Luis Rubio

At the heart of the political dispute that ends today is the great lack that Mexico has suffered for decades: capacity of government or governance. That ability to act and resolve disappeared in the maelstrom that produced a lethal combination of circumstances -financial crises, (near) hyperinflation, globalization, organized crime and blindness of the political class- between the seventies and these years of the millennium. Instead of producing solutions, the paralysis led to the decline in government capacity and this generated an endless nostalgia.

The nostalgia, that longing for a mythical past, is easily explained by the daily deficiencies and complexities that the population suffers: insecurity, poor public services, terrible education, poverty. But nostalgia is a bad counselor and can easily become a propaganda instrument of political control and not good governance.

The government that emerged from the revolutionary era was more authoritarian than institutional, a circumstance that allowed it to deal effectively with crime and to allocate resources discretionally, all of which favored some decades of political stability and economic growth. At the same time, its inherent rigidity prevented it from adapting to changes that occurred both within the country and in the external environment.

And those changes ended up undermining its structures, making the government increasingly ineffective. The first manifestations of this decline were the economic crises of the seventies, the insufficient and sometimes inadequate reforms of the eighties and the security crisis since the nineties. All these factors were the product of changes in the external environment that the Mexican government did not have the capacity -or disposition- to face. In a word, Mexico did not prepare itself for the changes that took place in Colombia and the United States and that had the effect of altering the operating patterns of organized crime. Nor did it create favorable conditions for all Mexicans to insert themselves successfully into the process of globalization. Both phenomena transformed the world, but in Mexico the government did not adapt and thus was unable to avoid the security crisis or to generate a strategy to better distribute the benefits of globalization.

In this context, it is easy to fall into the nostalgia of returning to a world in which things apparently worked, where the economy grew and there was no violence: a moment in history that is unrepeatable. Hand in hand with nostalgia for stability and growth comes the dream of unipersonal command, the control of the population and the subjugation of trade unions and employers. It sounds attractive because it allows the voters to imagine magic solutions for the problems that afflict the country, at no cost. But it is a myth: magical solutions do not exist.

For those who live in that idyllic moment of the past, it is impossible to understand that the world changed not because somebody willed it, but because there were circumstances that ended the livelihoods of that era: technology evolved prodigiously, communications accelerated exchanges and the integration of the productive processes allowed to elevate economies of scale that translated in impressive improvements in the quality of the goods and lower prices. Those who drive a car today cannot conceive that thirty years ago they would have had to take their cars to the workshop every so often because the breakdowns were frequent: life has improved dramatically.

The challenge is to right the wrongs of the present without creating a mega crisis and this requires a clear recognition that there are no more resources. The (alleged) austerity of the governments from the eighties onward was not the result or their wishes but of the lack of alternative. There was not that much austerity and there are no savings.

Mexicans live endless contradictions in their daily activities. Instead of things being organized so that it is easy to prosper, obstacles of all sorts are pervasive: bureaucratic, special interests obstructing new ideas and government officials looking after their personal or political affairs rather than generating conditions for development. All of this speaks for the need of a political reform to make it possible for the economy to prosper.

The existing economic structures have made it possible for vast regions of the country to grow at Asian rates, but ancestral political structures have preserved poverty in the south of the country. This speaks of the absence of a government capable of breaking obstacles, not of an erroneous economic model: our evils stem from the political hindrances that keep states like Oaxaca and Chiapas in poverty. The dilemma is not to reconstruct the past keeping the good of the present, something impossible, but to change the vectors that currently exist to make development possible. Therein the political challenge.

The paradox of this election rests in that the regions that suffer are those in which the economic reforms that have been so criticized have not been implemented. Inequality and poverty are the result of intricate special interests: changing that reality entails a change of regime with two characteristics: a modern and functional and the Rule of Law.

As The Economist recently wrote, “Nostalgia, in any form, is an indulgence. And as any clergyman worth his salt will tell you, indulgences come with a price tag.”

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

“Anyone who thinks that things cannot get worse does not know the history of Argentina,” says the keen observer David Konzevik. In 1913, Argentina occupied the tenth place in the world in product per capita; today it is the 57th. The reason: decades of bad economic policies ostensibly aimed at solving problems of corruption, welfare and poverty. Instead of moving forward, the country has retreated and the Argentines have gone from crisis to crisis for more than a century. When I hear that “things could not be worse,” I remember the history of Argentina: things could get much worse, very fast. Just ask the Venezuelans, the country with the largest oil reserves in the world, today living in misery, despair and the worst social and political crisis in its history.

The contest in which we are immersed has three clearly differentiable dynamics: first, the dispute between the future and the past; second, the evolution of President Peña’s administration and the perception of overwhelming corruption that emanates from it; and, third, the candidates as individuals: their virtues and defects. Each of these elements contributes to the perceptions that the citizenship has of the candidates themselves and of how to vote.

The dispute between the future and the past lies at the heart of this struggle: it is about two projects and perspectives of the country that propose, on the one hand, Anaya and Meade and, on the other, AMLO. The first, each with his skills and characteristics, agree on the need to build the country of the future through its integral transformation. Their vision can be summarized in one line: both want Mexico to be a rich country and fully integrated into the circles of successful and developed countries.

AMLO, on the other hand, proposes a return to the origins: the country worked better before, when modernity was not intended, when the government imposed its vision on society and the president was all-powerful. His approach is based on the principle that things were going well and that the reforms that began in the 1980s put a dent in the development that the country was already achieving. His model is the Mexico of then; the problem is that the sense of certainty that the past gives does not solve the issues of poverty, inequality or lack of growth that he has successfully raised.

Regardless of the feasibility of any of the proposals, explicit or implicit, of the candidates, these are two radically different ways of seeing and understanding the world. Thus, this election is not about concrete policies but about the direction the country should follow in the future: forward or backward.

The administration of President Peña is a central factor in this year’s election, essentially because of its shortcomings, but above all because of its distance from the daily reality of the population. The president’s advertising campaigns -in short, stop complaining- and his visits around the country reveal an absolute inability to understand the anger of the citizenship with corruption, and his disinterest in the daily life of the Mexicans. The result is that a nodal component of this election will be the anger with Peña against the fear of returning to the past that AMLO entails. The anger is real and Meade´s future depends on his being perceived as independent from the president. Anaya’s future depends on his being perceived as “presidential.” Meade and Anaya have tried to differentiate themselves from each other, while they present themselves as leaders of the future. Until today, neither has succeeded in establishing that difference and thus becoming a true option before the electorate.

The nature of the candidates themselves is key in the election. In alphabetical order, Anaya has been a successful legislator and heads a coalition of political forces and parties that in the past would have long been considered inconceivable, but his tenacity and rudeness took him to where he is. López Obrador has spent decades in politics, was a successful head of the DF government and has managed to stay in the political arena because he has shown integrity and honesty as a person, while raising the relevant questions that Mexico has yet to resolve, such as poverty, inequality and economic growth. Meade has been a government official for decades, knows better than anyone the twists and turns of the bureaucracy and has a clear and structured vision of the challenges facing the country.

In the American studies on the presidency, a branch of political science, the key element with which presidents are evaluated is their “character,” a term that is different in Spanish and translates essentially as integrity: what the person is made of. It is character that determines the way a leader would respond and deal with problems that are not foreseeable or predictable, the point at which integrity is the only thing that counts. It is in these conditions that figures like Lincoln emerge and why they become paragons of leadership and integrity.

Mexicans have before us an election that combines radically different visions of the world, personalities with contrasting stories and skills and a fundamental decision to make that will determine the future. Will Mexicans address the country’s problems or will they repeat the history of Argentina?

www.cidac.org

@lrubiof

 Policy Options Politiques

Canada and Mexico have very different political and trading relationships with the United States, but they can still accomplish a lot if they work together.

Luis Rubio
June 19, 2018

Before NAFTA, Canada and Mexico maintained relations that were friendly, albeit of little substance. Mexico’s request to negotiate a free trade agreement along the lines of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement changed all that. Canada wanted to avoid the “hub and spoke” relationship that two bilateral relationships with the US would have produced, and went on to join the negotiations.

The trilateral economic relationship today is significantly bigger, but its true importance is the strategic nature it has acquired. Every cog in the elaborate North American supply chains depend on the other cogs to function smoothly. This has required active governmental participation from the three countries to fix all types of legal and border issues. Meanwhile, Mexico and Canada have developed a close political relationship – albeit one that is not devoid of conflict – largely because of the complex nature of the neighbour both nations share.

Canada and Mexico are very different in almost every regard: culture, history, traditions, society; they share obvious economic and trading interests, but it is the US that has forced the two nations to be actively engaged with one another.

At the G7 leaders’ summit in Charlevoix, Quebec, earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had the misfortune to suffer the slings of President Trump, something Mexicans can easily identify with. Might there be some commonalities in what has unfolded? President Donald Trump’s criteria for evaluating trade pacts hinge on trade deficits and American investment flowing into third countries. Canada, Mexico (and China) thus became prime targets, as they have pursued closer trade and investment ties through free trade.

Mexicans have been at the receiving end Trump’s ire and tactics since the primary season for the presidency began in the US. He has abused them over and over, calling Mexicans “rapists,” as just one example. While the Mexican government held tight in order to not poke the bear, many Mexicans kept on calling for a strong response. During the electoral period, the polls showed that each time a Mexican official of symbolic nature (notably former president Vicente Fox) responded to the insults, Trump’s numbers improved at home.

Then, all of a sudden, President Enrique Peña Nieto changed tactics and invited then-candidate Trump to visit Mexico. The visit was a disaster: Trump was given statesmanlike treatment and, at a press conference, was able to insult his hosts further. Trump had simultaneous translation at his disposal, and Peña Nieto did not, which further undermined the latter’s profile while enhancing Trump’s. Relations suffered and the two leaders have not met since, save for minor encounters at a couple of multilateral fora.

Neither substance nor friendliness have helped Canada and Mexico deal with the Trump administration. The NAFTA negotiations have shown an ever-shifting American counterpart, who often tries to use Mexicans to counter Canadian positions, and vice versa. The fact of the matter is that the Trump administration has a few very clear and deeply held positions on issues of importance to Canada and Mexico, and those positions, regardless of whether they are realistic or truthful, have made it very difficult to advance on substantive matters.

The Canada-US and Mexico-US borders are very different, because of the countries’ different levels of development. The trading disputes of the nations are very different. Canada has had far more than Mexico, many of them decades old. While Mexico has profound security issues that require permanent interaction with the US, Canada has lumber.

Much more significant is why the nations approached the US to pursue free trade in the first place. A few months ago, I was at a panel with Jeff Simpson, and he said that NAFTA for Canada is about trade and investment and absolutely nothing else. Well, for Mexicans, NAFTA is obviously about trade and investment, but it is also about politics. NAFTA helped to create strong institutions inside Mexico, supported by the US government. These institutions conferred certainty to investors that there would not be capricious changes in economic policy or the rules of the game.

Mexicans are facing, once more, the clash of two paradigms: on the one hand, an inward-looking nation that is distant from the world, and particularly from the US, or a reforming nation that accepts the complex nature of today’s world and is willing to tackle its difficulties head on.

For Mexico, losing NAFTA would lead to a dramatic change in its domestic politics in the July 1 presidential election. Without NAFTA, the new regime, likely a leftist Morena party government, would be free to turn Mexico inwards and backwards in its attempt to recreate the 1960s. In other words, Mexicans are facing, once more, the clash of two paradigms: on the one hand, an inward-looking nation that is distant from the world, and particularly from the US, or a reforming nation that accepts the complex nature of today’s world and is willing to tackle its difficulties head on.

Every now and then, these different political contexts between Canada and Mexico have led Ottawa to consider going it alone with the US, only to quickly realize that it is the trilateral nature of NAFTA that gives both Canada and Mexico a true fighting chance. If more evidence of this were required, in a classic divide-and-conquer manoeuvre, Trump recently called for two bilateral trading agreements between the US and Canada and the US and Mexico.

Canada and Mexico might be too weak separately to withstand America when it charges head on. But by virtue of their different situations, the two countries have protected each other’s interests. An extreme action taken against Mexico might be seen as wholly inappropriate when applied in the US-Canada context, and vice-versa. By definition, a trilateral pact evens out and moderates power, while a bilateral trade deal would confer immense powers to the already powerful shared neighbour.

Above all, should NAFTA disappear, the existing integrated supply chains would lose vitality, something that two separate trade agreements would not protect either. Trump’s proposal to have two bilateral deals is largely an act of desperation, precisely to separate its two neighbours and impose itself on each one.

Canadians and Mexicans will have to deal with the Trump administration regardless of their preferences and, to be successful in this quest, they need to recognize that Trump is more the symptom than the cause of the change in Americans’ attitudes toward their neighbours (and, in fact, toward the world). They will need to engage with ordinary Americans to drive home the fact that the three countries have shared interests, and above all to underscore the contribution that Canada and Mexico make to the wellbeing of US citizens.

Although the issues that concern Americans about Canada are different from those about Mexico, a common strategy would not only strengthen both Canada’s and Mexico’s interests, but it would also be more compelling to Americans. All three countries would be much better off if they relearned how to work together.

 http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/june-2018/together-works-better-canada-mexico/

Luis Rubio

 Mexico is a walking contradiction. Ambitious reforms have been implemented and, nevertheless, the results, at least on average, are not praiseworthy. The problem is the average: the country is experiencing extreme contrasts between a poor south that barely stays alive and a north that grows at almost Asian rates. There are entire regions that have been transformed, there is a hyper modern industry that competes with the best in the world, there are examples of virtue in the performance of the functions of local governments and, of course, Mexican companies that are successful inside and outside the country. How is it possible that these extremes coexist?

There are parts of the country that function as in the first world and there are forces -traditions, interests and powerful groups, whether economic, political or union related- that have managed to halt changes and reforms to preserve the status quo. In practice, this implies that, while one part of the population – and the country in general – prospers, there is another that experiences a continuous deterioration in living standards. In other words, they are two indisputable truths and contrasting realities with which Mexicans coexist every day.

If one observes the growth of GDP per capita, exports, formal employment or access to the Internet, to cite obvious indicators, the country has certainly progressed. On the other hand, the lags are equally evident, as can be seen in the contrasting growth rates between Oaxaca and Aguascalientes, the two most extreme cases. The disparities in the Mexican economy are staggering both in terms of performance and attitude, the two a product of a reality that is neither coherent nor consistent.

Both political dysfunctionality and economic transformation are real; in fact they are two sides of the same coin: the combination of over concentration of power with dysfunctional government (where the former explains the latter) leads to paralysis because it prevents the institutionalization of power. The laws and rules of the game change according to the preferences of those who are in government, which becomes the source of dysfunctionality and causes the absence of institutions capable of exercising autonomous and counterbalancing functions. These phenomena are historical and the system emanating from the Revolution sharpened them.

On the other hand, the growth of the country in both economic and demographic terms generated a dislocation of the traditional political system because the old control mechanisms ceased to be functional. The paradox is that the response that successive governments have given to the loss of capacity to govern and the consequent disappearance of the legitimacy of the State has not consisted in the reinforcement or reconstruction of the capacities of the government itself or, even, the redefinition of its functions, but in the adoption of patches, compromises and temporary solutions.

The point of all this is that the problem of the country is not economic but political. If one sees the aggregate growth figures, the economy has experienced a pathetic performance (of 2% annual on average); however, if one sees these region by region, there are parts of the country that undergo an inconceivable transformation. The relevant question is: why doesn’t the south of the country grow at the same speed as the north? The reality is that the reforms undertaken since the eighties to the present have been transformative where there has been leadership (political or business); On the other hand, growth has been very low or nonexistent where political-social structures have entrenched themselves and privilege groups such as unions, bureaucrats and traditional entrepreneurs.

The issue ends up being political, not economic. The country’s economy is doing well and it could be much better if deep political reforms were carried out. In this sense, AMLO’s proposal to do away with the economic reforms would only impoverish the country. If what he wants is to resolve the wrongs that characterize the country, he should be proposing an advanced political reform that would lead to the institutionalization of power, the construction of checks and balances and the liberalization of the political system to foster an active participation of the citizenship. He does not do this because his vision is that of concentrating power. That is, he does not recognize that the country has advanced economically and that its problem is precisely paralysis and political dysfunctionality.

Mexico has been a peculiar case of partial and incomplete transformation. Many nations have sought reforms, but few have been as partial in their reform process as Mexico has been. Chile, Spain, Korea and other paradigmatic nations assumed modernization as an integral process; Although they have evidently encountered problems and crises along the way, their instinct has been to reform more in order to move forward. In Mexico, economic reforms were undertaken in order not to reform the structure of power and that is the problem that lies at the heart of the country’s so-called “social bad mood.” Canceling the reforms would destroy what does work.

The solution is there: in a comprehensive reform, not in the recreation of the program of “stabilizing development” that failed fifty years ago.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

The symptoms -and paradoxes- are evident everywhere. No one can avoid seeing them, whatever their circumstance, party persuasion, or activity. The country is springing leaks all over and, at the same time, it possesses impacting strengths that are not wholly exploited because something limits them, stands in their way. Mexico has made enormous advances in numberless areas and, nonetheless, there is something that does not jell: the change materializes but is not consolidated and the population does not perceive the benefit. The daily political disputes, which naturally are magnified during electoral periods, have their raison d’être because they reflect a national sense.

Whoever takes in the general panorama cannot help observing the contrasts that characterize us because they reveal our way of being, but also the self-imposed limitations to development. Here is a small sample, clearly not an exhaustive one, from our day-to-day life:

• We have a thriving export economy, but we do not build the infrastructure necessary -including security- for this to multiply.
• There is not a sole domestic economy, but at least three, with dramatically differentiated growth rates (that of the state of Aguascalientes seems to be an Asian enclave when compared with that of the state of Guerrero, which barely remains afloat), but the political discourse concentrates on how to protect the South instead of what would be needed to be done there to imitate the North.
• The governors do not do their job: rather than govern –which would imply constructing efficient security systems with competent infrastructure for attracting investment and jobs and to improve the life of their populations-, they devote themselves to frivolousness and to fabricating their next political opportunities or to financing those of their cronies. Some become involved in political skirmishes at the national level as a mission, forsaking their reason for being. Is that what they get paid for?
• We have edified a costly and not very representative legislative branch that, nonetheless, is not accountable to the citizenry, but to the particular interests of the legislators themselves and their political bosses. Decisions are not made after relevant debates, interparty negotiations or individual conviction, but instead in the aftermath of not always sacrosanct “exchanges”. The private offices of some legislators are irrefutable proof of the criteria that enliven their decisions and actions.
• Companies raise their productivity prodigiously, but their clients find themselves harassed by extortionists who demand protection money.
• The federal government sets the control of the public finances to right, but everyone demands more expenditures.
• The legislators approve electoral laws and those concerning matters of corruption, but along the way they create mechanisms for violating these very laws, as illustrated, particularly, in the financing of political campaigns.
• Ambitious reforms are promoted, but afterward the monies necessary for implementing them are not forthcoming.
• Mediocre infrastructure is frequently constructed that is usually insufficient from the day it is inaugurated. Worse, it is not maintained or monitored: anyone who has driven along the “circuito mexiquense,” a beltway through the State of Mexico around Mexico City, will be able to observe the presence of gasoline thieves (huachicoleros) and highway assailants, but not that of a police officer to take care of those traveling through the area.

There are thousands of examples and everybody knows these and many other manifestations of what the country is:  the extraordinary steps forward and the immense waste. Projects with vast reach and worth –the same in matters of structural reforms as well as in infrastructure, the building of institutions (such as the Supreme Court) and the freeing-up of markets- but later these are limited due to the absurdities of the political system and, very especially, because of the indisposition of the old political system to open up and to part with its privileges.

As in the gothic novella entitled The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, about a same person with two faces, one good and one perverse, the Mexican Government, –in reality, the political system, in that it includes all who participate therein- is two things at once: a progressive entity and a promoter of change and development and, on the other hand, a ruthless organism that abuses the population, preys off it and pretends that no one notices. Of course, it is impossible to catch sight of each of the abominations that take place in all ambits of the public sector, at all levels of government, from the most modest municipality to the Presidency itself, but what is indubitable is the general effect: things are not concluded because that would imply affecting some beneficiary of the system. And in these, all political parties are exactly the same.

In this way, the incredulousness of the ordinary citizen is perfectly explicable when the functionary affirms that the public works being carried out are going to transform their municipality or when a Secretary eulogizes a determined reform. Difficult to believe because benefits take time, but also because on many occasions they are not what had been said they would be at the beginning: Mexico City’s second-storey loop solved traffic from one extreme of the city to the other, but the exits were not thoroughly thought through; hence, the interminable bottlenecks just shifted place.

The country is going to change, and it will no longer be so at odds with itself, when there are no longer a Jeckyll and a Hyde, when the government is reengineered so as to be able to dedicate itself to solving problems and governing for all, not only for itself.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

 Luis Rubio

The contrast between the economic reforms of the last decades and those of an electoral-political nature is striking. The first have followed an impeccable logic and are characterized by their clarity of purpose. The second ones have all been reactive, tiny and of changing compass. One can agree or disagree with one or the other, but it is indisputable that they are two different “animals.”

The need to reform arises when the status quo is insufficient to meet the needs of the population. In this sense, the notion of reforming implies a change in the surrounding reality and, therefore, the affectation of interests that benefit from the state of affairs.

In Mexico, the reforms began to be discussed in the sixties because the factors that had sustained the political-economic order began to erode. Until then, the economy operated within the context of import substitution, which required the importation of various inputs for it to function. Since the country’s exports included virtually not0hing in industrial matters, the decline in grain exports from the 1960s raised a signal of alarm. The same was true of the 1968 student movement for the political system. What had worked for several decades was no longer sustainable.

Mexico required reforms to deal with those two fledgling crises, but what actually 0happened was the beginning of a dispute over the future that was resolved, at first, in favor of a growth in public spending and inflation (1970-1982) as a means to try to satisfy the entire population. The idea was that higher spending would translate into higher growth and lower political tensions. The result was twenty years of economic crisis and an explosive political polarization.

After the 1982 debacle (an external debt crisis that took two decades to resolve), the economic reforms began, at first with timidity, then with greater speed, but always with a clear sense of direction as well as a great limitation: They liberalized imports, opened the investment regime and privatized companies that in virtually no country in the world are owned by the government. The great limitation was also obvious: although the objective was consistent (generating high rates of economic growth), nothing would be done to alter the monopoly of power, which, in practice, protected various groups, activities and sectors for the sake of maintaining political peace and the privileges that accompany it. That is to say, although consistent, economic reforms were always confined -and, therefore, impeded from wholly achieving their purpose- for political reasons.

The political reforms were another song: the monopoly of power was untouchable and was modified only to avoid crises (usually when these were about to explode). While some of these reforms were intelligent and proactive (such as the one of 1977 that sought to incorporate the left in the space of full political legitimacy- or the one in 1996, which created an independent electoral authority), the common denominator was that these were always reactive to the problem of the moment instead of attempting to develop, as had been the case in the economy, a new political order. The reason is simple: as Fidel Velázquez, the long -lasting union leader, said for many years, “by arms we arrived and only by arms will they take us away.”

The contrast between the two processes explains our current circumstance. In the first place, the dispute over the future persists and this has gained enormous importance in the current presidential race; Secondly, as was illustrated by the enormous difficulty faced by independent candidates to achieve their registration, the political system was not liberalized but, rather, the old system was expanded to include two new parties (the PAN and the PRD); finally, in third place, even though the population today votes and its votes are counted (something not minor in Mexico’s history), the population’s capacity to influence the decisions that affect them is almost non-existent because the political system is absolutely refractory to the citizenship.

What Mexico requires is a new political regime. Whoever wins in this electoral season, the citizen will continue to be the loser: although candidates promise to solve this or that, our nodal problem is that we continue to expect a person to solve problems that require the participation of the entire population. The whole direction of the economy and of society is at play in this election, something that should never be possible in a serious country; nobody should have that much power to make such transcendent decisions without proper counterweights.

To prevent this from happening again in the future, Mexico needs a new political system that contains effective checks and balances, eliminates the arbitrary faculties which, de facto, characterize the country’s politicians and bureaucrats, and makes possible a functional and professional government, all within an environment of true accountability.

Will it be too much to ask? Without a doubt, but without that, it’s not even possible to go out dancing in Chalma, as the saying goes. The question is who contributes better to this possibility.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

Nostalgia is pernicious as a guide for action for government, but that does not seem to dissuade many. The notion that a past can be recreated that, in retrospect, seems idyllic, has such an obvious appeal, that invites prospective rulers to create mental utopias and proposals that capture emotions, which does not make them any less deceptive. In this, the electoral protagonist in the current electoral cycle is not very different from those of other latitudes (Trump, Brexit, etc.). By its nature, political discourse always seeks to appeal to emotions, because what is sought is to captivate the voter without having to explain anything other than: the “I am” the solution. It is not necessary to say how or why.

The proposal is simple but powerful: the country worked better when the federal government centralized and controlled everything, but now, due to the reforms of the last decades, corruption was generated an this explains all deviations. No matter the issue (criminality, economic growth, poverty or relations with the United States), the solution is to end corruption through the election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose person is imposing and, therefore, liable to end corruption merely by his election. All the rest is commentary.

The approach is emotional: it seeks to attract those who have not joined, or have not been able to incorporate, to the digital economy, the victims of crime and the old corporate sectors, to make possible the recreation of a nostalgic past, despite the obvious: the past is not repeatable.

About twenty years ago I had the opportunity to talk with Mr. Antonio Ortiz Mena, secretary of finance in one of the most stable and fastest growing economic eras of Mexico (1958-1970). The talk revolved around his strategy as the author of the “Mexican miracle.” His explanation continues to resonate in my head until today: in essence, he told me that there was no possible similarity with the time when he had been responsible for the country’s finances, because before, things were comparatively very easy: the government was almighty, exchange rates were fixed, the economy was closed, control over unions, businesses and the press enormous and, in short, that the key to his success in those years had been the willingness of the government to control itself. In other words, a world absolutely contrasting with the current one, in every sense. I was impressed by his humility and his mental clarity, which led him to visualize the current world as radically different from the one he had led.

The government of President Peña arrived determined to recreate the past but never could achieve it and it is there where it got stuck. López Obrador is convinced that it is not only possible but necessary to go back and, therefore, his proposals are all retrospective and nostalgic. Unless he is willing to destroy everything that exists, there is no reason to think that he will do any better.

The current electoral times compel the voters to elucidate between the options, those that seek to resolve the wrongs that remain or accept the nostalgic solution, each one with its consequences.

I wonder if it would be possible to deal with emotions and, at the same time, advance the development of the country. Part of the reason why nostalgia is so attractive is the fact that, despite having advanced on some fronts, the population feels harassed and paralyzed. Faced with criminality and the apparent absence of options, nostalgia becomes extraordinarily seductive.

The only way to break the vicious circle is to get out of there: to confront nostalgia with a different project that, building on what exists, proposes solutions rather than a return to what stopped working, opportunities instead of utopias. This may involve a new political arrangement, social reforms of various kinds or political and economic initiatives that make it possible to launch a new era of high-quality educational, infrastructure and health paradigms. Above all, a new vision.

Until now, for several decades, the entire government strategy, regardless of person or party, has focused on marginally improving what exists, but always without breaking the political status quo. Maybe it’s time to rethink the political arrangement, because that’s where everything has got stuck. A new political regime does not imply the destruction of the what exists, but it does involve fundamental changes: first and foremost, modifying the purpose of the government and, therefore, its priorities.

If the priority is no longer the preservation of the status quo at any cost, the opportunities become endless and the promises, which appeal to the emotions, become credible. Everyone knows what’s essential: physical and patrimonial security, legal certainty, elimination of the causes of corruption, high quality education and infrastructure (in the broadest sense) for a great future. Everybody knows it but one government after another has shirked that responsibility. The key lies in breaking with the vicious circles in which Mexico has been plunged for decades and that, despite real advances, many enormous ones, keep the country paralyzed and demoralized. This is no rocket science, but its implications almost are.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

From its Independence, Mexico lived disputing its form of government. Edmundo O’Gorman describes with great vehemence the debates, disputes and disagreements that took place as to whether the country should be republican or monarchical, centralist or federalist, conservative or liberal. In more recent years the discussion has been about whether the political system should be presidential or parliamentary and that discussion has been framed in terms of “regime change.” In reality, the way in which a government is organized does not constitute the essence of a regime; rather, the latter is a representation of the regime in daily political life. From this perspective, the relevant discussion should not focus on the form of government but on its essence.

The current regime operates through a formal structure of three separate branches inspired by the American system and, in its origin, from the conception of Montesquieu. However, its essence refers to the regime that emerged from the Mexican Revolution and whose nodal characteristic lies in the unipersonal power represented by the president. For several decades throughout the twentieth century, the revolutionary regime worked according to its design, guaranteeing political stability and creating conditions for the growth of the economy. The centralization of power allowed resolving conflicts and, in the absence of other effective means of settling disputes, contributed to the country’s development.

When the economic and political premises began to fail, especially between 1965 and 1968, the system began its decline, which has not ended. The governments that emerged from that era -from Echeverría to Peña- faced challenges stemming from the increasing diversity of society, the emergence of organized crime and the extraordinary complexity of the economic world in the era of globalization, for which the stagnant political system was not prepared, nor did it have the means or the flexibility to adapt. The old regime, structured almost one hundred years ago, was conceived to face the chaos that the end of the revolution had left and responded to the time and circumstances in which it was organized. Its validity and viability was extraordinary, but for a limited period.

For several decades, the regime allowed to achieve economic growth rates close to 7% per year on average, with inflation hovering around 2%. It was an exceptional time in which the combination of authoritarian political control with an equilibrium in the balance of payments achieved exceptional and sustained prosperity between the forties and the sixties. The political system that existed favored such achievements but, by not adapting to the changing times, ended up being dysfunctional. However, the fact that it is dysfunctional, is characterized by enormous deficiencies and has no capacity to deal with daily and structural challenges -from insecurity to waste in the government accounts- has not prevented it from securing its permanence in the face of all odds, including the 2000 political transition to two governments of another party. The political system -the revolutionary regime- has remained unperturbed.

The difference between the successful years of the old regime and the current moment lies in the legitimacy of the system. What was once a hegemonic regime that enjoyed not only broad support but even great prestige, became a discredited and illegitimate system. Legitimacy was lost because the system ceased to be functional: despite the improved economy, it created vast social differences and has been unable to deal the wave of violence and insecurity.

The circumstances of the 21st century are radically different from those that gave rise to the movement led by Plutarco Elías Calles in 1929. Today the tessitura has been stated sharply: either Mexico returns fully to the old system as proposed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador or it builds a new political regime, breaking, once and for all, with the old order.

The old regime is based on meta-constitutional powers for the presidency, an system of endless crossed loyalties, full discretion in the exercise of governmental affairs, arbitrariness in decision-making and corruption as a means of appeasing the clienteles that comprise it, all wrapped up in a world of impunity. That is, a system that confers absolute faculties on the president and that, although distorted over time, allows decisions all ley decisions by one person with no checks. That is the regime that Morena’s candidate promises to return to.

What Mexico needs is a new regime based on effective checks and balances, duly ingrained constitutional balances, transparency, and broad rights and protections for the citizenry, all wrapped up in a regime based in the Rule of Law. That is, a radically different regime that starts from the principle that the government is to serve the citizen and generate conditions for the development of the country.

Two contrasting projects that must be clearly assumed by the candidates, defining their position fully: for or against the citizenry, without considerations or exceptions.

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Luis Rubio

“The next five years will be key in the decisions we make to move Mexico towards a knowledge economy,” say José Antonio Fernández and Salvador Alva in their recent book A Feasible Mexico (Un México Posible). The statement would seem like a truism, but it collides with the prevailing environment: some welcome the reforms and advances that have been made, while others criticize the undesired (or undesirable) effects of the changes that have been promoted, including those that are a result of the technological change, which is altering established patters the world over. So much focused on the past, few notice the challenges facing the country and its implications, some of them ominous.

The central argument of the book is that, in order to be successful, the country has to transform its educational system in order to fully incorporate itself into the knowledge economy, which is where, more and more, the creation of value is concentrated and, thus, of wealth and jobs. Without that focus, the country will be trapped in the past and in poverty. That is why, the authors say, it is absurd to boast about the reforms that have been carried out, out of context: Mexico may have carried out many reforms, including some transcendental ones, but to the extent that other nations have gone further and faster, instead of moving forward, we have remained behind.

The world changes, and it does so in an accelerated way, and Mexicans continue to debate whether the very modest educational reform of the outgoing president ought to be advanced or dismantled. Many nations, especially developed ones, are becoming paralyzed, oriented by the rear-view mirror, but the nations that really should matter to us -such as Southeast Asia, India and China- are running to try to occupy the spaces left by rich countries.

In Korea and Thailand, the educational debate is about how to go faster than their competitors in the race to add more value, not, as in Mexico, about how to protect the status quo. The children of fifty years ago competed for jobs and opportunities with their school peers; Today, a child who attends primary school will compete with graduates of schools in Mumbai, Lagos or Helsinki. The space of competition is the world and the key is the consumer, not the producer, which shows the absurdity -and a-historical nature- of the notion of returning to a seemingly past of certainty.

Beyond the person who wins the elections, the challenges facing the country will not go away; a president may wish the country to accommodate to his narrow vision, but that does not change the reality. Therefore, in this era, there are no single solutions or permanent guarantees.

The electoral debate has emphasized the obvious fact that the benefits of the reforms of the last decades – carried out late in almost all cases- have not been distributed in an equitable manner. The big question is what to do about it. One possibility, the one promoted by AMLO, would be to take refuge in an uncertain and idyllic past (which, by the way, disappeared because it ceased to work). If AMLO succeeds, who would win out, the radicals represented by Taibo or the pragmatism that AMLO showed as mayor of Mexico City? In any case, both perspectives are inadequate and insufficient for the current challenge.

When technology changes at the speed of light and the population is as informed as the most consolidated of government officials, the solutions have to be decentralized, that is, they must confer the greatest weight of decisions to citizens fully trained with the necessary skills to adapt constantly and systematically. The bet must be for an educational system radically different from the existing one, together with an open political system because no ruler, nor the wisest and consummate president, has the ability, or the possibility, to understand that enormous and changing complexity. Instead of centralizing, it is imperative to bet on skills for a changing world where the only constant is the intense and growing competition. The pretense of taking refuge in the past is pathetic.

A Feasible Mexico offers an infinitely more rational and effective outlet: only decentralization of decisions, but a real one, could change the direction of the country and this implies, in practice, “empowering” the population with the necessary capacities to be able to compete in the world of the 21st century. That is, there’s a need to recognize that there is no magic wand that allows facing the problems of inequality and poverty, which are real and painful; rather, the emphasis must be placed on a human capital strategy that gives individuals the ability to decide on their own future.

Centralizing power and control sounds attractive, but only if this were Moscow in 1923. The reality of today, which no one can avoid however much they want, is that only individuals can face their problems. Obviously, the government must create conditions for that to happen. Mexico has clearly failed to provide every citizen with the opportunity to be successful. Centralizing control only postpones the solution and, in fact, makes it even more difficult. The exit, like it or not, is an education of the first world that confers, to each citizen, effective capacities to solve their own problems.

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 Luis Rubio

The world changes when people accustom themselves to the unacceptable, when they see as natural what is not, such as insecurity. Instead of protesting, exacting and demanding the construction of a security system that attends to the needs and interests of the citizenry, we Mexicans are becoming accustomed to living under the yoke of organized crime in its diverse variants. The government, in fact, the various governments of recent decades, have been incapable of providing a solution and have ended up as defeated and accommodating as everyone else. Instead of effective leadership, Mexicans have had Defeatists-in-Chief. The promise to negotiate with narcos and grant amnesty to criminals is another facet of the same thing: more of the same, or worse.

People adjust and adapt to the environment, a characteristic inherent to the human race. In terms of security, that feature constitutes an enormous danger because it implies that the outcry for a regime of security that satisfies the population and makes possible an integral transformation is in danger of disappearing.

The phenomenon is ubiquitous. The informal economy exemplifies the price of our becoming accustomed to what should not be: rather than progressing and prospering, those existing in the informal sector wind up entrapped within it and, although they can generate an income, they constitute clienteles that comprise an incentive for politicians to preserve an order (i.e., disorder) from which there is no way out. The same is true of corruption, which can appease an immediate need (such as complying with a paperwork requirement), but it is accompanied by the consequence that those processes are never eliminated or streamlined. Private police, increasingly higher walls and barbed wires are nothing other than subterfuges that take the pressure off of those who should solve the problem and promote a peaceful coexistence.

To the extent that the citizenry distances itself from the world of rules and, in general, from the law, governmental institutions stop being relevant, intensifying the crisis of confidence and credibility that stalks Mexicans. The attractiveness that AMLO represents for many prospective voters does not lie in original and positive ideas that, incidentally, the candidate does not possess, but precisely in the contrary: since none of that works, let us better be embedded in the “traditional practices” (usos y costumbres) that hamper the resolution of the real problems. When one crosses that threshold, it dilutes the viability of the construction of a democratic system of checks and balances, political systems are discredited and, as Max Weber would say, the criminal element is in the last analysis the State because it is the one that flaunts the monopoly on force. Phenomena such as those of strange party alliances, party switchers without principles and trust based on beliefs rather than on institutions are obvious manifestations of the deterioration that Mexicans have experienced.

The proposals of recent candidates and governors remit to existing laws and regulations (one favorite is the Single Command) as well as institutions, as portrayed by the judicial and police reform. All of these are legitimate endeavors but, as depicted by Colombia, perhaps the most successful example of transformation in this matter, none of that alters the reality until the government assumes its role as guarantor of citizen security and is willing to transform the institutional reality that lies, at the end of the day, behind the chaos of illegality and the reigning insecurity. In Colombia, a series of successive governments transformed the country because they recognized that the problem were not the criminals but the lack of State, therefore the only way of going forward consisted of constructing, in point of fact, a new State, with all that that implies*.

Merely reforming existing institutions in a general ambience of illegality, informality, impunity and corruption accomplishes no more than hampering true, long lasting solutions. A transcending reform –that of the police, the judiciary, etc.- will only be successful to the degree that it is inscribed within a context of a general transformation of the political regime. In contrast with extreme proposals –granting amnesty to all or ruling with an iron fist- Colombia showed that there are no intermediate pathways: the government must transform itself in its entirety or all of the efforts made will return to the same place. The avatars of the federal police during these years illustrate this phenomenon in neat fashion.

Mexico is living through critical and transcendental times. Insecurity grows and feeds off governmental inaction and the absence of policies leading to resolve it. It pretends to preserve what works –as illustrated by the epic negotiation of NAFTA- but does not propose an integral solution to the problem of insecurity that, inexorably, reduces the potential of investment in the country, while it does not address the effect on the citizenry. The risk of ending up in a “new normality” of permanent insecurity is not small and, judging by the proposals concerning amnesty, ending up a Narco State is immense.

In speaking of native cleverness, Jorge Luis Borges criticized that spirit of flouted legality or accommodated illegality that characterizes our culture. Being smart-witted, said the Argentinian writer, does not imply ceasing to be ignorant. Circumventing real and urgent solutions is.

*See: A security strategy to protect the citizenship in Comexi.org

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