Luis Rubio
As the saying goes, after an intemperate night before comes the morning after. A less amiable way to observe the current government is to recall Louis XV when he stated that “Après moi le déluge.” In effect, soon will conclude the most destructive Mexican government of the last century leaving more than deficits in its wake. The most powerful and electorally legitimate president since vote counting began in earnest did nothing but polarize the population, confront the political parties and threaten those who dissented with him, all while enjoying the reforms that his predecessors put into practice in response to the predicaments exhibited by the economy. These are two sides of the same coin: the politics of permanent battle, and the gradual maturation of the economy. The question is whether the next president will view this legacy as an opportunity or as a curse.
The manner in which the outgoing president conducts himself reminds me of Gonzalo N. Santos, that eminent Mexican political linguist, when he explained how he proceeded with one of his enemies: “in agreement with a group of card sharks… I sent Carrillo to them to get him drunk, all of these individuals masquerading as his party acolytes… when he was completely inebriated, I arrived with a photographer, commanded Carrillo to remove his clothing, and they photographed him in all forms and positions imaginable. Therein died Carrillo’s candidacy because I menaced him with exposing the candidate in the nude in the Electoral College.” An important part of the citizenry was virtually intoxicated during these past few years, the so-called “hard vote,” enticing them into believing that nirvana was just around the corner. In contrast with Santos, AMLO was not as blunt in his ways: instead of getting his adherents drunk, he dedicated himself to procuring their electoral choice with public funds, but the result is the same, except that he left the country mortgaged to the hilt. Now comes the hangover.
This government will come to an end and the undertow from it will ensue, as always happens. What the president manipulates every day in his morning press conferences and discards and rules out as irrelevant will materialize on the horizon as immanent reality, demanding specific responses instead of irresponsible evasions. Today’s chaos -stubborn chaos that has positioned the citizenry to hope for something better- will turn into uncontainable demands. The pressures, passions and resentments that are self-contained at present will acquire such a volume that the new government will be obliged to respond decisively, beginning with the language and the appearances.
It seems clear that the new government will take shape from a dominant party and from a new president with enormous opportunities, but with the sword of Damocles at the ready due to the reforms that, evidently conceived without considering the consequences, the Morena party is disposed to approve without further ado. This month of September will be crucial because it will determine whether such an extraordinary result will evolve into an opportunity or into the beginning of an accelerated decomposition.
Conceptually, the incoming president has three options: persevere in the objectives, strategies and tactics of the departing government; develop her own program, distinct from the existing one, but one earmarked for a radical turn; or procure a broad and inclusive call for change that truly transforms the country or that, at least, sets the bases for a complete transformation.
While practically no government assumes office without much fanfare announcing great projects, the outgoing government will have bequeathed a panorama in economic (above all fiscal) as well as politically, one that is scarcely promising. Of course, the election embodied a devastating result for the opposition, but the future depends on the active participation of the whole of society, something that the government soon to take its leave achieved, perhaps due more to inertia than to a successful convocation of the people, but in good measure to the existence of the free trade arrangement of North America, constituting as it does the main source of economic growth at present.
Independently of the rhetoric, from the panorama left by the AMLO administration more of the same is conceivably possible, but not with good potential. Additionally, the differences in personality between the incoming and the outgoing presidents augur poor viability for blind continuity, even if well informed. A radical turn, for which many leaderships of the Morena constellation advocate, would imply an economically suicidal strategy because, although popular at the outset, it would have the effect of annulling the foundations of the successful component of the economy. It would be much more intelligent to put together a great national agreement that calls for balanced economic growth in social as well as regional terms, sustained on the principal growth engine of the economy (exports) and on nearshoring.
The neuralgic point is that there is, as some dream of, nowhere to return to, but it also not possible to persevere in a model of government dedicated to the citizenry not progressing; that kills and extorts millions of persons; and one that pretends that the country can be successful with only cash transfers.
Six years of negligibly productive polarization, leaving huge costs and damages in its wake that little by little will rise to the surface. It’s time to come together to build, the opportunity that the entire citizenry is surely waiting for, independently of how it has voted. It would be criminal to let the opportunity go by.
@lrubiof