Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
2023 will be a complex year for President López Obrador. It is the penultimate year of the six-year term, a year of conclusions and closings of works and achievements. The year of the balance of what was done and what was not done. He must start preparing for his post-presidency exam. And I suspect he does not feel at ease with what he sees. The revolution of consciences and the definitive transformation of the country with a new economic model has not occurred as he foresaw a few years ago.
Before assuming the Presidency, he stated that “it is very easy to govern”. Now we know that he only referred to handling the instruments of power to intimidate and coerce society. He was definitely not referring to the transformation of society. We also know that he had no idea or plan for it because had he had them, he would have started his administration with significant modifications to the current legislation in economic, energy, and security matters and with a profound political and fiscal reform. But no, he did not. His great reform of the first half of his six-year term was the constitutional reform to institute the figure of the “revocation of mandate”. That is to say, from day one, he was more interested in guaranteeing the possibility of his reelection than in the construction of a new society.
To think that three constructions such as AIFA, Tren Maya, and Dos Bocas, in addition to handing out money to the poor indiscriminately, were the beginning of “a new society, a transformation of consciences” is, in reality, a ridiculous magical thinking and a deliberate deception. He recently confirmed it when he said that “handing out money is the political project of this government; it is to win elections”. He was thinking of the next election, not the next generation, as Winston Churchill said.
But time -that implacable measure that defines us all is imposing itself even on a self-satisfied subject like López Obrador. He sees the end of his six-year term approaching. He knows he must start cleaning up the mess of the country he is leaving behind if he does not want to leave a legacy that he dedicated himself to destroying everything without building anything in its place. This is how I read Ovidio’s words: it was a pending matter that he had to solve before the end of the six-year term to erase the image of the President-narco. It remains to be seen if it is true and if it works for him.
It is the case of AIFA, without access roads and half-finished. He is rushing the construction of the airport without road access, a refinery that is flooding, and a train that is destroying the environment, to cut ribbons. He cut the ribbon at Dos Bocas: when only an office had been completed, and the refinery was in question. He will do the same at some point with the Mayan Train, cutting the ribbon with many rails still to be laid. He forgets how his followers built Metro Line 12, irresponsibly rushing the work to cut the ribbon. And that Metro could be the political death of Morena.
That’s how he thinks, not in the people, nor in what is economically convenient, or in matters of human or planetary security. He thinks of himself. He thinks as the director of an electoral campaign, where the only thing that matters is to win votes. The excesses produced in the process will be “taken care of later”. This level of irresponsibility, however, has a limit. And the limit is time, which will define when their work ends, and the recounting of their achievements and failures begins.
The time is coming for accountability and the definition of his legacy. The President must feel cold in the face of meager achievements and significant failures. He knows better than anyone: there has been no transformation, no revolution of consciences, and society is not satisfied. Poverty, insecurity, violence, and institutional destruction have increased, and, worst of all, he leaves behind a fractured, dissatisfied and resentful society.
This is the legacy that AMLO leaves in his twilight.
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