Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The federal government, especially the President, wants to kick the complex and difficult national problems to the government that will assume office in eleven months. It is an expression of their frustration and surrender in the face of the insurmountable complexity of the national moment.
The President’s alienated response to the crisis created in Guerrero by Hurricane Otis stems from this attitude. By wanting to evade all responsibility for the outcome of the tragedy and, later, listening to the furious response to the criticism that his own conduct has generated, it is evident that he is a President who does not know what to do with the assignment and wants to evade his constitutional and political responsibilities.
His insistence on evading the current responsibilities of the federal government and passing them on to the next six-year term portrays a defeated President. It is no coincidence, then, that the only thing this President aspires to abandon power is for his candidate to win the election, by hook or by crook, and thus ensure legal protection for him and his family for the next few years.
The same lack of concern that the President projects in the case of the Acapulco tragedy, he employs in almost all his other activities. Entrusting the National Army and the Navy with the rescue of Acapulco is the total and absolute abdication of his task as a ruler. These institutions can bring order and security to the port, but in no way do they have the capacity, neither conceptual, intellectual, or professional training, for reconstructing a tourist zone such as Acapulco. In addition to the physical reconstruction, there is the challenge of protecting the population from diseases, water supply, food, transportation, education, health, and housing for impoverished and desperate people. It requires a lot of political and media management adapted to a crisis.
This is not a task for the Army and the Navy, two institutions that should be accompanying, but not managing, the rescue of the Guerrero coast. It is a task for civilian authorities. However, in his desperation and because of his professional claudication, the President has opted to hand over the entire mission and the public budget for rescuing the coast of Guerrero to the military. This is a crass mistake by a ruler who abandoned his six-year responsibility.
The reason why AMLO eliminated the Trust Fund for Natural Disasters (FONDEN) was to dedicate all those funds to the construction of the Mayan Train. He did the same thing with the Equity Fund that he took away from Mexico City, counting on the passivity and subordination of the then Chief of Government, Claudia Sheinbaum. He never expected that his six-year term would end with the city of Acapulco, a symbol of the international tourism industry on Mexican beaches, in ruins. Being a President with little foresight, the hurricane obviously took him by surprise, as it did his entire government because he had eliminated funds for pre-warning systems for meteorological situations of this order. The United States did warn, but Mexico did not listen.
By eliminating everything related to emergencies, basic infrastructural needs, and funds to take care of urban areas, the President dug his own grave. Sheinbaum also did this by eliminating maintenance funds for the Subway, and the tragedy that was almost textbooked happened: 26 dead. And that money went to the primary presidential fantasies: Dos Bocas and Tren Maya.
Acapulco will take approximately ten years to recover, hampered by incompetent, corrupt federal and state governments with other priorities incompatible with the national reconstruction tasks unless the electorate has the intelligence to correct the country’s course.
Whoever heads the next federal government will face the consequences of the wrong priorities of this government and its wastefulness in works that will be endless budgetary burdens, as they lack profitability. In addition, he will face a military corps with tax-free money in its coffers and unaccustomed to being accountable, as should be the case in any democratic society.
Acapulco is, to put it coldly, the latest symptom of a failed government.
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