Antonio Navalón
Yesterday the country dawned with an unusual tension. Since the 4T came to power and Andrés Manuel López Obrador discovered that his mornings could be used as a space for accusation, persecution, delegitimization, or as a kind of tribunal, rarely had the country found itself at a point of no return like yesterday. And the fact is that let us not fool ourselves; this is a gigantic funeral in which the bells are no longer ringing in honor of the dead, but instead, it is about burying the PRI at any cost and, by doing so, the first principle of political action, which is to go forward and not backward, would also be avoided.
The elections in Coahuila and the State of Mexico were based on trying to answer what we were trying to end with and that what we would build from here on would be based on that great confusion which is the president’s faith in front of the illusion of his people. But when faith is not used to achieve concord and when it is demonstrated that in 2018 the attempts to unite all sectors of society were nothing more than political propaganda, it becomes evident that a country that has no purpose of uniting or practicing forgiveness is a country condemned to repeat the worst of itself.
López Obrador represents faith. It seems he has and exercises faith; however, so far, the product of his faith does not allow us to be optimistic. And while I believe that it is always better to opt for faith in the face of doubt, I also believe it is essential to differentiate between faith and illusion. Naturally, as long as it is not said otherwise, the illusion of these people is based on destroying the past and seeking to build a better future. At best, this exercise can only guarantee a binge of fantasy and a huge vacuum in which there is nothing to offer.
The data are precise, and the results of today’s elections are clear. Although there is one result that the National Electoral Institute cannot measure, and that is the most important. And that is, how do you measure the capacity or the will to build a Mexico in which everyone, regardless of age or socioeconomic status, fits in?
For Mexico’s political discourse, what happened today – both in Coahuila and in the State of Mexico – will be an event that will have almost the same relevance as it will have on June 2, 2024. Officially, there is less than a year to go to the polls and elect the new president of Mexico and the Congress of the Union members. The recent elections in Mexico and Coahuila marked a point of no return and represent the end of the political life conditions we have known so far.
There are those who think that, until today, President López Obrador could do everything how, when and with whom he wanted to do it without any concern or consequence. We thought that this would end with today’s election day. However, if even amid a war like the one he is currently in against the judiciary, he can obtain the electoral results that his party – but mainly him – had, it is undeniable that we have very little to do with what comes from here on. The big question is: how much longer can we manage and rely on faith and spirit alone, having to abandon the demands of our stomachs?
Or, to put it another way, how long will we be able to continue living without taking into account what it costs us to continue in this world of faith that moves mountains, that destroys institutions, that makes and defies the laws of physics and gravity in the Mayan jungle or that invents and runs a new way to make the oil business profitable? And the fact is that Mexicans live in the midst of a dynamic in which everything is based on faith, beyond the lack of data and statistics. The panorama and the government’s actions are governed by the progress and development of the government’s mega works and by the stratospheric investments in refineries that – besides the uncertainty about their future benefits – we do not know if at some point we will end up making an efficient energy transition towards sources that do not depend on fossil fuels.
Modern politics and economics are, above all things, a state of mind. And Mexico’s mood – regardless of its clear disregard for everything happening – is having a very particular Rubicon. Moreover, if I were at the headquarters of this new political era of the country, I would call the attention of the different people responsible for the political and economic reality of the nation. Although miracles are unrepeatable and almost tailor-made, they also reflect the spirit of those who need them most. Miracles usually occur in situations of extreme desperation or when hope is on the verge of disappearing. Today, miracles are scarce in our country when we need them most. And the fact is that as time and political scenarios become increasingly established in this modern Mexico, the possibility of democracy – through the vote – providing a change in the national scenario is also becoming more and more distant.
It isn’t easy to govern without laws. Although it is more complicated to govern by having laws when the first and greatest enemy to their compliance is also the one who is at the head of the country. It is impossible to have fair elections without credible referees; in fact, the system’s fall in the 1988 presidential election was a definitive factor for the configuration of the opposition -with political effectiveness-. However, now we have gone beyond that since we have not only returned to the control of the systems, but we have disappeared the possibility of having any arbitration body. The arbiter is the one who prevents things from happening that lack explanation and who gives certainty to the results; without him, everything is a coin toss with a slight – or too much – bias towards the interests of who really rules the country. A country that – with its clear exceptions – is increasingly characterized by having officials and aspirants with 90% loyalty and 10% efficiency.
All this is what it is. This is the country we live in. This country has the luxury of proposing a great reconciliation campaign with those who are going. I doubt that those in charge would be interested in having any kind of pact to share power because, at the end of the day, they are what they are because they have earned it, not because anyone has given it to them as a gift. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter whether we feel secure or not since the objective and the great legacy of these years has been to seek to guarantee a peace that others can feel – those who benefit directly from the president’s designs – and not by us. We, the rest of us, must know that we must pay with our restlessness and our lives since our lack of solidarity with others automatically condemns us to be guilty of high treason to the nation. However, despite our guilt, no Mexican can be fully exempt from the violent reality that the country is going through. The issue of insecurity is so worrying that no one – not even the president himself – can travel through many areas of the country without fearing for their safety.
We have always admired countries like Costa Rica because they do not have an army and barely have a police force to guarantee order and security in their territory. But, instead of following their example or method of internal control, we have chosen to mutate the essence of our army. And we have done so not precisely because peace and security reign in our streets but because there was such a desire to give the Armed Forces a more current role that they have now consolidated themselves as the preferred division for the administration of airports, highways, and even construction sites. Before, we had them busy or poorly occupied, working to defend us. Now we have them busy regulating our traffic, our airports, or building public works, that is, as long as what they do always coincides with what they think. Today no one can ask a uniformed officer to give his life to defend ours. Nowadays, military personnel risks their lives on the highways, at airports – some of which they can already manage and are expected to have their own airline – or wherever they are sent. Today’s military does not have to spill blood or lose their lives because that is not what we expect of them; we expect them to be good and faithful administrators and builders of infrastructures.
I am sure that somewhere – probably where the eminences and gray matter of this regime dwell – the curriculum is already being prepared in which the knowledge and subject matter of civil engineering will converge with the teachings imparted by the Heroic Military College. All to ensure that, at the same time that one prepares to be a uniformed officer, one also has the preparation in other subjects required by the circumstances. Or, to put it another way, the military will no longer only learn how to guarantee national security or how to win wars – which in the world of the 4T do not exist other than those against internal enemies – but will also be taught how to build bridges, highways, administer customs or whatever else they are commissioned to do. Today we are not looking for the military to combat the multiple threats that afflict us as a society and for which the rates of insecurity are increasingly problematic. Today, the aim is to build and return peace to the citizens using diversifying their functions, without them fulfilling precisely the objectives under which the Armed Forces were created.
The issue of the military transcends politics. It is about a change of identity and direction of the country. The only question to ask is: when or how many more powers will be granted to those with the main function of safeguarding national security? And the fact is that, once the mañaneras are over and we get to the day after tomorrow -which always comes- we will have to determine who will be the one to deal with everything that has been done. It will be someone who has faith and the ability to manage hatred as a fundamental element of political action.
There are those who occasionally forget this, but our country, the wise people, know how to hate. In the past, the bronco Mexico exploded from time to time, and that is why it was so dangerous because it produced elements that we had to put an end to by means of direct confrontation and occasionally with bloodshed. The difference is that now these confrontations are dialectical and occur every morning. Every day has ceased to matter; now we explode and hate every morning; thank goodness the question we can ask ourselves is whether our children will like life so much that they will take it upon themselves to sort out everything that is done every afternoon. Anyway, it is not that it had much importance – which I believe it has all – but we must recognize that this Reich is not of a thousand years; it is the time decided by the Lord Jesus Christ, with whom our president gets along well.
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