Luis Rubio
During her campaign, today’s President-Elect repeatedly stated that two contrasting models of the country and the government were at stake in the election. In effect: democracy and tyranny are two models in counterpoint that entail fundamental consequences for the citizenry and for the country’s future. Whatever way each citizen voted in past election, the question today is in which direction is the country headed.
At the heart of this question reside two central queries: First, should a government do whatever seems better to the president due to the mere fact of their being president and without any limitation? And second, does a majority vote imply absolute power for effecting a change of any sort that the governor determines?
If the answer to these questions is in the affirmative, then one is inexorably speaking of a dictatorship because there is no other way to define a government that wields all the power and that can do what it considers desirable or necessary with no limit whatsoever. That was how the outgoing government conducted itself in everything it was able: attacking the judiciary, undermining the autonomous organisms, disqualifying criticism, all signs of a tyrannical government.
If the response is negative, then Mexicans are addressing the possibility of a democracy in which winners as well as losers are considered legitimate citizens before the government, society and the political process. Mexican democracy is clearly imperfect and, in fact, highly primitive and deficient, but its essence comprises the coexistence of persons, groups and interests that think differently and that do not cease to be, and deserve being, respected and respectable because of that.
The point of this contrast is not theoretical but instead absolutely practical: no election can, in itself, define the destiny of a nation, whether or not a majority of the electorate has voted for the governor or even when the governor enjoys wide-reaching popularity. The whole point of civilization is that no one -winner or loser- wins or loses everything because there is always a tomorrow and the cards can invert themselves, with whoever won today ending up on the other side of the table.
Of course, the government’s agenda, the victor’s mandate as it is called in some nations, is the product of an election in which the content of that agenda was widely debated and that, on winning, constitutes a program of government. Despite the latter, in a democratic nation it is always indispensable to channel that agenda through the legislature so that that other branch of government representing the electorate as a whole openly and publicly process the resources necessary for the accomplishment of the governmental objectives.
Unless the next president has as her aim the total dismantling of the current structure of checks and balances (that does not for its being weak stop being crucial), that is, unless she is decided on constituting a dictatorship, the only way that the country could advance and prosper is to fortify and, in many senses create or recreate, institutions susceptible to functioning as a counterweight before the presidency. This would imply accepting, once again, that the formal and de facto objective of the government is to advance toward (or consolidate) free and duly administrated and processed elections; a consolidated Rule of Law (including an autonomous Supreme Court); full freedom of expression and association; and protection of the civil and human rights of the entire citizenry. In other words, a majority system of government limited by institutional counterweights, beginning with the constitution and respect for minorities. In this manner, the opposite of what Mexicans underwent during the outgoing presidency dedicated to institutional destruction.
Amid the climate of polarization promoted by the departing president, the very notion of the presidency entertaining institutional limits was considered an outrage. In serious countries and in those with consolidated democracies, there is a frequent replacement of governments guided by contrasting objectives and philosophies, but, whether they like it or not, they accept the fact that there are limits to their potential excesses. Of course, in all democracies governments seek ways to advance their agendas, looking for any and every recourse, such as decrees, anti-constitutional laws and other mechanisms, but, at the end of the day, they accept the verdict of the courts and autonomous regulatory entities. The latter is what is crucial: no government is headed by The Sisters of Charity, but in all civilized nations there is a limit to what the government can do to affect citizens who have the same rights, whether they voted for the government or not.
This last point is the essence of the matter that the next president must endeavor to elucidate: Is she going to attempt to strengthen the Mexican democracy or to accelerate the pace toward tyranny. That is, in a nutshell, the choice is clear. The “popular sovereignty” must subject itself to the same rules and limitations as the rest of the electorate, because the true tessitura lies between democracy of and for all or the dictatorship of the majority.
Paul Johnson, the famed historian, defines this with great clarity: “democracies work best when the remit of politicians is reined in.”
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