. How, under those circumstances, could he undertake his yearned-for transformation?
The advantage with which he initiated his term was that he did not come from the traditional political groups or political parties. His disadvantage was that his sworn enemies were indispensable for achieving his objectives. Sizeable political activism and much negotiation and conviction perhaps -only perhaps- might have permitted his creating the transformative platform that the country would require. The task would consist of what successful politicians do: pressure some, convince others, contain the rest. Mexico urgently needed (needs) a politician like that because no statesman is born a winner that is to the liking of all their co-citizens; rather, these statesmen are forged in the exercise of a leadership that unites, convinces and achieves.
The President opted to circumvent these subtleties in order to concentrate on power: Veni; vidi; vici, in the phrase attributed to Julius Caesar: I came; I saw; I conquered. Despite its name, the project of the so-called Fourth Transformation (4T) never was about transformation, but instead all about power and popularity. What the President wanted, at least from his failed election of 2006 on, was for his triumph to be respected; there was nothing else behind that. That is why his morning press conferences are so transcendental: that is what the President understands governing to be, an extreme version of the old notion that governing is communicating.
The President communicates, gives direction and predicates each morning and with that satisfies and complies with his purpose. Trivialities such as the economy, employment and security are lesser matters not meriting more than rhetoric. To avoid having to deal with nitpicking unions or exacting entrepreneurs he has the Army: the military does not protest, but simply stands at attention and gets it done. Extending his mandate attains then an impeccable logic: it permits rendering continuity to his project without getting his hands dirty or having to convince those with other points of view or contrasting interests, i.e., normal and natural circumstances in any society.
All this evidently generates conflict, but for that he resorts to permanently disqualifying anything or anyone that thinks or acts differently. No one can alter the power project, even as evidence of corruption and incompetence accumulates. Or, as the old, so-very-Mexican saying goes, here nothing happens, until it happens. And that is the problem: reality always exacts accountability. This may not come about in the form of hearings before Congress, investigations or effective counterweights as in consolidated democracies, but it always comes, usually in inauspicious fashion, above all for outgoing administrations: devaluations, crises, loss of prestige. Not always in unison: one of the three is more than enough, as so many of Mexico’s ex-presidents illustrate.
And with that de facto surrender comes the next stage: reinventing the wheel. Because once credibility and trust are shattered, the path turns muddy. In a divided and polarized society, the crises become points of convergence because everyone ends up losing: some disillusioned and feeling betrayed by the one who supposedly represented and protected them, the others because their experience -and the uncertainty- makes them reluctant to believe, participate, save and invest. The political world is polarized, but one must keep sight of that, however much polarization there is, a broad flank of independents persists who change their electoral leanings in seconds. In that respect, everyone ends up a loser, a context that, paradoxically, also constitutes an opportunity to join in and start again. The opportunity of potential statesmen.
Nikita Krushchev once said, “Politicians are the same all over: they promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.” After a six-year term replete with lethargy, destruction and the concentration of power, the country is going to find itself face to face with the imperious need to regain its way, not the previous way, but instead one of concord and reconciliation, ushering in an integral and equitable development. The question will of necessity be similar, but not identical, to that which today’s president should have confronted: How, within the current critical context, to build a project of development to which the entire population can join in?
Beyond the philias and phobias regarding the President and his 4T, no one can ignore some indisputable facts: first, this presidential term of office has been saturated with actions and decisions that have affected the population, investors and key governance factors that involve consequences; second, there is an enormous part of the population that receives cash transfers in the President’s name, as if were his money, this raising big question marks for the future; third, the Army is implicated in an interminable number of activities that are not natural nor appropriate in an open and democratic society; and fourth, the manner of conducting politics of the government, now in its waning phase, has sown hatred in all quarters. The big question is how to start over, because that is what will be needed, one more time.
@lrubiof