Luis Rubio

After Wilson’s departure from the Paris Peace Conference at Versailles following World War I, Clemenceau, on his way to a meeting with Colonel House, Wilson’s adviser, was fired on by a young anarchist, Émile Cottin. As Clemenceau’s car sped away, Cottin fired seven (some say eight) more shots. One hit Clemenceau near the heart. Cottin was apprehended and the death penalty demanded. Clemenceau intervened: “We have just fought the most terrible war in history, yet here is a Frenchman who misses his target six times out of seven… Of course the fellow must be punished for the careless use of a dangerous weapon and for poor marksmanship.” He recommended eight years in prison “with intensive training in a shooting gallery.”

This anecdote serves to introduce a matter that has been worrying me for some time. To what extent is the diagnosis of crucial issues such as the teachers’ uprisings through the CNTE Teachers’ Union or the protests of businessmen concerning the liberalization of the economy on target?

It is scarcely probable for a government to achieve its objectives if the premise that motivates its actions or responses is in error. In the case of the interminable demonstrations and protests of the CNTE for example, the government is actually dealing with the consequences of the former corporatist structures that during those times were functional in terms of political stability but that today are terribly disruptive. The current conflict, centered on the matter of teacher evaluation, can, and I believe should, be separated into two facets: on the one hand is found the enormous power base and structure that the organization of the teachers’ union has constructed from the control of basic instances of the educative system in places such as Oaxaca, where it even decides whether private schools are entitled to official recognition (without which a student cannot go on to university). That power base has become a monumental challenge, as tends to occur with quick fixes that appear to be easy but that are accompanied by dreadful consequences in the long term. That is why the federal government’s decision to take over the local education ministry in Oaxaca is so important.

But there is another facet in the specific case of the evaluation of teachers that seems to me widely ignored but not, for that reason, less simple and relevant: the teachers can support or can be contemptuous of their union leaders, but many, perhaps the majority, have a deep fear of failing the evaluation. The emphasis on the rhetoric of the CNTE leaders is precisely on that: on what will happen if they do not pass the examination on the third time at most, which the regulation states as cause for firing. Fear is a powerful ally of corruption.

The systematic rejection of the chambers of industry of any deregulation of liberalization of imports and, in general, of the economy, is equally suggestive. During these last decades there have been various attempts to rationalize the tariff structure for imports, to simplify the importation of merchandise that individual persons or small businesses wish to undertake, or, in straightforward fashion, to submit to competition the traditional industrial sector, that which employs many people but that subtracts productivity from the economy as a whole. The organized business response has been systematic, full of wrath and as visceral as that of the CNTE, although its means are distinct. Opposition to any change is absolute. The question is why.

Some businesses protect their game preserves, as would take place with any interest group in any society; however, it is obvious that the fear factor very much dominates the entrepreneurial response. The prototypical business is not a large business, well capitalized and headed by a person conversant with the international environment, but rather is, typically, a small or medium business owner who decides to do whatever possible to preserve his market niche and survive. Some are successful, others less so, but the majority navigate under circumstances whose rules were established decades ago under the yardstick of imports substitution or, more recently, within the context of the informal economy. Medium-sized businesses in the industrial ambit tend to be closer to the former description, and those of services to the latter. The point is that practically none of those enterprises has focused on specialization, raising its productivity or developing products liable to competing successfully in an open market. The few that have developed their own technological capacity tend to be sub-capitalized and confront tremendous barriers for access to credit or to the international markets.

In this scenario, the fear of generating any attempt to modify the rules of the game is evident. People customarily cling fast to what they know and do not want to change; fear of the unknown can be devastating. The same is true for those who enjoy some product privileged with subsidies or tariffs and fear losing it or those who, pure and simple, take note of the ambit of the most competitive economy and fear sailing an uncharted sea and one for which they have no preparation whatsoever.

The situation of teachers and businesses is, in the last analysis, similar. The majority of entrepreneurs, whether of small- or medium-sized businesses, would probably not imagine that they have something very powerful in common with those who support (or see themselves as overwhelmed by) the CNTE.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition in Myanmar, once affirmed that “it is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” Fear is poor counsel because it impedes advancing, but it is essential for the government to comprehend that the motivation of those disputing a change often originates in factors much more easily grasped than immediately apparent.

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Luis Rubio

Alexander Woollcott met G.K. Chesterton for lunch at a London restaurant and asked him about his view on the difference between power and authority. “If a rhinoceros were to enter the restaurant now, there would be no denying he would have great power here. But I would be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatsoever”. Thus is found the relationship of the government with the Mexicans: much power but little authority. Authority is won at the voting booth and, later, in the daily exercise of the governmental function.

In Mexico, we have endured decades of poor governmental performance, the product, to a great extent, of a system of government that has come a long way but has ceased to satisfy the requirements of such a large country, diverse and connected to the world. Instead of solving the problems, Mexicans have sought subterfuges for not doing so or, with rare exception, have adopted mechanisms for isolating determined matters (such as foreign investment) from the erratic nature of our governors. Those tools have allowed Mexico to navigate through the problems of the day, but impede the country from taking the “big step forward” toward a new stage of development.

Illustrative of the problem is the fact that we’ve gone on for 40 years reforming different aspects of national life but haven’t been able to resolve the heart of the problematic. With that statement I do not pretend to make little of the reforms that have been undertaken from the 80s on, or to deny the extraordinary advances that have been achieved or to make it appear that it is easy to confront ancestral problems and deeply entrenched interests. The premise is that the objectives cannot be achieved that have been pursued by means of that set of (uneven) reforms without the system of government being modified, because much of what hamstrings the attainment of the reforms and their success remits to the way the political system functions.

For starters, the system was conceived, constructed and administered from the logic of a concentrated power, one in full control of the country and disposed to employ its strength to silence any dissidence, however exceptional such actions were. That characterization of the system was valid for a few decades from the creation of the National Revolutionary Party (PNR) in 1929, but its very success came to alter it. Eighty five years later, the Mexican society in no way looks like that of those former times: its size, diversity, knowledge, international connections and geographic dispersion are radically distinct.

The problem is not that the country could become unhinged from one moment to another but, instead, that it does not emerge from its lethargy, however many attempts have been made of the most diverse types: economic and political reforms, alternation of parties in government, adoption of external mechanisms to confer guarantees and appointing civil servants from the citizenry or from opposition parties to sensitive functions. The transit of the PAN through the presidency or of the PRD in Mexico City are convincing examples that the system survives independently of who is nominally in charge. In this circumstance, it is not by chance that the focal points change but the problems abide. The government that promised efficacy with a persuasive performance record became bogged down immediately when time came to implement its own reforms because there are no appropriate mechanisms for the presidency to interact with the political parties and the state governors but, above all, with the citizenry.

A reform of the power would only work if it were the result of a negotiation not only involving all of the relevant parties, but also the citizenry. That is, in order for it to enjoy legitimacy as well as defenders throughout the country, such a reform would require virtually universal support. In a word, it would have of necessity to be foundational.

Some months ago a politician from the (very) old guard voiced a reflection that could orient the prospective discussion. His focal point was the absence of a clear sense of what could be called “national interest” for purposes of development. He noted that up to the seventies there was the so-called “Ministry of the Presidency” that oversaw planning and budgetary functions, but also the drawing up of laws. The legal director of that entity operated as the nation’s attorney-at large, in the sense that he kept watch over the whole. Although it was a single-party era, the concept that it delineated was significant: when that Secretariat was dismantled, the function of the legal director passed to the Presidential domain and, with that, it changed radically. While previously it had seen to the entirety of the nation and procured the promotion of solid institutional structures, it now became the defender of the interests and affairs of the President. The phenomenon was exacerbated to the degree that the society grew more complex and opposition political parties appeared that refused to accept the presidential view as equivalent to that of the nation.

The politician’s message was very simple: the problems are increasingly complex and cannot be solved with partial measures: there is an urgency to think big, build a new institutional platform that attends to and resolves essential themes that the country confronts and that are the source of eternal conflict: from the electoral to the functioning of the legislature, corruption and torture. That is, it is imperative to construct the institutional structure of the XXII Century, taking a quantum leap that permits forgetting today’s enmities and making possible the consolidation of a modern country that thrives, cares for its population and thinks highly of its government.

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                                                                                                FORBES –  Luis Rubio

The incapacity of the Mexican economy to achieve high growth rates has been a theme of controversy for decades. In fact, at least since the seventies, there’s been no government that hasn’t undertaken some initiative oriented toward stimulating growth. Some did this with debt-financed governmental spending, other with ambitious reforms and yet others with stable and reliable financial administration. Although there have been some good years, the fact is plain that growth has been markedly inferior to the needs of the country and to that which the economists estimate as feasible. This year, for example, the two main sources of growth will be exports and internal consumption, both of these the product of the U.S. economy through remittances sent by Mexicans residing there and exports from Mexican manufacturers.

Countless diagnoses seek to explain the phenomenon of lack of growth. Some emphasize problems of security and infrastructure, others maintain the absence of the Rule of Law and of the capacity of rendering that contracts be complied with. I have no doubt that all of those diagnoses are part of the problem, but it seems to me that there is a more profound issue that explains the set of circumstances more convincingly. If one were to observe the fact that the rates of growth of foreign investment are discerningly superior to those of national investment, it is not difficult to explain why: while foreign investment enjoys solid legal guarantees thanks to NAFTA, domestic investment depends on the tenor of the government in turn. The fact that a government holds the capacity to influence outcomes constitutes a highly obvious factor that something is wrong.

My impression is that the underlying problem we are dealing with is that the country is emerging from an era in which the government was constituted from a revolutionary movement and has not stopped acting as such. That is, in contrast with governments emanating from the society or attempting to respond to the society’s demands and needs, Mexico’s derives from the group that won the revolutionary war and that never felt obligated to the population. Fidel Velázquez, the legendary labor leader, affirmed on one occasion that the government “came in by way of arms and will have to be removed by way of arms”. The point is that the system of government has not evolved toward democracy or in the search for forms that allow it to professionalize itself. If one observes the way that the rules of the game (the real rules, not those found in the laws and bylaws) are modified every time a new administration takes office, it is difficult not to conclude that there is a fundamental problem of institutional weakness in the governmental structure.

The problem has become more acute in that the system was modified since the nineties when the first transcendent electoral reform (1996) led the one-party system to become tri-party. That is, Mexican democracy has taken important steps forward in electoral matters, but it has never opened the system in terms of power. What the diverse electoral reforms since 1996 accomplished was to open the system to two new actors, the PAN and the PRD, but without altering the power structure in Mexican society. This is neither good nor bad, except that, aside from incorporating those parties into the power structure, the quality of the government did not take a turn for the better nor did the legitimacy of the system. The fact that the growth of the economy has not improved says it all.

The problem at the core is that the objectives that have been sought by means of that ensemble of (dissimilar) reforms cannot be achieved without modifying the system of government, because much of what impedes the accomplishment of the reforms and their success refers to the manner of functioning (or not functioning) of the political system. The problem of the power manifests itself in diverse ways: in the permanently conflictive nature of the system, in the dreadful quality of governance that equally characterizes the federal government and that of the states and municipalities, in the lack of continuity of public policies, in the question of security, and in the absence of a judicial system that solves everyday problems.

The problem is an obvious one and is manifested in the diagnoses debated in the public arena, but it will only be solved to the extent that the society obliges the politicians to respond or for leadership to materialize that is capable of initiating a modern and functional institutional buildup. The recent elections were a good start, but the challenge is enormous.

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Luis Rubio

None of the ills that currently afflict Mexico is especially recent. For centuries, we Mexicans have known corruption, criminality, the wrongdoings of the government, the poor use of public resources and the propensity of diverse communities, above all in certain regions, to rise up and impose their will. If one concurs with these statements, there are at least two questions that would seem pertinent to me: first, what happened in order for all of the above to generate a crisis at this precise moment? Second, if all of this is known, why hasn’t it been resolved? In other words, how is it possible for so many things to have come together over the past few months and from which there appears to be no way out, a circumstance that inevitably tends to stir up unrest and increase the sensation of vulnerability and crisis?

I have been pondering these themes for many months now and meditating on why, but above all how it could be solved? An exchange not long ago in Spain permitted me to see another facet of this disquisition. Spain saw the XX Century in as an underdeveloped country, disorderly, with a bent for hard governments; a nation that exiled many of its best people. However, at the end of that century, Spain had been transformed: it was an ordered country, democratic, fully integrated into Europe and possessing an infrastructure that in quality and quantity does not stop impress. In Spain the combination of leadership, circumstance and geography allowed for an extraordinary transformation; that is, the latter did not happen by chance or by magic, nor was everything that occurred along the way benign.

The contrast between Spain and Mexico could hardly be greater. Although in both nations the population has lived through cataclysmic times, their responses have been very distinct. In Mexico uneasiness, insipidity, disgust with the government and pessimism reign. The economy grows very modestly and problems abound everywhere. In Spain, the economic crisis of the recent years has been highly severe, salaries have fallen not only in real but in nominal terms (that is, many Spaniards earn fewer euros than previously for the same work) and the economy is just beginning to climb. Political effervescence reigns.

Notwithstanding the similarities, the differences are crucial: while in Mexico we suffer from a system of government that not only does not solve even the most elementary problems, such as the security of its citizens, in Spain the quality of the government is extraordinary. The police function, the streets don’t have holes, taxes are paid and people respect the traffic laws. And above all, while the Spanish population can acclaim or reprove the management of each government in particular, the essential part of daily life functions normally thanks to a professional bureaucracy. Contrariwise, in Mexico daily administration is indistinguishable from the government because the key players change every time a new administration comes into power and their criteria are not defined by efficiency or well-being but rather by personal and group advancement. In Mexico we endure a weak government while in Spain there is a strong State that works at the margin of the normal political/legislative conflict that is inherent in everyday political activity.  This became obvious in matters of security with the Chapo’s escape.

Meditating upon this, I come to the conclusion that in Mexico we are experiencing culture shock, while the great success of Spain in the last (several) decades is the product of a cultural transformation. It seems to me that much of what we are living through today in Mexico derives from a frontal shock between the reality and the norms or cultural frameworks that, as a society, characterize us. The problems persist; what’s changed is that now information is ubiquitous.

Although it would be desirable to be able to rely on much better information, for example, of what is taking place when decisions are made in the allocation of resources or how these are spent, what’s relevant is that now it’s impossible to keep information hidden. In fact, the lack of the formalization of governmental transparency exerts the perverse effect of generating rumors and speculations that the technology (the social networks) magnify and render omnipresent. That is, much of what Mexico is undergoing has its origin in the brutal contrast between the discourse and the reality: the expectations that the political culture has shaped in the collective unconscious as well as in the Constitution, on the one hand, and the disorder and deterioration that daily life evidences, on the other. That culture shock has served as a justification of the permanence of the informal economy and the demonstrators’ closing of highways, the absence of effective police forces and governmental corruption. It also explains why Mexicans just laughed when learned about the Chapo’s escape from jail.

Herein the contrast with Spain: that country modernized itself and achieved a seamless cultural transformation. Respect for authority is impressive, as is the quality that would appear to be so trifling as paving the streets. But respect for authority does not translate into respect for the government or the governors: the former speaks to the quality of the State, the latter to the administration of the moment. While we Mexicans know that each government can change the status quo, for good or for ill, in this the Spaniards more closely resemble their partners of northern Europe than us. At the end of the day, what permitted the breaking of the vicious circle was a succession of leaderships that, in combined fashion, transformed their country. But the key lies in that these were annotated by a professional bureaucracy. That’s where it would have to start. It’s not a matter of money but of attitude: the attitude of civilization.

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@lrubiof

                                                                                                                                    Luis Rubio

There’s nothing more pernicious than arrogance and, worse, when combined with the absence of project and vision. Security in Mexico City is perhaps less serious than in many other places in the country, but that doesn’t make it any less razor-edged or much less guarantees that it will not become worse.

In his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides tells how Themistocles alienated the allies of Athens by extorting money from them. Anchoring his fleet off a small island, he sent a message saying that he had two powerful deities on his side who would compel them to pay up: Persuasion and Force. The islanders sent back a message saying that they had two equally potent gods on their side: Poverty and Despair. In Mexico City, extortion is advancing at a slow-moving but incessant pace, little by little coming to dominate the economic panorama. To the pay-offs extracted by the PRD governors we must now add those of organized crime. This cannot end well.

Despite all that was censurable about the way the previous federal government managed its security policy, there is one merit that cannot be denied: it achieved keeping the cartels outside of the Federal District (the D.F.), blocking them from extending their tentacles toward the political heart of the country. It is no less than paradoxical that the city government of Marcelo Ebrard, which accomplished nothing for security, benefited from criminality not mounting, despite the unassailable political distance that he maintained from then-President Calderón. Now, with the inexistence of a security strategy in the Federal Government, the D.F. has begun to fall prey to extortion, the inexorable initiation of the growth of the narco-trafficking mafias. Paraphrasing Thucydides, the Force of the past could now end up in Despair…

What’s interesting is not that criminality is growing in the D.F., the way that the charging of dues is being extorted, in that the phenomenon has been hammering at the country for years, but the total lack of response by the City Government. Killings increase, extortion proliferates and theft grows in direct proportion to the degree that the municipal leaders and those of the City Government concern themselves with their next jobs rather than attending to basics. Worse yet, many of those functionaries propitiate extortion as a means of financing their campaigns and their deep pockets; corruption has become the modus operandi.  It’s not by chance that impunity has become the norm. The Government of the D.F. is so confident that it presently devotes itself to formulating a new constitution before the foundations of the city would be able to resist it.

This produces a peculiar scenario: enormous and growing insecurity, lousy public services and, to top it off, an arrogant rhetoric that not only refuses to recognize the fact that insecurity is growing dangerously, but keeps talking about historical statistics. The discourse and its tone reveals a local government focused on what’s important (its political future) and disinterested in what affects the citizenry, above all regarding trivial issues such as security, traffic, potholes in the streets and economic development; if to that one adds endless demonstrations as well as formal and “informal” taxes, it becomes obvious there is no understanding of the cost –and disincentive- that exists to creating jobs in the city. In addition, the problem of extortion, a territorial crime, goes hand in glove with the police, whom it corrupts, and ushers in violence because it entails relentless vying for physical space.

Instead of attending to the crime wave that is approaching, the local government has been eager to change the legal status of the city, a matter that appeared to be essential prior to the beating of the dominant party at the polls, but that is absolutely irrelevant for the average citizen. The constitution of the 32nd state sounds good in the discourse, but is highly dangerous for the country as a whole due to the risk that the moods of the local governor -as the cases of Lopez Obrador and Ebrard showed (2000‒2012)- would create a conflagration with the Federal Government, a much more transcendent and touchy issue than what is accepted in public. Why does a government that is not a good government want independence? Might one interject here that its exceptional attention to (and protection of) taxi drivers and other special-interest groups and their capacity of mobilization reveals its true proclivity? Why not better protect the man in the street from the abuses of the City Government, from the delegates, from the police and the PRD, all sworn to extortion, each by their own modus operandi and means?

Instead of getting lost in cabinet resignations, made-to-order constitutions and the protection of interests that make an attempt against the citizenry, the City Government could analyze two successes that are undeniable. The Uber taxi company and the El Torito breathalyzer program are good examples of where Mexico City does indeed work: Uber has afforded the citizenry a safe means of transport that compensates for, at least in part, the shortcomings of the government and its disinterestedness in matters of security. El Torito is a great example of how a space of legality with incentives and clear rules can be instituted. Uber ties in with the objective behind that of el Torito in exemplary fashion: it allows the city to function, its restaurants and bars to generate employment without placing the citizenry at risk of accidents. Both constitute novel paradigms: instead of “regulating them”, the City Government should foster and promote them, converting them into the model of what must be done. The question is, whose side is the government on: the side of the citizenry or the side of the corporatist interests that harass and threaten it?

At this point in time, a little compass wouldn’t be at all superfluous in the City Government.

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@lrubiof

Luis Rubio

What is peace? Is it simply the absence of war? Kant thinks not. These are core questions that Kant analyzes in Perpetual Peace. Kant affirms that if peace is no more than a truce and is directed toward both parties regaining strength for their next attack, if peace is no more than the continuation of war through political means, if peace is no more than the successful subjugation of one party by another -then there is no real peace. Real peace, according to Kant, requires the rule of law within the state and among all contenders. That is, it requires that all who are in agreement with peace believe in it and assume it as theirs. In political terms, what is required for peace is legitimacy. If we translate this into Mexican politics, Kant would upbraid the political parties and the government because it is evident that they do not accept the rule of law, in that they see pacts and laws as a means of elimination of the contender in the next contest and not as competition in which all enjoy the same rights, independently of whether some win and others lose.

The problem of power in Mexico ascribes to two dynamics: the first refers to the relations between political parties and politicians. In this dimension, there is permanent conflict and, at the same time, functionality. Although it would appear paradoxical, the two planes are     faithful components of the political life of the country: the last years have demonstrated the existence of capacity of negotiation, articulation of legislative bills and cooperation among political parties and politicians; on the other hand, there persists the propensity to delegitimize the rival, dispute the cleanliness of the electoral processes and assume that legitimacy is measured in terms of who wins and not whether everyone complies with the rules of the game. The tangible fact is that Mexican politics continues to be founded on corruption (but now extended to all parties, not exclusively to the PRI) and on the pursuit of power by any means, regardless of the cost.

The existence of game rules is one more inconvenience that the political class sees as a cost of being in the game and not as a guideline to which it must submit without further ado. The only thing that’s important is power and there’s no limit whatever in the fight to attain it, in good measure because power continues to be a zero-sum game: What one wins the other loses and that’s all there is to that. Another way of expressing this is that there is no worse enemy of the political class than the existence of checks and balances because these delimit its capacity for abuse. The latter derives from that there is no acknowledgment that Mexican society is a diverse, disperse and complex one in which no political party or person represents the whole. There is no acceptance that the political parties solely represent portions of the electorate and that their legitimacy emanates from the construction of governing coalitions and from respect for the rights of minorities. The power is not absolute; thus, it is indispensable to institutionalize effective mechanisms for the representation and distribution of power that confer legitimacy on the governor and on the exercise of power.

The other dynamic of the problematic of power is that it stems from the relationship between politicians and citizens. In contrast with relations among politicians, where the law of the jungle or that of the mightiest prevails, in our political structure the citizen rather represents a nuisance: in Mexico the political class is protected and isolated from the citizenry and enjoys mechanisms that permit it to disregard the latter. There is no better example of this circumstance than the way that the reelection of legislators was approved in the most recent electoral reform: while in democracies that respect themselves the objective of the reelection is to bring the representatives closer to those they represent, obliging them to respond to the demands and interests of the citizenry, the manner in which reelection will function in Mexico is by means of the approval of the respective political party. That is, the political bosses will have a veto over reelection, a factor that curtails the citizen-representative liaison: the nuance that renders reelection irrelevant.

Perhaps there is no better way to examine the distance existing between institutionalization of power in Mexico and consolidated democracies than the study of the origin of the latter, above all at this moment of the 800th Anniversary of the publication of the pillar of the Rule of Law in civilized and democratic countries. In its essence, the Magna Carta was the consecration on paper of that the law is above the ruler. It was at Runnymede on June 15, 1215, that the idea of the law standing above the government first acquired contractual form. On signing it, King John I accepted that he would no longer get to make the rules as he went along. From that acceptance flowed, ultimately, all the rights and freedoms that civilized nations take for granted: uncensored media, security of property, equality before the law, habeas corpus, regular elections, sanctity of contract, jury trials.

In 1215, England was an infinitely less developed country than the Mexico of today. It is time that we Mexicans recognize the costs of our permanent incivility, proclivity for conflict and poor economic results, all of which remit, directly or indirectly, to the absence of political legitimacy. That legitimacy was lost in the 70s due the abuse of power and the economic crises. Today it is time to construct a new legitimacy from the reform of power.

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Luis Rubio

Beyond the problems –structural and temporary- that aggrieve Mexico, what’s most striking for me as observer is the absence of a national conversation between the government and the society. Particularly notorious is the existence of two worlds: that of the government (really, the small nucleus that decides within the government) and that of the social networks. These are two planets that fail to recognize each other, they mutually ignore and are contemptuous of each other, doubtlessly the heritage of the authoritarian past: the government spoke, the population pretended that it was hearing, but no one listened. The question is whether it is conceivable, in this digital age and of the ubiquity of information, for things to turn out well without dialogue.

The phenomenon is reproduced in other ambits, although less visibly. On the board of directors of one of the largest multinationals they applaud themselves on having received the President of the Republic and several of his collaborators; in some of the grandest enterprises of Mexico they find it strange that they have never had access to the President or his Cabinet. It is inevitable to hear radically distinct views of the direction the country is taking in each of those spaces.

The announcements of the legislature (and of some political parties) are particularly revealing of the vast abyss that separates the society from its politicians: a given law has been approved, they tell us, so the reality will change. The Federal Government dispatched a similar message when it argued that the problems of the past several months are not due to its decisions, or to its inaction, but instead to the resistance of specific interests to its reforms. On the governmental and legislative side one reality is experienced, and on that of the society another very distinct one. When the bill relative to the constitution of the Federal District was approved in the Senate, one Tweeter responded to this way of seeing the world with singular eloquence: “Don’t anyone worry anymore, because surely tomorrow a law will come out against narco-blockades and everything will be settled”.

The absence of a national conversation on the country’s problems and the public policies proposed to confront them translate not only into incredulousness and distrust, but also into the risk of anomy, that is, of a general alienation that accentuates the distances between governors and the governed and that impedes the progress that we all supposedly seek.

There are two ways to conceive of the problem. One is to focus on the causes and the other is to look for ways to deal with it. While the two processes are necessary, paying systematic attention to the causes leads down a dead-end street because no one wants to give in. For its part, the initiation of a conversation can lead to both parts, society and government, beginning to understand the complexity that each confronts. The dialogue would oblige the government to understand what’s bothering the society and to recognize that not everything that it demands is absurd and, perhaps more relevant, that there is greater receptivity than that imagined in the governmental corridors. An opening to interaction would prompt the society to realize that the governors are not as obtuse or ignorant as thought and to recognize the real restrictions under which they operate. Much of what goes on in the government does not respond to what the society sees as necessary and many of the things that appear obvious and that are repeated in the social networks are absurd by any measure. Both sides would benefit from greater understanding of the other.

How to start a dialogue? Obviously an open exchange is not possible in a country of 115 million inhabitants. However, there are a thousand and one ways in which an exchange could advance that would contribute to constructing a space of greater sobriety in discourse and, therefore, of civility in terms of the future. Only by way of example, there is the model that the Americans call “town hall meetings”, where, in an auditorium, some one or two hundred persons meet with the president –or with key public servants- with a flexible format of questions and answers that is transmitted by TV. The rules of civility obligate a certain behavior, which in some cases leads to excluding potential troublemakers but the idea is simple: to exchange points of view. What matters is not the format but the fact of conversing with the people to explain and attempt to convince, something that has been absent in Mexican politics. Good arguments can arrive at comprehension and recognition. And legitimacy.

The great virtue of the PRIist political system of the first half of the past century, above all in contrast with the authoritarian regimes of South America, was that it allowed for stability and economic progress. That system preferred cooptation and negotiation to violence. Its great defect was that while the South American societies ended their dictatorships and became democratized, Mexico’s preserved the authoritarian culture of the past, something that even the PANists did not alter. With the lack of an alternative, and due to the futility of theatrical acts within such a polarized context, a national conversation could begin to wear down those fortifications that corrode us.

Deep down, Mexico’s challenge is that of concluding the transition -political, social, economic, cultural, industrial, but above all philosophical- presently at a standstill. Jacqueline Peschard noted that the recently approved legislation in matters of transparency requires a new form of governing, sustained on opening and social participation. I would extend that to national life: progress is inconceivable in the digital and globalization age without transparency and mutual persuasion. That is a task of leadership.

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Luis Rubio

The true transcendence of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was its exceptional character in the public life of Mexico. Although its economic impact has been extraordinary –constituting Mexico’s principal engine of economic growth-, its exceptional importance lies in the fact that it was conceived –and has functioned- as a means of affording confidence to investors. Before NAFTA existed, foreign investment did not grow due to its lack of a legal framework that guaranteed permanence of the rules. That is, NAFTA represented recognition by the political system that the existence of capricious regulations, expropriations without a justified cause and discrimination in favor of certain interests constituted insurmountable obstacles to the growth of investment. Its exceptionality lies in that the Mexican government accepted limits to its capacity for action when face to face with those investors and in this altered one of the core features of the so-called “system”.

In its origin, and in its original conception, the objective of initiating a negotiation of a North American business agreement was the creation of a mechanism that would bestow long-term confidence on the investor. The context within which that objective was procured is important: Mexico at the time was emerging from a stage of financial instability, high inflationary levels, bank expropriations and, in general, an investment regime that rejected foreign investment and typically sought to limit private investment. Although the respective regulations had been changed by then, foreign investors did not display an inclination to invest in the country as the government of the time intended. NAFTA ended up being factual recognition that the government had to take a much more audacious step to attract that investment.

The negotiation of NAFTA constituted a milestone in Mexico’s political life because it entailed a cluster of “disciplines” (as trade negotiators denominate them) that are nothing other than impediments to a government acting as it likes. Acceptance of this aggregate of disciplines implies the decision to self-limit, that is, to accept that there are rules of the game and a severe price to pay on violating them. In a word, the government relinquished power in order to gain credibility, in this case in terms of investment. And this cession of power permitted the country to generate an enormous growth engine in the form of foreign investment and exports. Without that ceding, the country would have had all sorts of difficulties these last twenty years. In contrast, through NAFTA (and the great aid of the monetary remittances sent by Mexicans residing in the U.S.) the North American economy became our main source of economic growth.

At present, while foreign investment continues to flow with regularity and incrementally, the problem confronting economic development appertains to the lack of confidence generated by the absence of reliable rules, and the permanence of the latter, within the country. That is, while NAFTA solved the trust problem for investment from the outside, Mexico’s current problem comprises the absence of confidence for the Mexican Everyman, including the domestic business and investor.

The lack of confidence arises from the fact that our governors can say yes or no based on their own personal, political or partisan computations, without concern for whether their decision might be in violation of the law. That circumstance is the one that makes Mexico a country dependent on one man, thus impeding the consolidation of plans, projects or careers, because everything is curtailed by the duration of the six-year presidential term.

What some cynical observer termed the “sexennial metric system” is a national reality that even the PANist governors did not transform. The propensity to reinvent the wheel and negate the merit of the whatever existed whenever a new governor comes on the scene has consequences in the most diverse ambits and exerts the effect of distancing the government from the society and rendering it triflingly responsive to its demands but, above all, generating an environment of assuredness that affects all decisions apropos to savings, investment and personal, family, and entrepreneurial development.

Mexico needs to avoid that provenance of uncertainty for Mexicans, just as NAFTA did for foreigners. Without the Rule of Law that creates sources of credible certainty, the country will be permanently impeded from functioning.

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Luis Rubio

The elections are over, now comes the tallying. For some the elections went well, for others poorly, but all have to deal with the new reality. There are many important lessons to be learned.

A succinct rundown of what I observed in the elections and during the subsequent days is the following: in the gubernatorial races, except in  the states of Campeche and Colima, the voters penalized the party in power: it turns out that voting was much more productive for those who are upset than abstaining from casting their ballot or resorting to annulling it; the Morena (Lopez Obrador’s) Party was the big winner, followed hard on by the Verde Party; the PAN and the PRD are the big losers, both due to internal divisory turmoil; the PRI retained its position in Congress, emblematic of the capacity to buy and manipulate votes more than its having been abruptly overhauled. Today there are two actors in the arena that will surely compete between themselves in 2018: Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), and Jaime Rodríguez (Bronco), the new governor of Nuevo León elected on the independent ticket.

There are explanations for each of these factors, but what seems most important to me to emphasize is that the Pact for Mexico turned out to be lethal for the PAN and the PRD; it’s hard to believe that the result for the PRI in Congress reflects something distinct: except for the reforms eventually transforming the country and those parties capitalizing on that, the cost of the perception of paralysis and the sensation that the opposition disappeared is unfathomable.

Each party and candidate confronted particular circumstances but the result reflects a more sophisticated electorate than appeared to be so at first glance. In the state of Querétaro, for example, the voters made it clear that they wanted to avoid one party from staying in power, despite the exiting governor being popular and widely recognized. On the other hand, the elections confirmed that the average voter is willing to sell his vote and is honorable in complying with his part of the bargain: perhaps this is not praiseworthy from the electoral standpoint, but it speaks of a capacity, and above all a disposition, to comply with contracts and agreements, something not to be held at all in contempt in other ambits given the absence of an effective judicial system.

It may be that the paramount lesson that the elections reveal is that the country finds itself faced with a problem of essence: the political system doesn’t work. The voters may be increasingly sophisticated in their manner of casting their vote or messaging but that does not compensate for the dysfunctionality of the system in its entirety and its lack of representativeness, and that’s the crux of the matter.

Mexico has for decades been trying to change things so that nothing changes. Certainly, the economy has changed a great deal but, in the mode of Il Gattopardo, even the unmentionable has been done to preserve the old system’s benefits and privileges. While no one can deny the enormous advances on diverse fronts, the power structure remains the same, with the exception of the incorporation of the PAN and the PRD into the same ancestral corruption: everything has been changed so that nothing would change. Now the cost of this is visible by any reckoning.

The present government espoused the mantra of the last decades that a set of reforms was urgent and that these, in themselves, would transform the country. It was said that the problems were “over-diagnosed”; what was never said was that, in order for them to bear fruit, the reforms had to modify the power structure in general and that in each reformed sector. Today it appears obvious that what’s lacking is actual governing and that the reforms, necessary as they are, are not feasible in the absence of a government capable of   fulfilling its duty. The renouncing of the transcending reform, the educative one, is a flagrant example of the absence of vision and perspective or, at the least, of a huge perversion of priorities.

The heart of the matter lies in that it’s not possible to attempt to change the country as the current government vowed it would if the function of power as well as its distribution is not brought to the table. A reform of the country –the same in a specific sector as in general- cannot be carried out if the number one criterion is not to affect groups close to the power structure; and success in reforming cannot be attempted if the criterion underlying the reform is that of not altering the power structure. To reform is nothing other than affecting vested interests; if that is not wanted or cannot be done, the reform is impossible.

What’s to be done? I only see two possible scenarios. One is to continue pretending that nothing’s going on, that the electoral result legitimatizes that “strategy”. The other scenario, the coveted one, is for the political class to recognize the urgency to act.

The risk of doing nothing is the eventual collapse of the system: it could be that the total political arrangement would come plunging down (sufficient to observe Russia as an obvious illustration), that the anti-system watersheds that proliferate all over grow and become unstoppable, or that the current situation provokes the advent of a reactionary movement that undermines not only what has been achieved with so many hardships for so long, but that it returns the country to the (figurative) Stone Age. Venezuela no longer seems inconceivable.

What the political class and the government don’t understand is the “what for” of their function. Beyond their interests as a group, its work must come down to earth with regard to systematic and substantive improvements in transforming terrains such as productivity, legality, education and corruption. As long as this does not occur, the strident sound of the political downward turn will continue to erode the legitimacy of the system and the viability of the country. In addition to that of its own interests.

The present moment proffers –and demands- an exceptional opportunity for a great leader to transform the country. That leadership could materialize from the government itself or derive from some of the actors who have displayed their natural gifts and remarkable capacity for action and recovery. Whoever seizes that opportunity will decide the future.

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Luis Rubio

There are two indisputable facts in the results of last Sunday’s elections: on the one hand, the government’s party achieved maintaining its position in Congress, which constitutes a victory under any leveling device. On the other, there is wide-ranging evidence of grave social malaise at all levels, which the Nuevo Leon independent candidate and winner, “el Bronco” epitomized (76% disapprove of the direction the country is taking, according to BGC). These would seem to be incompatible and contradictory circumstances, but they are not. The combination is, instead, a faithful reflection of the intricate reality within which the country lives and breathes. The big question concerns what the government will do with its victory: Will it persist in its allegation of already having reformed the country and that all that’s missing now is to await the fruits ripe for the picking and that will appear on their own? Or, will the electoral result morph into the opportunity to construct a capacity of government that effectively renders it possible for its reforms to bear fruit? Although these appear similar, they are radically distinct projects.

It is not difficult to describe the picture of what transpired last week. On the strictly electoral side, intermediate elections, while each is unique, are always run by party hacks, whose machines bring the vote out at whatever cost and where the PRI enjoys an enormous advantage. That very political machine was what had made the PAN lose more than one hundred seats to the PRI in 2009, so it’s not surprising that it had the contrary effect on this occasion. It is also noteworthy that the PRI machine was assisted, in perverse fashion, by those promoting to annul the vote as a means of protest. That action had the effect of altering the denominator, thus adding to the PRI’s total congressional numbers. Paradoxes that are dealt by life: no one knows who he or she works for.

On the side of the anger and disgust, the causes are many and multiple, some objective and others psychological, but all count and, more importantly, they add up. For some the scourge is the insecurity, for others the taxes. For yet others, the flagrant corruption. For all, the governmental paralysis has been astounding and its coronation with the decision to suspend the educative reform appears to be clear evidence of a governmental system that doesn’t work. The state of Nuevo León summed up the dynamic that the country is experiencing because there a candidate turned the society’s anger into a campaign platform, the outgoing governor being the perfect example of what the population repudiates and reproves.

The problem isn’t new and isn’t the fault of the present administration. Columnist Félix Cortés cited the case of the votes cast for Cantinflas, who for decades was a means by which the population expressed its choler. What’s relevant here is, as Cortés argues, that the political class never understood, and paid even less attention to the profound message that the Cantinflas vote entailed.  That is, the problem is an old one but it’s piling up, and tends to mushroom as expectations accelerate, these multiplying by the instantaneous communication given free range by telephones and the social networks. In contrast with Spain, where there are, or where there are possible, alternative institutional mechanisms for channeling the uneasiness, in Mexico that route is virtually impossible, becoming a hidden threat to stability.

It is due to the latter that what the government decides to do with its triumph is transcendental. In view of its history to date, above all that of the past several months, one would expect that the government will declare itself the winner and close the door. From its perspective, it is easy to claim that the protesters of groups such as the State Coordination of Education Workers of Guerrero State (CETEG) or the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) are mere rabble-rousers who have been repudiated at the ballot boxes; that businessmen who feel pressured by interminable requirements and by the absence of an environment that generates trust, are no more but a bunch of complainers who always exaggerate, in addition to being accustomed to evading payment of their taxes instead of getting down to work; and that opinion makers comprise a clutch of opportunists dwelling in ivory towers.

It would be easy to discount all of these, but that would not solve the key conundrum: would such a reading of events make it easy to conclude the governmental term in peace? It is ironic –and revealing- that, in this context, the government recently argued before the Organization for Co-operation and Development (OECD) that there are historical antecedents for the distrust and that this has gone on for decades. The government official was referring to Greece, but the argument is equally relevant for Mexico where the current government has bet on ever larger spending programs, a higher deficit and debt, precisely what brought about the financial crises of the seventies to the nineties.

Beyond the reasons for the electoral outcome, the reality of the country remains the same: an apparently uncontainable subversion in the South; a population without a future due to the lack of an educative system capable of endowing it with the capacity to compete in the world of globalization; an economy structurally incapable of producing high growth rates; a society beleaguered by insecurity and a government without a strategy to create a modern police force and a judiciary at all levels of government; an effete and dysfunctional system of government that does not govern, that does not satisfy the most minimal requisites of performance and that does not create conditions for the society to live in peace and prosper.

The election did bring about a stark dilemma: either the established politicians do it or the independents will. This is not something minor and the challenge is monumental.

No one can dispute the electoral result, but the dilemma persists: victory for what? To continue denying the population the opportunity to prosper? or to enforce the reforms and create a new platform with a view to the future? The former would guarantee that 2018 would prove to be the election of the agitators, whatever their colors. The latter would at least offer the population an opportunity of hope.

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@lrubiof