Luis Rubio
After the victory comes the hangover. A legitimate and unobjectionable triumph that does not alter the structural problem the country is facing -and has been facing since before. The new president will have to decide whether to deal with the political reality that underlies the formal political structure or to let it pass, trusting that the deterioration will be manageable. The first path would open the possibility of governing and perhaps more. The second would sacrifice any possibility of achieving the agenda the electorate endorsed with their vote. Or worse.
The country has evolved systematically throughout the last half-century in its political dimension. Still, it has been the product of circumstances, not of a transition plan like the one in other latitudes. No one expressly and consciously led the political transition; instead, it was done as little as necessary or as much as possible, depending on the point of view of each political actor, to prevent a collapse or to advance a process. In contrast to the economic reforms, which at least in concept followed a coherent logic, in the political sphere, the reforms were responding to social and political demands and, more frequently, to the changing electoral and criminal environment.
The result is the disappearance of the institutional anchors that gave the country decades of stability in the previous century, without consolidating the democratic institutional framework that has been developing since the 1990s and never fully took hold. Consequently, today’s political problems are nothing like those that existed when demands such as those of the 1968 student movement or when the then-three dominant parties approved the landmark electoral reform of 1996.
Here, I will address how the political system has changed in recent decades and, especially, what this process of change has yielded for the moment we live, now with a new government that enjoys enormous legitimacy. The nodal point of the argument is that the president will head a government that possesses all the formal power but not the real power. The latter is not due to the presence of López Obrador but to the lack of an institutional structure to rule, regulate, and control political participation in the broadest sense of the term: the real powers -political, criminal, regional, union, business- that swarm all over the country. A difference of this magnitude between formal and real power should concern the new government and society as a whole. And that circumstance is what distinguishes us from fully democratic countries that can undergo radical changes of government without everything being put in jeopardy.
A logical first question is why this is significant today, i.e., what changed to make the approach relevant at this time? The answer, subject to further elaboration in the following paragraphs, is very simple: President López Obrador, because of his personality and political skill, managed to maintain the appearance of normality even though the country was fragmenting underneath, in full view of everyone. It is doubtful that the new president will enjoy the same privilege: it is much more likely that the cacique, caudillo, and criminal phenomenon will grow and, perhaps, consolidate.
The structural problem can be summarized very simply: the reality of the Mexico of 2024 bears no resemblance to that of the post-revolutionary era; it does not have the institutional mechanisms that characterized the PRI era, nor did it achieve an integral transition to democracy. The stability factor throughout the 20th century was the party founded and structured by Plutarco Elías Calles after the assassination of Álvaro Obregón; it was the party that institutionalized political life, regulated the competition for power, exercised iron control over the different sectors of society and, in general, maintained peace. These circumstances favored the economy’s growth, urbanization, and the emergence of a middle class. At the same time, the nature of that system sowed the seeds of its own eventual destruction: political success alienated the middle class, as seen in the student movement of 1968, and controls over economic activity stifled the economy to the point of requiring reforms that weakened or eliminated that structure of controls. For decades, since 1929, the party -first PNR, then PRM, and then PRI- would be the factor of stability and political continuity above the formal power structures.
The electoral reform of 1996 initiated the transition towards democracy: several institutions were built in the political sphere as well as for the economy and, in general, for social interaction, whose objective was the same as that of Calles, but for a society that had evolved and demanded open political participation. In this context, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation was reformed, and the regulatory agencies (competition, telecommunications, energy, etc.) and the electoral institutions were created: the IFE/INE and the respective Tribunal. Since the nineties, the presidents have respected the institutional framework. Still, President López Obrador, a constant critic of the economic and political reforms, evidenced how fragile they are and, above all, the lack of legitimacy of most of these entities. In no time at all, the president neutralized, eliminated, weakened, or destroyed one by one these bodies. The country was left without institutional structures, but it was not formally noticed mainly because of the president’s personality, whose narrative rhetoric and political skill maintained control of the political processes. Now, in the twilight of his six-year term, the vacuum of institutions will be inevitably present.
This is not a hidden reality: crime, to take the most obvious example, is a product of the lack of institutions dedicated to the population’s security. The inability of the citizenry to obtain justice (the so-called common law) testifies to the lack of a Judicial Power dedicated to the issues that most trouble the citizenry. In more political terms, the murders of candidates and the absence of rules (and the capacity to enforce them) in the electoral and partisan spheres are also palpable examples. The country went from an era of vertical controls imposed from above by an all-powerful Presidency (regularly) through the official party to a costly and complicated institutional framework that did not fulfill its mission and proved not to be able to resist the presidential onslaught, an essential characteristic of any institution. The government that is about to conclude functioned due to the charismatic nature of its leadership, which is extinguished with the six-year term.
The old political system was constituted to deal with cacicazgos, caudillismos, political leaders, and other factors of regional, union, and political power that emerged with the end of the Revolution. One feasible scenario is to return to a similar pattern, with the addition of the criminal factor, which is already the factotum in many regions of the country. In fact, hints of this perspective can already be perceived in the form of the regional control exercised by various criminal groups, in the way regional leaders conduct themselves, and in the emergence of actors that, in fact, dispute power with the formally constituted authorities. It is not excessive to imagine a scenario where what is normal in certain regions begins to take place at the federal level, testing the capacity and willingness of the new president to respond to challenges of this nature.
This structural problem dramatically reduces the capacity to govern, creating a paradox: most of the country is not governed or controlled, but legislation can be processed that reduces or makes it difficult for the citizenry, the raison d’être of the government itself, to function.
The end of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government opens a new stage for the Mexican political system. In the last half-century, Mexico went from a system highly structured around a political party, a complex system of participation and control, to a shallow democracy with weak institutions that have now been significantly eroded, if not destroyed. Thanks to the strength of his personality and political skill, López Obrador maintained the cohesion of Mexican politics in general and of his party in particular, which hid the severe and accelerated political erosion that was occurring behind the scenes. With the succession resolved, the risks and fractures the winner and the country will have to deal with will become evident. The president, who ends his six-year term, planned to concentrate, consolidate, and exercise power, his own, but not for the country’s future.
For this reason, the end of the electoral cycle that elected Claudia Sheinbaum president will not be identical to those of the past. With this election, the country reached a turning point, not because of the result itself or the people involved, but because the process, the background, and the imponderables that were evidenced along the way exposed the political system and showed the fragility of the country, the risks of the government of and by a single person and, above all, the impossibility of continuing along this path. The new victors will not recognize the fragility, but they will soon experience it.
President López Obrador is unrepeatable because of his characteristics and circumstances, as well as because of Mexico’s moment. Therefore, as soon as the next government takes office, the shortcomings will become evident: the lack of structures, institutions, and rules of the game, and the counterpart: the propensity to violence or other means, legal or illegal, to advance particular interests and objectives. All this augurs a new political era, very different from the one that existed decades ago or from the one experienced in this six-year term that is about to end.
This is not the first time the country has faced such a challenge, but the solutions used in the past are no longer possible. Now, in the twilight of the six-year term, the country will have to start dealing with the consequences of the fragility of the institutional structures built in recent decades and the intentional destruction undertaken by the government that is coming to an end.
Under normal conditions, one would have expected a gradual collapse of the political system due to the virtual disappearance of the institutional mechanisms associated with the PRI era and the deterioration that has been experienced as a result of President López Obrador’s onslaught on the recently created institutional framework. And yet, that collapse has not occurred, aside from the deterioration that the citizenry is experiencing in numerous areas (such as those briefly described above, including the health system, education, and the like). My impression, as I have already mentioned, is that this deterioration has not become evident primarily because of the characteristics of the president himself. His personality, particular skills, and way of operating maintained the appearance of control, which is a situation that is unlikely to be kept in the foreseeable future.
The formal structure of the Mexican political system has never corresponded to the reality of power. In the 20th century, there was a Judicial and a Legislative Power; however, the dominance of the Executive was legendary but tempered by the existence of the official party, whose institutional structure favored the replacement of elites and the continuity of power. The structure of political control and institutionality of the PRI was gradually degraded by the normal evolution of society, economic changes, and, over time, the advent of electoral competition in a democratic context. Given this, significant questions remain that only time will elucidate, beginning with the president’s power after the government of his successor begins and the potential emergence of competitive power structures: regional or national caudillos. In other words, the weakness of institutions is gaining new momentum as an issue of paramount importance.
Twenty-eight years after the landmark electoral reform of 1996, the country has advanced in certain aspects but has regressed in many others and, due to the laws (and tactics) promoted by the government in electoral matters (the famous Plan B followed by Plan C), can no longer discount the probability of a further deterioration in both political and security matters. The tremendous electoral achievement -certainty about the process, but not about the outcome- could well be reversed in an attempt to impose an outcome outside the electorate’s will. That reform, a great citizen triumph -perhaps the greatest in our history- could be in its last days.
The great paradox of the present moment lies in the contrast between the enormous power accumulated by the president-elect and her party in the recent elections and the real powers that have grown throughout the country; this should also include Morena itself, an entity not organized as a political party that, in the absence of its leader, could well fragment into groupings challenging the central power. Such a scenario would not be uncommon in any democracy, but given Morena’s unstructured nature, the tendency to split is high. That is to say, it is not evident that the numbers achieved by Morena in the two legislative chambers always work in the president’s favor or that they could not be a source of conflict or threat to her projects.
In the realm of real power, it remains to be seen how the new government and the multiple organizations of organized crime will relate to each other (and the strategy to be adopted), the extent to which the governors accept to submit to the federal government, a matter that is also linked to the real regional powers, including the criminal one; the military and the definition of the President’s choice of the areas in which it should operate; and, no less relevant, the international financial markets, which have already shown a tremendous disruptive capacity, even if it has only been a small sample. Internally, the recent election was won with a vast advantage by the government that is about to be born, but this does not imply that it won with 100 % of the electorate: the opposition may not be very organized, but it represents 40 % of the citizenship and that number, as it happened in 2021, can grow at any time, altering the structure of real power in Mexican society. Ignoring this obvious element could be a big mistake: democracy is fluid, and every triumph, no matter how big, is temporary.
Needless to add, many of these poisoned legacies pale compared to the risks that could result from a mismanagement of the relationship with the United States, on whose economy the welfare of the majority of the population depends. The point is very simple: formal and real power are contrasting, to say the least. The latter should be taken with caution because the country could well experience the paradox mentioned above: an enormous capacity to alter the institutional and legal order internally (i.e., modify the formal structure of the country) but be prevented from functioning at the level of territorial, financial and political reality.
Finally, how the president will deal with her predecessor remains to be defined. In the Mexican political tradition of the 20th century, it was usual for the winner in the (internal) race for the Presidency to show a sense of gratitude and loyalty to his predecessor; none of this prevented the logic of power from prevailing and, as the old politicians say, the winner, in this case, the winner, ended up being his executioner. That said, it is clear that the still President López Obrador is not a typical character. Still, mythical leaders enjoy temporary advantages, which almost always end up being ephemeral in the long term. The consequences of a government with poor results -arrogant and, at the same time, modest in its objectives- will be paid sooner or later, and that will happen when the successor has the conditions to assert her power and her responsibility, which is not shareable.
The challenge for the new president is monumental, and the sources of potential conflict are multiple, with the aggravating factor that many of the actors with real power could imagine her as weak simply because she is a woman. In this context, the absence of institutions entails much more significant risks than what is apparent. The supposed country of institutions runs the risk of fragmenting under the shadow of caudillos, regional leaders, and organized crime, all of this in the middle of the 21st century with an economy that lives and functions only thanks to a free trade agreement with our complex northern neighbor. The president does not have it easy, but if she focuses on building institutions that enjoy broad legitimacy, she will hopefully leave a more transcendent legacy than her predecessor.
Luis Rubio is President of México Evalúa. His most recent book is La nueva disputa sobre el futuro de México (Grijalbo).
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