Luis Rubio
The electoral victory last June has emboldened not only the President, but also his successor, now President-elect, and the entire Morena contingent. The happiness of having triumphed, fully justified despite the irregularities committed by the President, is leading to a cascade of actions and decisions that could well end up undermining, if not destroying, the enormous capital that Dr. Sheinbaum has at this moment.
The warnings come from all sides and there is no need to repeat them: banks, ambassadors, presidents, politicians, judges, businessmen, observers and commentators, from different nationalities and political positions, all agree on the risks involved in the changes proposed by the constitutional amendments that are about to be approved. Breaking with all protocol and tradition, but above all the decency and deference that a duly certified President-elect deserves, AMLO acts as if his six-year term were about to begin. The problem for Dr. Sheinbaum is that she will be the one who will have to pay the price.
Despite the resounding victory, Mexico is not in the best moment of its history. To confuse the popular fervor expressed at the polls with the objective circumstances facing the Mexican economy and politics is to lose sight of what constitutes a sustainable platform for governance and development.
“Confidence arrives on foot, but it leaves on horseback” snapped the leader of the euro group to the finance minister of Greece when that nation experienced a major fiscal crisis. The electorate’s embrace is fundamental, but it requires maintenance and the cash transfers, which proved to be so important in the recent election, are only sustainable to the extent that the country preserves its stability and the economy begins to grow at rates significantly higher than those of recent decades outside the exceptional regional development poles. It is worth remembering, and even more so for a leftist government, that more than past votes are required to be able to move forward. Edgar Snow asked Mao what was needed to govern, to which Mao replied: “A people’s army, sufficient food, and the people’s trust in their rulers.” “If I only had one of the three things, which would you prefer?” Snow replied. “I can do without the army. People can tighten their belts for a while. But without their trust, it is not possible to govern.”
That interview took place in 1931, almost a hundred years ago, in a different political, geopolitical, and economic context. Mao did not have to worry about investors or relations with other nations, only about internal stability. Today the situation is radically different. In a hyper-connected, digitalized world, based on extraordinarily complex and sophisticated technologies, starting with semiconductors, on which Mexico’s economic viability depends, governments cannot deviate from the fundamentals, which consist of understanding and establishing, as well as maintaining, the trust of both the population and businessmen and investors, because that is the most important competitive advantage that a nation has today. Losing sight of what is essential -and being willing to risk it to satisfy the vanity of a predecessor who is already on his way out- is playing with fire and putting her own government at enormous risk.
A common mistake that politicians make -examples of which there are countless in the President’s morning press conferences, especially those after the election- is to believe that the world is static, and that the future depends on the will of the ruler. Just by wanting it, the wish is fulfilled. Perhaps that is why the leader of Morena stated, with similar arrogance, that a “great gift” had to be given to the president in the form of the judicial reform. Easy gifts (and with Morena’s legislators that’s all that’s needed) end up being expensive, especially for those who will have to pay for them.
Mexico faces a structural political crisis because it lacks institutions to give it a sense of direction, discipline and political and economic continuity. At some point in its history, the PRI fulfilled that function and, in the most recent decades, the USMCA has been the vehicle that, at least in the economic sphere, has given the country viability. Morena does not have the characteristics or the mechanisms to recreate the function of the PRI and the President-elect does not have the Weberian trait of charismatic authority that characterizes AMLO. Her personality and history require an institutional construction, what Weber called rational legal authority, to be able to govern. The bills that are in the making would destroy that possibility before her administration even begins.
The Spanish politician Borja Semper says it clearly: “We are experiencing the first great hangover from the new world order that has emerged from globalization, a world that is not static and is characterized by constant change… Globalization is a reality full of opportunities and challenges, a creator of wealth, but it still has the Achilles heel of the absence of governance that would allow us to know and correct its excesses. The crisis is one of trust, and trust is one of the fundamental pillars of democracy.”
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