Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
President López Obrador’s recent visit to the port of Acapulco after the disastrous impact of Hurricane “Otis” made it clear that he does not want to tarnish his shoes with the mud of the tragedy. His distance from the population is due to a central concern of the President: he does not want to “stain” the presidential investiture. More profoundly, it illustrates the scenographic method of governing adopted by AMLO and, with him, the 4T.
He is more concerned about his political image than putting attention, effort, and money into repairing the tragedy of the inhabitants of the port of Acapulco. When he went to the port, he saw everything from a distance, with armed guards around him, without talking to the people. He only listened to those close to him, all submissive to presidential instructions. He had refused to receive the members of a citizens’ march from Acapulco, who walked to the National Palace and asked for a private audience to analyze the necessary actions to reconstruct the port.
He refused to talk to the families of the many missing boatmen. The only reason that would explain such gross disregard by the President is that he does not want to listen to situations that would force him to modify his numbers, for example, of the dead. The numbers of the disappeared, the numbers of the stoves and refrigerators he claims to have distributed, and the number of days and weeks in which everything will be “as before” in Acapulco.
A visit from inland would say otherwise; it would say that the people are suffering and suffering a lot, that they do not have the resources to rebuild their destroyed houses on their own, as the President asked them to do. He called them to self-construction when they did not even have enough to eat. Acapulco was an economy based on the presence of tourism. Take away tourism, and Acapulco’s economy disappears.
AMLO went to the Asia-Pacific Summit to meet with the Chinese president. What was the substance of the conversation? It was not primarily about the importation of fentanyl precursors into Mexico, as disclosed by the Chinese, contradicting Mexico, who claimed to have touched on the subject. In that meeting, the vital thing for AMLO was that he begged the Chinese to “give us” hundreds of thousands of refrigerators, stoves, and fans for the victims of Acapulco. López Obrador does not even want to pay for that.
Given that his “State” priority is the completion of the Mayan Train and the Dos Bocas refinery, having to divert money to Acapulco is simply an annoyance on the way to the conclusion of his six-year term. To disguise his alienation, he sends the Servidores de la Nación to conduct censuses and, thus, create the impression that the federal government is attending to the issue of Acapulco’s reconstruction.
But in reality, the federal government no longer has money available to attend to emergencies or any extraordinary expenses since everything is committed to the conclusion of the mega-works and the financing of Morena to win next year’s elections. Period. There is no money for anything else. The Trust Fund for Natural Disasters (FONDEN) money was spent two years ago. Likewise, all the funds obtained from the trusts it closed down have already been depleted. The federal government is so overspent that it has to ask for a gigantic public debt of two trillion pesos to survive for one more year.
This when it had promised not to indebt the country since the debt “was a thing of the past”. Well, the past became present and has become our indebted future to sustain the fiction of the country’s transformation.
AMLO’s and the 4T’s method of governing is to pretend that all problems were solved or taken care of. When they unexpectedly appear, such as the hurricane in Acapulco, he acts as if it is a fiction invented by opponents who want to poison the country’s mind. It is the “gaslighting and scenography” method, but on a national scale, treating the population as stupid and ignorant of their tragedy. According to the “AMLO truth” verse, those alleging government abandonment of Acapulco only lie for personal gain.
AMLO handles the crisis in Acapulco as if what happened is over and everything is back to normal. And he attacks those who differ with him. This is how he treats the rest of the country: a hostage to the temperamental President whose investiture is sacred and no one is allowed to question it. Much less when it comes from some troublemakers from Acapulco, Guerrero.
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