Luis Rubio

In his Political Testament (1640), Cardinal Richelieu sustains that the problems of the State are of two classes: easy and insoluble. The easy ones are those that were foreseen. When they blow up in your face, they are already insoluble. That is the history of security in Mexico.  The security system that existed between the forties and the seventies of the past century worked because it responded to the peculiar circumstances of that era and it was never brought up to date, or transformed, to respond to what came later: the problems exploded in the government’s face and it has yet to react.

“The past, says the British author Leslie Poles Hartley, is another country. There they do things differently there”. In effect, even the most unexceptional Mexican town in the fifties had three well-established institutions: the Church, the IMSS (the Social Security system of hospitals and clinics), and the PRI. Although the Constitution stated that Mexico was a federal country, those institutions were witness to the absolute centralization of the system of government; from the PRI–Presidency couple to the most unpretentious local representation, the tentacles of the system embraced and covered the country’s entire population, to the most remote hamlet. Information flowed in both directions and the rules were clear: no one doubted who was in command.

Of course there was a certain degree of local autonomy (it was not, after all, a Soviet system), but the forms and centralization were reproduced at all levels, allowing for effective control of the territory.  The advantage of the system was evident and was observed in the peace that reigned in the majority of the territory: when a problem came up, the system responded with efficacy, with thorough unity that only vertical authority provides. Authoritarian systems are governed with few institutions and scarce rules: it was sufficient for the will of the government to impose itself, arbitrarily or not, on the rest.

It worked while it worked. The system was effective but was never flexible and its capacity of adaptation was practically a null. The great virtue of that system is that it created conditions for economic prosperity; but that prosperity changed Mexican society and exacted the adoption of a dynamic framework that would respond to a world that did not stop transforming itself. Thus, the society of the seventies began to demand social and political satisfiers that the old system was incapable of providing, and the economic crises pressured for liberalization, which virtually eliminated the capacity of vertical control that had functioned in former decades.  That is, the success of the old system ended up undermining its own viability, in every realm.

Security was exercised vertically and was implemented through local actors, to the degree that the government itself administered criminals. It was a primitive system designed for a small country, relatively sparsely populated without significant contact with the rest of the world. Those circumstances changed: the population nearly quadrupled (25 million in 1950 vs. 119 in 2015), educative levels rose, and with that the demand for satisfiers was qualitatively altered. All this came to erode the functionality and efficacy of the security system until it collapsed.

In the nineties Mexicans started to observe a dramatic growth of crime and abductions. Later came the lethal combination of a structural political change (the “divorce” of the PRI and the Presidency with the defeat of the PRI in 2000), Fox’s aloofness and incomprehension of the change his victory had unleashed, and the burgeoning of organized crime, to a great extent due to the success of the Americans on closing drug entry via the Caribbean and the control achieved by the Colombian government of its narco mafias, whose beneficiaries were, in turn, the Mexicans who had worked for them and ended up appropriating the business.

All of this occurred precisely when the old security system broke down and the governors wrested the checkbook from Hacienda and, instead of constructing a modern security system at the local level, they misspent or outright stole these monies. That is, what no longer worked well practically disappeared and nothing was constructed in its place.

It has been sixteen years since this new era began and there is no recognition yet of two elemental things: first, that the objective of the security system should be that of protecting the population.  As basic as that. And, second, that the federal forces can serve to allay the problem, but that only the development of local capacity (bottom up) can solve the security problem in the long run. Proposed solutions like a single (or shared) security command will only work to the extent that conceived as a temporary means (even if it takes years) to stabilize the local situation to help develop local-level capacity. Security is either bottom up or it does not exist.

These principles are the same as those for states with relatively minor problems such as Querétaro as for those immersed in the world of criminality like Guerrero or Tamaulipas. The specific changes, but the generic remains the same: Mexico’s problem is that of the absence of government, of capacity of government, in the entire national terrain. Each case requires particular attention, but what is relevant for the whole country is obvious: structural reforms are necessary, but without security, the dividends that they promise will never materialize.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

I have always been intrigued by the contrasts in Mexico’s political evolution with respect to the South American nations. Although there are in truth some parallels, the reality is that Mexico’s history through the XX century is not at all like those of the Southern countries. In analytical terms, without resorting to adjectives, today’s Mexico is encumbered by a more totalitarian than an authoritarian heritage: the nature of the PRI is not similar to that of the military dictatorships of the South and the difference explains, at least to some degree, those contrasts. But time and generational differences begin to erode the differences, yielding important lessons.

Guillermo O’Donnell* coined the phrase “delegative democracy” to clarify the distortions that southern dictatorships generate. Ironically, many of the signs observed at present in Mexico are not so distinct. For O’Donnell, delegative democracies “yet they are not—and do not seem to be on the oath toward being—representative democracies”. According to the author, the key lies in that “The installation of a democratically elected government [should open] the way for a ‘second transition’, often longer and more complex than the initial transition from authoritarian rule… [but] nothing guarantees that this second transition will occur. New democracies may regress to authoritarian rule, or they may stall in a feeble, uncertain situation.” Doesn’t this sound like Fox?

“The crucial element determining the success of the second transition is the building of a set of institutions that become the decisional points in the flow of political power… The successful cases have featured a decisive coalition of broadly supported political leaders who take great care in creating and strengthening democratic institutions.”

“A noninstitutionalized democracy is characterized by the restricted scope, weakness and the low density of whatever political institutions exist. The place of well-functioning institutions is taken by other non-formalized but strongly operative practices—clientelism, patrimonialism, and corruption.” Any doubt about how President Peña’s reforms were approved? Is it not possible to see within this logic the mobilizations of the CNTE, the paybacks (“moches”) of the PAN, the votes of the PRI in Congress, and the unusual growth of the public expenditure of late, thus the debt?

“Delegative democracies rest on the premise that whoever wins election to the presidency is thereby entitled to govern as he or she sees fit, constricted only by the hard facts of existing power relations and by a constitutionally limited term of office… [In this view] other institutions—courts and legislatures, for instance—are nuisances that come attached to the domestic and international advantages of being a democratically elected president. Accountability to such institutions appears as a mere impediment to the authority that the president has been delegated to exercise.” Doesn’t this sound like the appointment of a close associate of the president to oversee governmental corruption? or the disdain of judiciary? the died-in-the-wool corruption of the legislative power? and the amazing mismanagement of cases like those of  Ayotzinapa and Nochixtlán?

“What matters is not only the values and beliefs of officials (whether elected or not) but also that they are embedded in a network of institutionalized power relations. Since those relations can be mobilized to impose punishment, rational actors will calculate the likely costs when they consider undertaking improper behavior.”

“Delegative Democracy gives the president the apparent advantage of having practically no horizontal accountability. Delegative Democracy has the additional apparent advantage of allowing swift policy making, but at the expense of a higher likelihood of gross mistakes, of hazardous implementation, and of concentrating responsibility for outcomes on the president. Not surprisingly, presidents in Delegative Democracies tend to suffer wide swings in popularity: one day they are acclaimed as providential saviors, and the next they are cursed as only fallen gods can be.“ The Trump affair? The fast train to Querétaro?

The history of reforms in innumerable countries worldwide -extensively studied- demonstrates that the errors -and opposition to them- build in direct relation to the concentration of power among the decision makers acting without counterweights. This seems like a textbook on the happenstances of the present-day government. The question is what the consequences will be.

“Once the initial hopes are dashed… cynicism about politics, politicians, and the government becomes the pervading mood… Power was delegated to the president, and he did what he deemed best. As failures accumulate, the country finds itself stuck with a widely reviled president whose goal is to just hang on until the end of his term.” Mexico is not the first country to suffer from so called “social ill-humor.”

The risk for Mexico is not what is done but rather what is not done up to the end of the presidential term. A country without effective counterweights to the presidency such as Mexico and with a government that is asleep and festering within, all but guarantees the electoral result that all Mexicans, and the President himself, find repugnant. The president’s term-of-office does not end until November 30, 2018: from here on in it is imperative to make the reforms effective for the country to land on its feet.

*Delegative Democracy, Journal of Democracy Vol 5, No 1, January 1994

www.cidac.org

@lrubiof

 Luis Rubio

The Government Palace is burning. It is ablaze in a state famous for being civilized and even developed. This is not Oaxaca or Guerrero but Chihuahua. The responsibility, says César Duarte, the outgoing state governor, corresponds to the winner of the elections to succeed him. That is, the one currently in governmental office is not responsible, the responsible one is he who is about to take office. With this Duarte constitutes the most patent example of the evasion of responsibility that has characterized our system of government since 1968.

Violence has nearly disappeared from public discussion not because it has diminished but because it has become an everyday issue: it no longer involves the surprise element. Governors, and many media outlets, leap in alarm in the face of any incidence of violence but never repair to the causes of the phenomenon nor do they ever assume any responsibility. The government and its retinue of personages are not there to solve security problems, create conditions for the growth of the economy or supply services. Its sole function is to keep the representatives of the system, of any party, in power.

Another governor, the Duarte of Veracruz state, even allows himself the luxury to change laws after his defeat, supposedly to deprive his successor of the pleasure of initiating judicial processes against him. Cynicism is so great that whoever changes the law does not imagine that his successor could do something exactly the same but in the opposite direction. In the last analysis, the law is a pliant tool in the hands of incumbents and not a rule of behavior with punitive instruments against those in non-compliance.

Today, finally, we have a governor who clarifies for us the reason for his not impeding the burning of the government palace. According to César Duarte in a radio program, “Lest they say that I’m a repressor, I let them burn the palace.” So, the government does not exist to maintain the peace, security and stability, but rather to evade responsibility. The phenomenon is played out in all latitudes and corners of the country.

Noam Chomsky described a similar circumstance in the Nixon era: “Even the most cynical can hardly be surprised by the antics of Nixon and his accomplices as they are gradually revealed. It matters little, at this point, where the exact truth lies as the maze of perjury, evasion and contempt for the normal –hardly inspiring- standards of political conduct.”

The end of the Nixon era and the Watergate scandals forced American politicians to adopt a legal framework for making the new ethical standards be enforced and to combat corruption; of course that did not destroy all the vermin swarming around the systems of government throughout the world, but it did evidence a clear break with the permissive world in matters of ethics and past corruption.

In Mexico, those who pretend to govern Mexico have wasted one opportunity after another to take the bull by the horns. The boorish manner in which the senators attempted to scoff at and take revenge on society by approving the anti-corruption law is revealing in itself. Instead of taking advantage of the adversity, the government has persisted in opening new fronts, day in and day out. Cases of corruption in recent years constituted an outstanding opportunity for the government to assume a leadership role that would not only change the country in terms of looking toward the future, but that also would convert the current government itself into a transformative factor.

Passivity and lack of vision won out. Now fronts accumulate and there is no response whatsoever. Is this trending pattern sustainable? If one glances back at the past, as one would assume the president has done, the probability of winding up poorly is high, but it might still be possible to avert a catastrophic end. However, the risks are amassing now that there are teachers and doctors in the streets, protests from entrepreneurs, the firing of volleys from all types of organizations from the civil-society, guerilla outbreaks and brutal events that can no longer be hided or ignored. From Ayotzinapa we went on to Oaxaca and, in between, a mass of cases keeps piling up that activists would like to take to the International Criminal Court which, although legally unviable, helps further deepen the discredit of both the Mexican government and the Mexican Army.

The main problem characterizing the country lies in the absence of government: since 1968, one government after another –federal as well as state and municipal- essentially abdicated their responsibility to safeguard the peace and, in a word, to govern. Faced with the risk of accusations of being repressors, they preferred the epithet of incompetent and corrupt. Today their only competency is for corruption.

There are two years left for the next presidential transition. This period could be one of political stabilization to avert a catastrophic transition and to lay the foundations of trust for economic renewal; it could also be a period of paralysis, totally devoid of a new vision. The president has been attempting a new discourse, aiming at convincing the people of what was sought in the past four years, without realizing that what’s required is something new, quite different. The problem is not (only) one of narrative but of perspective: it is still time to work on the arrangements and agreements for a smooth transition. What’s not obvious is that there’s the capacity or the will to attempt it.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

Could it be that we find ourselves witnessing one of those seismic moments of radical change one reads about in history books but that only occur in real life exceptionally? The world constructed after the end of the Second World War seems to be crumpling one bit at a time. The manifestations and symptoms are ubiquitous, but the big question is whether this is about a moment of catharsis that questions the status quo, only to later return to normality or whether, in reality, we are beginning to see the end of an entire era.

The signs are everywhere: voters in France, the U.S., Spain and Mexico reveal themselves in unusual and atypical forms, but all in the same direction: contempt for and rejection of what exists. Thus we can explain phenomena such as that of Marine Le Pen in France, Sanders and Trump in the U.S., El Bronco in the Mexican state of Nuevo León and the Podemos party in Spain. People are angry and display this through their vote.

On its part, the world economy no longer responds to the strategies that, for decades, achieved radical transformations, and for the better, around the world. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the orb’s central banks strive to solve the crisis of the last years but appear incapable of dealing with the depth of the convulsion that exploded in 2008. Some of these institutions champion orthodox solutions, others have become paragons of heterodoxy, but the growth rate of the world economy continues to be pathetic.

The claim of stagnation in incomes is universal; the advance of technology, above all robotics, displaces jobs that formerly seemed permanent and immovable. People in the South migrate to the North seeking better possibilities, in some cases due to the total absence of an alternative (as occurs in Sudan and Syria), or others simply in pursuit of better opportunities. Regardless, this massive movement of people has consequences, as Brexit exemplifies.

During the last decade we have witnessed the disintegration of authoritarian regimes and the collapse of dysfunctional political systems. The so-called Arab Spring came and went, leaving instability and violence in its wake. Yemen’s government collapsed while others attempted to regenerate themselves. In Guatemala the government failed and the Brazilian president is being impeached; it will probably not be long before something similar happens in Venezuela. The planet is experiencing spasms anywhere and everywhere.

The imbalance that the world is undergoing is omnipresent and all-inclusive. Some countries have governments in form that respond, or endeavor to respond, to the challenge of growth and stability; others simply retire into their shell, trusting that divine providence will rescue them. China is striving to undertake the most complex transition that any nation has ever attempted: that of going from a manufacturing-for-export platform to one based on consumption, in a few years. Singapore is the sole country that, with unique clarity of course, has accomplished a similar transformation, but this is a city-state, highly homogeneous and with a small and extremely well-educated population. China is a nation of monumental dimensions of hundreds of millions of poor and alienated peasants who have not been integrated into modern life.

Brazil is living through a strange combination of strong institutions on the judicial side, with weak checks and balances between the executive and the legislature. Some decades ago a president was removed there and the nation now finds itself in a similar tessitura. If the present crisis is resolved well and an effective system is erected against corruption and impunity, Brazil will emerge strengthened and more democratic; if, contrariwise, it turns out that this was more a dispute among counterpoised interests than a true attempt at nation building, an extraordinary opportunity will have been allowed to get away.

The opportunity of the Mexican government in matters of corruption is not a lesser one: instead of diluting the existing proposal, it would be better to take the bull by the horns and launch a true transformative system that severs itself from the past, even if that implies the exoneration of any past corruption. A new paradigm is clearly called for and moments of crisis are unique for implementing one.

The crisis of the postwar-era institutions can likewise conclude in a radical redefinition as well as in minor adjustments. Something of which I have no doubt is that those with a better capacity of adaptation, as well as flexible institutional structures, will come out better. Germany surely will emerge better than Greece and Tunisia better than Libya. The question-at-hand is how Mexico will end up.

The materialization of numerous candidates in each party -many not traditional and some independent- suggests that the existing structures lack the capacity for response, but also, simultaneously, that players are adapting, identifying ways of getting ahead. The reverse side of each problem always encompasses an opportunity.

Shortly before he died, Steve Jobs said something that is absolutely applicable to the current moment: “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it”.

Paradigms and problems change, but the only thing that matters is the clarity of the moment, the capacity to construct and respond, as well as the flexibility to do it in opportune fashion. Where do you think Mexico stands before these conundrums?

www.cidac.org

@lrubiof

 Luis Rubio

 Presidential candidacies grow and proliferate at the speed of sound. In that universe there are men and women, some young some older, experienced individuals and neophytes. If one were to assess Mexican politics by the number, diversity and intensity of presidential aspirants, one would fast conclude that our democracy is robust. What’s peculiar of the race that is beginning to catch steam is the fact that none of what the potential contenders argue over has much to do with the world we are living in today. It is that world, however, that will determine both the opportunities, as well as the risks that the country will face once the election is over.

The national as well as the international environment has tended to deteriorate in recent months, planting seeds of doubt with regard to political as well as economic stability. Gone is the nearly immovable certainty that produced the power equilibrium among the Cold War powers and the solidity of the multilateral institutions of that era, the mid-XX Century. That framework of certainty favored internal economic growth and social peace. However, from the seventies on, things changed in the world and within the country, undermining sources of confidence and threatening stability. These circumstances have characterized the ambit in which we have lived for several decades now, but the problematic has accelerated in recent times, creating a sea of doubts about the future.

In terms of the international milieu, we live in an era of convulsions. The Cold War ended, engendering a sensation of hope and opportunity. Twenty five years later, it seems clear that the opportunity was wasted and that the idyllic expectations of the nineties led to a world of terrorism, disequilibrium and renewed conflict. The U.S., the Cold War’s triumphant “hyperpower” nation, was unable to maintain its leadership and, after two costly wars in the Middle East followed by seven years of retreat, lost its capacity as international peacekeeper. The world began to look like the second half of the XIX Century, a time when the arrangement of power balance charted by Metternich in 1815 was exhausted, giving way to renewed rivalry among the powers, new sources of international conflict and, above all, a novel, acute absence of leadership. Unless these circumstances change with the U.S. presidential turnover in January 2017, the upcoming years can be nothing other than times of growing conflict and uncertainty. This is a scenario that no living Mexican has known.

With regard to the economy, there is little about which we Mexicans can be proud. The present government returned to the era of fiscal deficit financed by more taxes and debt, which did not avoid the economy’s continuing to show a pathetic growth rate. In addition, the measures adopted had the effect of generating growing uncertainty and a climate of absolute mistrust. Instead of producing conditions under which the economy could prosper to the extent that the circumstances would allow, the government clung to schemas that had for some time evidenced their obsolescence.

A similar sequence of events characterizes the political world and that of security. Rather than building new institutions, above all in matters of criminality, in Michoacán the federal government settled on the old formula of co-opting the opposition, without understanding that organized crime does not comprise a source of political opposition but instead one of corrosion that threatens everything. This six-year presidential term is entering into its second and last phase, not only without having solved the security problem, but also without even demonstrating that it is clear about the nature of the problem.

All of this has given rise to a climate of incredulity, mistrust and heightened uncertainty. The absence of governmental response has increased its discredit, affecting even more so credibility relative to the reforms driven by the administration itself. Social rancor is burgeoning and the ambiance of confrontation, doubtlessly nurtured by electoral interests, flourishes without surcease. Perhaps there is no better way to typify the present moment than to affirm that this is about conditions that no government would wish to experience precisely prior to the initiation of the battle for succession.

We find ourselves before an unprecedented scenario, one lacking the type of leadership, domestic or international, that would be necessary to lay a foundation of certitude. Much worse yet, without a recognition that confidence and trust are critical for development, particularly regarding a society that feels endangered, some by issues of physical safety, others by patrimonial security and still others by the growing concentration of power, persistence of cases of corruption and spaces of patronage as well as diminution of political, economic and personal freedoms.

Feasibly the greatest of the errors that have been prototypical of several recent governments (in Mexico and in the world) lies in a faulty reading from the outset. In Mexico and in numerous nations, voters have cast their ballots less in favor of someone than against someone else; this in no way alters the result, but does entail a radically distinct reality from what a new government presupposes and that demands great dexterity in terms of focusing its energies. To govern, the least that an incoming administration requires is to comprehend the circumstances. In the light of the changing, uncertain and precarious world we live in, the next government had better understand that it must resolve basic problems before imposing a dogmatic vision and one remote from the reality.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

One week that brought President Peña’s original vision to ruin and extinguished his personal style of leading the government. What was not achieved by the houses provided by a government contractor or Ayotzinapa was accomplished by Trump or, more to the point, by the series of ill-advised decisions and mishaps that led to the imprudent invitation for him to visit Mexico. What remains is to observe whether this is the beginning of a political realignment in favor of making the country more consolidated in anticipation of the 2018 elections, or whether it is a mere attention-distracting ploy in order to leap over the immediate hurdle.

In a country inclined to conspiratorial interpretations, what had not changed was clear: for some this was a case of the secretary having resigned, for others he was fired. Without factual information, the conspiracy theoriescarry the day. What there is no doubt about is that the pressure rose in proportion to the absurdity of the explanations proffered on what had been sought with the famous visit. Whoever imagined that it was possible to neutralize or commit Trump does not understand him, and whoever believed that U.S. politics can be meddled with in such a skewed and heavy handed way without paying a huge price does not understand the U.S.

A cartoon by Brozo in which he photographed Andrés Manuel López Obrador visiting Obama conveys everything that the government did not understand: it is one thing to inform, establish ties and communicate with the candidates of another nation and its government, and it is another, very distinct, to interfere in its political life. No Mexican would have thanked the U.S. President had he invited only one of the candidates up for election in Mexico. As obvious as that.

However, beyond the individuals, there are four lessons that this week has furnished: in first place, the Peña administration began with absolute control of its personnel, processes and discipline. Much of what was attempted was anachronistic (to recreate the world of the old PRIist system), but its functioning was impeccable, at least in what was observable from the outside.  That discipline started to erode when the president’s“white house” was exposed and disintegrated with the exit of Aurelio Nuño, President Peña’s Cabinet head; and the phenomenon was exacerbated by the inexistence of control over the feuding at the interior of the Cabinet. It has been two years now since the government forfeited the political initiative and there is nothing to suggest that this will change. Within this context, it is not difficult to imagine that instead of duly analyzed decision-making procedures, happenings dominated the discussion (if there was any at all), leading to the fateful decision.

In second place, this administration has been peculiar in its propensity for generating enemies without building sources of support; disdaining public discussion rather than leading it; eyeing with contempt the legitimate concerns of all Mexicans from all quarters: from PEMEX creditors to censored journalists and including the growing number of citizens disconcerted by the growth of the public debt. In four years a sufficient number of grievances accumulated to last a whole lifetime and all of the aggrieved appeared to have made their triumphant appearance last week. Governing cannot be accomplished without informing the public and credibility –not to say popularity- cannot be earned without at least trying to convince the people of the government’s plans. Accouterments of democracy. Worse, this government ignored the obvious: that the price of the dollar does indeed matter to the electorate and that its depreciation engenders consequences. The signature of this government has been remaining immutable in the face of the wave of doubts, disquiet and criticisms. Hence, it was remarkable that among the instructions that the President gave to his new Minister of Finance were two very prominent ones to which the former Minister had not cared for: to lower the debt and end the deficit.

In third place, the Trump affaire harkened back to the old Mexican nationalism, but with an excessively promising aggregate: the new nationalism is not anti-Yankee. What is surprising about the various responses to the invitation and the visit -and, in fact, to the entire gamma of anti-Mexican broadsiding of this last year- is that the Mexican views the relationship with the U.S. as something normal, positive and necessary. The problem is with the personage, not with the country. Many unsavory aftertastes prevail from the old political system, but this one was indubitably overcome.

Finally, during last week Mexico underwent an authentic popular rebellion. The visit of the U.S. presidential candidate caused generalized disapproval and the President was obliged to back down. The rebellion speaks of a mature society and one that is willing to defend its rights (and its honor), all without violence or excesses, all of which opens great possibilities for the future.

The question is whether this is a redoubt conceived pure and simply to dodge more criticisms, above all in the light of the 2017 budget revision, or whether it at least includes the intention of constructing something more solid that ushers in that mature society and that evades a new hecatomb in the electoral process of 2018 and thereafter. Time will tell.

Edmundo O’Gorman, the great historian of the XIX century, left the president a prescription that is appropriate at the present moment: “Since an awakening is urgent, may it not be when the emulation takes place of Rip van Winkle, waking to a strange and foreign world that was no longer comfortable for him nor one with the feasibility of participating in an adventure of a new life incubated during the absence of his lethargy”. New life or lethargy? There’s, as Shakespeare would say, the rub.

www.cidac.org

@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

A Polish tale tells of a town that built a bridge but did not finish it.  Vehicles used it and, on reaching the end, fell off into the abyss. The town leaders got together to decide what to do and their response was to construct a hospital under the bridge to care for those injured as a result of their fall. Mexico’s government seems to be like that: great initiatives that are not concluded, desperate actions that are not thought through and, later, consequences that are to be dealt with.

The succession of circumstances and actions that led the government to invite Mr. Trump to Mexico is now quite clear. It is also known that the invitation was issued weeks before and at the margin of the professionals responsible for conducting foreign affairs. A candidate was invited and, later, at a quarter to midnight, in the colloquial vernacular, another invitation was sent to the Democratic Party candidate, so as not to incur in a slight. Mr. Trump arrived, was treated as a Head of State, listened to the formal and respectful speech delivered by President Peña and proceeded happily to Arizona to reiterate his rhetoric regarding Mexico and Mexicans.

In addition to the gift of the red-carpet treatment, which was something invaluable for Trump because that is where his opponent has ample experience and world recognition, the Republican candidate made off with what is most valuable to Mexico: the Mexican President was obsequious in offering him the renegotiation of the NAFTA, something no country ever does because that implies, de facto, its annulment, i.e., precisely what Trump has proposed. In just a few hours, the President placed the country and his government in the most vulnerable position that it has been in since the Revolution of 1910.

In an article appropriately entitled “The Unspeakable and the Inexplicable”, the British periodical The Economist states that “Mr. Peña may believe that he took a bold initiative by opening a dialogue with Mr. Trump. His demand for respect is legitimate. But it should be delivered by citizen diplomacy within the United States, and conveyed after the election to the winner. By allowing his visitor to seem presidential, he has helped Mr. Trump perform some rhetorical climbdowns that were electorally inevitable. Even if Mrs. Clinton wins, she will not thank him for that. If he turns out to have contributed to electing Mr. Trump, many Mexicans will never forgive him or his party, and neither will much of the rest of the world.” It is not by chance that other articles ask “What was he thinking?” In a few hours, the government lost its privileged relationship with the Obama administration, exhibited irrational behavior and proved itself to be an untrustworthy actor. Mexico became the laughingstock of the world.

Whatever the logic in concocting the invitation had been, it ignored Trump’s nature, the absolute impossibility of changing his rhetoric (because therein lies the heart of his candidacy) and, above all, the fact that for Mexico everything was a risky downside, while for Trump everything was potential upside. Mexico, the host, bore all the risk, and lost out. The very notion that Trump could be “reasoned with” and convinced to tone down his discourse was ludicrous.

The question is: What’s next?  The approaching months will be without doubt dark days. Many will interpret Trump’s call for renegotiating NAFTA (therefore, presumably, not annulling it) as a sign that Mexico’s vulnerability was drastically reduced. This perhaps will contribute to appease the financial markets, at least in the short term, but will not satisfy the skeptics; we must not forget that the main justification for calling into question Mexican debt’s investment-grade score on the part of Moody’s was not the debt per se but rather the political problems that characterize the country and that are reflected in the manner in which decisions are made and in the absence of the Rule of Law.

In his book on the circumstances that led to the 1994 devaluation, Sidney Weintraub* concludes that it was the absence of accountability that made it possible for the functionaries of the outgoing and incoming administrations to make brutally dangerous wagers, something inconceivable in a representative democracy.  That is what manifested itself in the Trump Affaire: the government undertook a series of actions and decisions without needing to think about the consequences, without measuring the risks, and without consulting with other political forces (let alone the rest of the cabinet) on the alternatives, because that is Mexico’s political reality: the government is not accountable to anyone and its members will not have to bear the costs of their decisions.

There are two planes on which to deal with the consequences. The first is obvious and urgent: rebuild the relationship with the U.S. government and with the Clinton campaign. This will not be easy because the problem is one of trust and, when this has been lost, it is supremely difficult to recover, and worst, in the middle of such an acrimonious campaign. This may only be possible to the extent that the President carries out a radical change in his Cabinet, incorporating individuals who enjoy the absolute respect of the international community in general, and of people in the U.S. in particular, in the political, judicial, financial ambits and that of foreign policy.

The other plane comprises the future. President Peña has wasted every opportunity presented to him:  he could have become the leader of the struggle against corruption (i.e., the Mexican White House) and of the fight against impunity (i.e., Ayotzinapa). Now he has the last opportunity: to begin to forge checks and balances so that  never again can decisions be made that so dramatically jeopardize the viability of the nation.

*Financial Decision Making in Mexico

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

The intention can be praiseworthy but the reality is stubborn and implacable. The objective of the reforms was, in the governmental rhetoric, “to move Mexico.” At least in the case of education the one moved –in fact hoodwinked- has been the government. Contrary to many predictions at the beginning of the 6-year presidential term, the educative reform, doubtlessly the most popular of the reforms, has been, by far, the most conflictive. While the energy reform –the reform against which great opposition was anticipated- advances, the educative one evaporates in mortifying negotiations, mortifying and counterproductive.

Despite that the discourse and discussions regarding the educative reform have been well ordered, there is no consensus on what motivates the CNTE, which would permit solving (in contrast with postponing and prolonging) the conflict and, chiefly, advancing toward the core objective: a first-world education that puts equality of opportunity into effect. The government has see-sawed –from hard handedness to negotiation to capitulation- without having afforded any specimen of understanding the logic and motivation of the CNTE and its contingents.

The reform was conceived for a reality that had nothing to do with the Mexican of today and it has been that very reality that has ended up imposing itself on the governmental capitulation. The government aspires to a change à la italienne: that everything changes so that everything remains the same and that, CNTE dixit, is not going to happen. The educative reform, as with several of the reforms that the country has undergone in the last decades, supposes a paradigmatic change about what the country is, of what is desired to achieve and of what the manner of government action should be. In the absence of that conceptual change, no reform will be successful.

The old political system worked under the premise of a closed economy, a vertically controlled political system and a structure designed to generate benefits for the heirs of the Revolution and their cronies. In that schema, the educative system had two functions: on the one hand, to build and nurture an ideological hegemony that would serve to mollify the population and control it; and, on the other hand, particularly in the countryside, the teaching profession was a form of employment and generation of welfare in impoverished zones.  The quality of the education did not comprise a relevant issue and no one thought of it in those terms: there was an employer and a clientele, an effective mechanism for keeping the peace that favored, and made possible, the depredation, corruption and prosperity of the privileged.

While reforms have been approved in matters of competition, imports, investment and so on, the paradigm of control and privilege has not changed. Politicians behave as if there were no democratic competition among political parties, entrepreneurs exert pressure to eliminate competition, the government does not comprehend that its responsibility is to create conditions for the success of the population, and, in general, they all repudiate the international review mechanisms (as in human rights), which are the daily bread of the XXI century. In a word, everyone clings to a past that, in many respects, no longer exists. And the price of preserving the old privileges mushrooms daily.

Of course there are spaces of competition, first-world companies and niches, such as those engendered by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), that exhibit a singular modernity. But the overwhelming majority of Mexicans and, virtually, the entire political apparatus, live on another planet. Some because that is the way they exploit the system, others because they endure it. My hypothesis is that, as long as the status quo does not change, the educative reform is impossible. And that was as true with the two PAN administrations as with today’s “new” PRIists.

The educative reform attempts against the two pillars of the education system: it undermines hegemony on allowing the competition of ideas and views; and, most of all, threatens the guarantee of an employment system with benefits deriving from the historical marriage between the government and the field of teaching. The politicians want the teachers to accept a change in the rules of the game without the former altering their own behavior. More to the point, the reform takes for granted that teachers will submit to evaluations and other mechanisms of control, itself a new type of control, without offering teachers the possibility, the certainty, of becoming an integral and thriving part of the new system. Under these conditions, it is not difficult to fathom the clash of terminologies, postures and views.

Perhaps even more important, the government pretends to raise the quality of education within the old system, an inextricable contradiction. At least one segment of the government supposed that it could eliminate the patronage system overnight, at no cost and without opposition. What it found was that the governmental rear guard (those who later capitulated, mostly in Gobernacion), as well as the CNTE, continue playing under the old rules that are understood to perfection. Violence winds up as an instrument in the hands of the dissenters, mainly because the government lives in fear due to the memory of 1968 and, more recently, Nochistlán.

The educative reform will work when the Mexican political establishment is willing to enter into the XXI century. Inasmuch as this does not occur, CNTE and the Nochistlanes will be the norm, not the exception.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

Few things distinguish Mexico as crisply as a nation as the total absence of strategic vision: the nation lives day to day. Matters are not resolved, they are simply postponed; the problems are not seen to, they are bought; the challenges are not recognized as such, they are ignored. In one of the most descriptive anecdotes of the old political system, it was said that President Adolfo Ruíz-Cortines (1952-1958) had two trays on his desk: one said “problems that solve themselves” and the other, “problems that time takes care of”.

That way of governing (or pretending to) had viability in an era during which the government enjoyed full control. The PRIist system was a hegemonic mechanism of control which had tentacles throughout the country, even the most modest hamlet; its operators had a presence in the greater part of the national territory and served not only as a means for obtaining information on local affairs and potential risks or threats to the system, but also to dissuade potential troublemakers or, were the situation to require it, appease any dissidence. The problems were many, but the system possessed mechanisms to deal with them and, in a world without the ubiquity of information and telephones with cameras of today, no one found out how these were actually dealt with: what counted was not the care with which government operatives or forces acted, but rather the efficacy of their actions. Stability was all that mattered and the system of that era provided it generously. It was a simple world when compared with the complexity of the current one.

The presidents of recent decades surely dreamed of a world without the press, with citizens without options or information and with the capacity of making the powers of any governor not submitting to the central power disappear. But that was then: today we live in mounting chaos because the façade sought, today’s pretense, is that nothing has changed.

To function in these times, in addition to developing itself, a country needs to pave the way on multiple fronts and that implies a strategic vision. Its absence at present –and in our history – is astounding and even suicidal. The problems are not solved but instead, in the vernacular, “the can is kicked”. Recently, some members of the Cabinet sacrificed others in order to eliminate a contender from the presidential race without the consequences mattering, even for the government itself, not to speak of country; the case of the recent state elections is revealing: some influential Presidential Cabinet members preferred to lose some governorships in the interest of excluding a potential rival in the form of the president of the PRI. The only thing that matters is today, the here and now and me, myself and I. With this rationality, the problems do not vanish, they are only prolonged, postponed and magnified. The case of the CNTE (the National Confederation of Education Workers) is paradigmatic.

Were the problem about the playing of parlor games in a glass house, the issue would be irrelevant. But these are merely anecdotal examples. Mexico is facing basic decisions in countless areas for which we have not prepared and for which we have not exhibited a disposition to advance.

Here is an illustrative series of obstacles that Mexico is up against and that, without strategic vision, will be incapable of confronting:

• To consolidate democracy: currently we have a dysfunctional system of government in which it is not known where the executive powers end and the legislative ones begin. There are no checks and balances, no clear rules. Everything constitutes an incentive to conflict, rather than to effective government. How to construct a model of government? Who heads up the effort? How to convince the distinct political forces? How to build a future?
• The Police: in 1968 a mistaken lesson was learned (police = repression) and that has impeded the development of a modern police corps, respectful of the citizens’ rights and respected by the citizenry.
• Justice System: innumerable laws are approved but the paradigm has not changed: laws are meant to appease diverse constituencies, but not to fix the problem. Conflicts of interest in the judicial power are flagrant; politicized justice continues to be the norm.
• Corruption and impunity: everyone gives lip service to denouncing this, but no one wants to do away with the binome. What would have to happen to change the dominant paradigm, beyond laws with which no one pretends to comply with or to enforce?
• Relationship with the U.S.: we are at a crucial moment due to the upcoming elections in the U.S. but we have no idea, or less so a plan, to redefine the relationship. What happens under each potential scenario? What do we want from the relationship? What do we have to do for the desirable to be possible?
• Education: we have been for decades in a vicious circle in which what is important has not been the development of human capital. How can the vision of education be changed?   What has to be done to achieve this? How to join forces with, instead of combating, the teachers? How can we unhinge the leaderships devoted to holding back the development of education?
• Public finances: the spending model financed by few taxes from captive citizens and growing debt is creating a crisis. How to develop novel sources to raise revenue? How to develop accountability mechanism to make this possible?

The challenges that we face are huge and, clearly, cannot be solved overnight. Each of these –these and others- will demand understanding, vision, leadership and arduous negotiations. But if the sole objective is “don’t move anything”, “don’t even try to change the status quo”, the country will persist in its decline and conflict will be on the rise.

The only way to break through the inertia is to speak clearly: we have problems that require one or two generations of continuous efforts to transform the country. Kicking the can is not a solution, even if comfortable for some functionaries.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof

 Luis Rubio

In the eighties, the title of a book on Indonesia summed up the moment in that society, not very distinct from that of today’s Mexico: “A Nation in Waiting”. In waiting for “a change”.

Governments come and governments go, all avowing deliverance. But deliverance did not come and everything turned out being excuses: the fault was always someone else’s.

When things turn out well, Mexican society leans over backward towards the government; when things come out poorly, the reaction is one of spite, of betrayal. That is why Mexican society’s reaction has been so brutal, making life easy for the promoters of chagrin as a politico-electoral strategy. And the government could not have acted worse: it entrenched itself, convinced of its virtue, thus incapable of reaching out, ended up an easy prey of its own prejudices, and of an opposition that it does not understand, nor tries to. This has led society towards absolute uncertainty with respect to the future.

During the last lustra, Mexicans have lived through two similar and, at the same time, totally distinct moments, a contrast that illustrates some of the causes of the disgust, desperation and anger ad hominem that currently characterize the country. Vicente Fox and Enrique Peña-Nieto have nothing in common in their biographies, proposals or abilities, but both share one thing: the two promised a transformation, which they forgot nearly immediately on taking office. Fox swore to “get the PRI out of los Pinos” in order to change the country; Peña-Nieto pledged an “effective government”. Both betrayed the population. Their failings explain the growing popularity of the miracle peddlers: “Bronco”, AMLO, and all those that are certain to show up later.

Joaquín Villalobos, an expert on social movements, says that there is no worse government strategy than that deriving from a simple reading of a complex reality. Fox did not understand the dimensions of his victory nor much less the nature or the depth of the demand for change in Mexican society; also he did not recognize the weakness of the PRI at that juncture in time. The problem for him were the persons and not the structures and institutions, the reason he wound up doing the dead man’s float for six long years, creating antibodies for the politico-economic transition that the country continues to await.

Peña-Nieto did not understand that the Mexico of today has nothing to do with that of the fifties of the last century, that the globalized economy forever altered the domestic politics, and that resorting to a high fiscal deficit is tremendously dangerous politically. The present government not only incorrectly read the circumstances that it came into power but also the crucial moments that changed under its own watch, especially Ayotzinapa. Its decision to attempt to recentralize power bespoke enormous naiveté, as if decentralization of the previous decades had been the product of the will of a president and not the result of a complicated and shifting political reality. But by centralizing an array of instruments and imposing controls on the media, governors and other social actors, in addition to tax increases to captive taxpayers, and the disdain with which it managed (and continues to mishandle) cases of corruption, the government ended in the worst of worlds: responsibility for all issues and events about which it did not have (nor could it have) control fell in the lap of the president. Worse, all Mexicans are aggrieved.

The case of Ayotzinapa is emblematic. In objective terms, it is evident that the matter was a local one and that the federal government did not become aware of it until much after it occurred. In contrast with other crises, in that one there was no participation of federal forces. Under those conditions, it is unbelievable that the federal government ended up taking the blame, but that was the product of its own way of acting, of its folly in protecting the governor and, above all, of its turning a blind eye to the complexity of the context. Even now, the government does not to appear to understand the amount of grievances that it engendered in all of society and that Ayotzinapa permitted bringing out into the open and making them explicit anonymously.

When Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor, denounced the crimes of the Soviet regime, one of the delegates called out, “Comrade Khrushchev, where were you when Stalin was doing all these terrible things?” Khrushchev shouted, “Who is that? Stand up!” No one rose. Khrushchev said, “That comrade, in the shadows, is where I was”.

President’s Peña’s government did not understand the society that it attempted to govern nor much less understood that its initiatives and policies were disrupting values, traditions, interests and, most of all, realities and rights won the hard way. At the moment that Iguala took place, the society manifested itself with brute force.

While uncertainty has become the dominant factor in citizens’ minds, the government remains trapped in its own simple reading of a complex reality, believing it controls the presidential succession process. The contradiction is flagrant: society demands definitions about the future while the government delivers nothing more than scorn. Mexicans clearly understand the complexity of the moment, and nobody seems disposed to violent action. However, no country can function in absence of certainty and clarity of the future and, at the very least, a sense of hope.

www.cidac.org
@lrubiof