Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
With each passing day, and with each revelation about the previous six-year term that comes to light, AMLO looks more and more like Evo Morales. Both in their political styles, but more importantly, in their practices of how to exercise power. When AMLO’s government rescued Evo Morales and brought him to Mexico, it seemed to be just another example of Mexico’s heroic tradition of solidarity with the politically persecuted. But as time goes by, it becomes clear that it was a gesture of obligation to a brother, a kindred spirit. It was much more than solidarity. It was a rescue of himself.
Evo Morales captured the mind and imagination of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He was an example of the “role model,” according to López Obrador. Evo governed according to the rules established by the São Paulo Forum. Those rules sought to take power through elections and then strip the political system of any institutional mechanisms that could hinder the perpetuation of the socialist-popular project in power.
There are six premises of the São Paulo Forum that its supporters are instructed to follow.
- Elimination of presidential term limits. The instruction was to eliminate any legal impediment to indefinite reelection to the presidency.
- Capture of the judicial system. The slogan was to eliminate the courts or, if necessary, colonize and control them with judges sympathetic to the political project.
- Political persecution. Promote the harassment, imprisonment, and persecution of regime opponents.
- Politicization of the Armed Forces. In essence, the intention was to ideologically corrupt the Armed Forces so they would become the repressive arm of the ruling political project.
- Expansion of state interventionism. The welfare state must create patronage networks that are totally dependent on state subsidies.
- Infiltration of culture. Establish control and direction of the education of children and young people at all levels of instruction, from the cradle to university, so that they conform to the ideas of the movement.
These premises are faithfully applied by Morena in Mexico, starting with López Obrador’s six-year term. At one time, they were very successful in Latin America. Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala were followers. Despite its nuances and different emphases across nations, the São Paulo Forum project advanced strongly.
AMLO followed the Forum’s “6-Point Plan.” The only thing he was unable to achieve was eliminating the constitutional impediment to reelection. He attempted this through the mechanism of Mandate Revocation, but the vote failed because it did not secure the number of votes necessary for ratification. However, he did succeed in corrupting the rest of the national political system, including the Armed Forces. That corruption has become normalized in the party that governs Mexico. What holds Morena together is corruption and the desire for power, not ideology. The party operates like a mafia. They take resources with impunity from the public treasury, from kickbacks, or from drug trafficking, and no one can denounce anyone else because everyone has skeletons in their closet. And, in illustrative cases such as that of the Mexican Navy and the fiscal fuel theft, whistleblowing is reason enough to receive the death penalty.
Evo Morales understood the essential reason behind two fundamental actions of his government, actions that maintained the power he passed on to López Obrador. The first action is the need to corrupt the high command of the Armed Forces. If he cannot get them to share the movement’s ideology, he must at least get them to feel a mafia-like commitment not to confront the authorities because of their personal businesses or their commitments to drug cartels, under penalty of going to jail. AMLO easily corrupted the Armed Forces by giving them access to rivers of public money, without the slightest need to account for their spending, under the National Security Law.
Today, we see the Secretaries of Defense and the Navy attending Morena political events in the Zócalo in uniform. Their presence confirms their obedience and discipline to the party’s mandate, not to constitutional institutions. It was not a Mexican State event; it was a Morena event, and there they were, standing at attention, in violation of their constitutional mandate. All because López Obrador corrupted the Armed Forces. And Sheinbaum continues the same tradition imposed on Mexico by the São Paulo Forum methodology.
The other action that Evo imposed on his Mexican friend was the popular election of judges to ensure that their judicial decisions align with the needs and thinking of the “movement.” The judiciary served Evo well while he remained president. And out of power, the judiciary was used by his “traveling companion,” President Arce, to persecute Evo. There were situations where one day, a judge loyal to Arce convicted Evo of pedophilia, and the next day, another judge appointed by Evo acquitted him of the charge. They continued like this until both lost power. Now both are being accused of pedophilia, one, and corruption, the other.
Following Evo’s advice, AMLO enacted a law requiring the election of judges by popular vote in Mexico. But Mexico is not Bolivia. Many people don’t even know where Bolivia is. But Mexico survives alongside the United States, its largest trading partner. The United States demands that Mexico have a stable rule of law and an independent and autonomous judiciary. A judicial system tied to the ruling party, whose ideological preferences are anti-imperialist and anti-Yankee, is not acceptable. Nor does it accept a rule of law that changes daily, depending on who dominates Congress: the radicals of Morena or its moderates.
In both cases, the corruption of the armed forces and the total control of the judiciary are mandates López Obrador received from his friend Evo and has fully complied with. He also imposed new compulsory textbooks in an attempt to standardize the dumbing down of Mexican students with the so-called New Mexican School. The policy of state welfare is part of the recipe imposed from outside, as is the policy of relentless persecution of the opposition, along with the refusal to dialogue with those who do not subordinate themselves to his instructions. The mafia mandate of “cooperate or die” prevails.
However, here we are, twenty years later, and Mexico is left alone. All the allies and members of the Forum have lost power, died, or are in prison, either in their own countries or in the United States. Sheinbaum is following the Forum’s plan, but no one believes in it anymore. It is only a matter of time before the “6-Point Plan” in Mexico also fails, which will probably be shortly after the demise of the Cuban Revolution. That is, when our isolation is total, and Mexico is at its weakest.
@pascoe
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