Antonio Navalón
Watching the steps taken by the six-year term of the 4T and the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, it is inevitable to realize the different situations we must analyze sooner rather than later. One of the biggest problems we will have tomorrow, when that tomorrow arrives and the context is not predetermined by the morning press conferences and everything that occupies us today, will be to determine how to extract and assign the responsibilities that the models of the 20th century had during this government. Andrés Manuel López Obrador was born in the 20th century, like most who read this editorial space. The Mexican leader was created with the last century’s government systems, fears, and legends. He grew up and believed that the organization of the State he was taught was based on the supremacy of a single party with a single vision and agenda. This aimed at honoring, on the one hand, the Mexican Revolution and, on the other hand, seeking to follow the Zapatista dream of defending the poorest.
Whichever way you look at it, from Lázaro Cárdenas to the purchase of grains by Conasupo, López Obrador’s president is a man of the 20th century. That is why all the accounts we are now making about every move he makes must have the benchmarks in our ruler’s heart. Regarding his constant desire to fight against corruption, it is necessary to know that – although corruption is one – there are different degrees, motivations, and exercises of corruption in the face of which there can be different attitudes. For example, if a friend, a former boss, or someone who bet on us is or has been placed at the head of a body designed according to the characteristics stipulated in the 20th century – but which no longer apply in this century – as is the case of Segalmex, in case something goes wrong, he will never be the bad guy in the story. For the one who governs us, he will not be a man responsible for what happened, but rather an innocent man who was trapped by the consequences of trusting someone he should not have trusted and who found himself involved in a pillar of fire and contaminated by that relationship that exists when business is done under cover of corruption.
This is happening in our country, with one of the issues that have caused the most havoc to the current administration. In his time, President López Obrador accused his predecessors and swore to pursue to the last consequences those responsible for the case known as the “Master Swindle”, an embezzlement that represented a little more than seven thousand six hundred million pesos and in which more than ten federal agencies were involved. Just for the sake of size, the embezzlement for which Segalmex and its former director – whom our President defended by saying he is the victim of betrayal and the fault of the old regimes – are being accused already exceeded fifteen billion pesos. Some argue that this is the biggest fraud ever committed by a government agency, but regardless of this, what matters is what is evident before everyone’s eyes: corruption; whoever committed it has to be prosecuted and punished. Or, could it be that friendship with the all-powerful is enough for one to go unpunished despite what has been committed?
It is not possible for an elementary reason. One cannot judge as an innocent white dove someone who, in reality, could be a cunning snake, regardless of the relationships and links he may have. When one has the responsibility and trust granted by the supreme leader, the only thing that happens is that this only obliges more to comply with the mission received in the sacred name of the people of Mexico. And it is less viable to avoid the corresponding responsibilities when since the beginning of this six-year term of office, it has been sought at all costs to differentiate a good administration from a corrupt one.
The Segalmex case is on its way to becoming a reference case. Not for improving the corruption ranking – in which we occupy position 126 out of 180 countries evaluated by the Corruption Perception Index – but because, unintentionally, this case makes true or false the statement that President López Obrador made in 2017 when he said: “I do not put my hands in the fire for any person, not even from Morena”. And we believed him; we all believed him and thought that, indeed, with him, corruption would end.
Undoubtedly, with a regime as strong as the one built by the PRI in which he was formed and within which he had the career he had, it was possible to resist different corruption battles without destroying the State. At this moment, the country that Andrés Manuel López Obrador is forging is a country in formation. Naturally, a harmful virus such as corruption can infect it – by cause or not, by action or omission – and cause devastating effects. Effects that would directly affect his public credibility and the battle the president has sought to lead since he received the presidential sash five years ago.
Another recent issue that has made its way onto the national agenda is what has happened with Iberdrola. The step of nationalization and the principle of energy sovereignty based on the previous century has taken an irreversible step. The Mexican State, through a trust led and managed by Mexico Infrastructure Partners, announced last Tuesday the purchase from Iberdrola of 13 of its power plants installed in the country for approximately six billion dollars. After this, CFE will now have 55% of our country’s electricity generation, ending a long battle. With this, some of the claims made by President López Obrador are forgotten, such as the presence and interference of the private sector in the generation of energy in Mexico, which at times was directly addressed to Iberdrola.
Starting with the original sin of having dared to appoint the former Secretary of Energy as Board Member, Dr. Georgina Kessel, who was responsible for overseeing the steps of companies such as Iberdrola in Mexico, López Obrador was in constant confrontation with the Spanish company. The second was the claim made about hiring former President Felipe Calderón, also as a board member, arguing that this was one of the reasons why they dominated the electricity market. A claim that, after having sealed the pact, he fueled again, saying that hiring the former president was “a shame and a disgrace”.
With these two antecedents, it was implied that Iberdrola had no place in the Mexican firmament and that, no matter what happened and regardless of how long the war lasted, it was an impossible war to overcome the foreign private equity. Equity that we must not forget is in the hands of the largest funds, which from time to time like to come to the National Palace and take a picture with President López Obrador; such is the case of BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink.
Regardless of Fink’s involvement in selling Iberdrola’s assets in Mexico, the acquisition of the aforementioned power plants is an intrinsic statement based on the fact that today we are more nationalistic, having managed to nationalize a significant part of the electricity sector. Another thing is that no one dares to ask for efficient results in the administration of the national electricity industry.
As once happened in a fashionable country like Russia, the important thing was not how much more grain was harvested in Ukraine with the regime change, but simply that the regime change could even manage the hunger of all Russias. Here we are not talking about what effects it will have on production costs and in terms of increasing the nation’s electrical strength, but rather to make it clear that things are done differently in this administration. For López Obrador, this is another way of demonstrating that those who dared to raise their voice trying to buy in the temple of democracy the figure of a president paid – well, it is true that having cashed in – but they paid with their expulsion from the Mexico of the 4T.
This is an obvious example that the current Mexican government is anchored in the past. According to President Lopez Obrador, the eight hundred billion pesos we were going to save per year with the end of corruption were going to allow financing the development of a fair and equal future for all the sectors that make up Mexican society. Furthermore, this fight would end the kleptocracy of the past and put a stop to those who were plundering and embezzling the country. The Segalmex case has become the litmus test of what corruption means and represents in the 4T. But, above all, this case has been the test of how far the president intends to go since, at the end of the day, as he said in the past, he is not willing to put his hands in the fire for anyone, not even for his eldest sons. The only person he could do it for was his youngest son. Now it is not that someone has deceived his friend Ovalle; it is that, in reality, we, the people of Mexico, are the ones who have been tricked.
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