Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The threat to democracy is a worldwide phenomenon, not only in Mexico. One of the results of the pandemic was the global economic lethargy that has caused democratic systems to be under severe questioning. From the fascist right and totalitarian left, regimes that were beacons of freedom and tolerance emerged from the pandemic and economic crisis with polarized societies in conflict.
The clearest example is in Brazil, where a right-wing pro-coup is showing its teeth against democracy because the new left-wing and centrist government barely won the election by a few votes. That closeness in the number of votes allowed the polarizing discourse to grow to levels that today have the appearance of a coup. The same happened with Trump and his invasion of the U.S. Capitol, although the difference in votes was more significant. The truth does not matter the intention to stay in power matters.
Nicaragua, a long-standing beacon of the revolutionary left and a successful movement that defeated a bloody dictatorship, has degenerated into an implacable and ferocious totalitarianism, consuming its own comrades, like the Greek god Saturn devouring his son. Something similar, and more tragic, has happened with the Cuban revolution, which has become a civil-military dictatorship in the style of any right-wing dictatorship.
Those nostalgic for the “socialist revolution” and the utopian notions that go with it are today convinced that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a conflict between socialism and capitalism. Or, as Putin puts it, between Nazism and the Great Russian Empire. The indisputable fact is that this current war, so violent and painful, draws the line between the possibility of living in an open, pluralistic and liberal market society and an authoritarian one with a centralized economy under the command of the leader, where democracy is irrelevant and misogyny and hatred of homosexuality reign as the moral beacons of society.
The war in Ukraine is about the very existence of liberal democracy and the forces of authoritarianism that want to destroy it.
Because of these essential questions about how we want to live and develop as a society, the conflicts facing Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Ukraine-Russia are relevant to Mexico. In essence, we are debating the same issues.
Mexico moves between an ambiguous democracy and strong tendencies towards a sui generis authoritarianism. López Obrador’s government and the movement that follows him move like a cloud towards an authoritarian regime, trying to take over the organs of the State via its disappearance or colonization. His idea is that a plural, democratic and tolerant society is the anathema of his perspective of a “popular democracy” where decisions should be made in the public square and by a show of hands or with customized polls, not in a Congress with legislators elected by the various parties. This idea of popular democracy is what underlies the offer of López Obrador and his followers because it is much easier to manipulate a mass in the public square than to manage positions of different forces with whom it would be necessary to negotiate, clarifying all parts and looking for intermediate points of agreement.
With ambiguities and evasions, Lopez Obrador supports the Russian invasion of Ukraine because the model of governance exercised by Putin is very similar to what Lopez Obrador aspires to in Mexico. Putin also enjoys the sympathy of Maduro in Venezuela and Diaz Canel in Cuba, having openly traveled to Russia to support his war against Ukraine. Ortega in Nicaragua has invited Russian warships to his ports and opened his arms to Russian soldiers in his territory.
The pattern of not recognizing electoral institutions in Mexico goes back a long way. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas could never concede his electoral defeats and established a path followed by López Obrador. They only recognize their victories. That is the great danger for 2024: that López Obrador does not acknowledge the defeat of his candidate and behaves like Bolsonaro in Brazil and Trump in the United States. They all bring the same discourse when it comes to contested elections. If López Obrador loses, he will not recognize the result. As of now, it is a fact. The question is whether society will accept that challenge.
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