Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
AMLO is teaming up with the military to alleviate his uncertainty on the June elections as if seeking to mitigate a killing pain. It will be his last resort in the feared eventuality of a total or partial defeat. He does not accept defeats, neither total nor partial. He demands that his candidates win their elected positions and that they obtain, in addition, a qualified majority in Congress. To do so, he calculates that he will need the unrestricted loyalty of the military to achieve his goal of total victory.
The President’s uncertainty about the possible scenarios after June 2 is growing. He knows perfectly well that bought polls are one thing, and the realities of society’s mood are quite another. Social irritation grows as the campaigns advance. The insides of the polls reflect it.
No serious survey shows a positive balance for the government in health, education, security, and corruption. They all show balances in the high or low thirties in favor of the government. The negative opinion is around sixty or seventy percent. It is a fatal result for a government that wants to win everything. Reaching the absurdity of blindness, some polls point out that Sheinbaum is more popular than AMLO. She is a simple user of the President’s political force. On her own, she lacks strength, character, and recognition.
Notably, even the approval of social programs has fallen below 50%. This collapse is because the argument has permeated society that the benefits are just a ruse to force beneficiaries to vote for Sheinbaum forcibly. The importance of this fact is twofold. On the one hand, there is social irritation with the method used by the government to trap citizens in its nets. On the other hand, it seems that society increasingly demands freedom to exercise its vote without pressure and without the interference of government agents in the individual decision on who to vote for.
A clear expression of the uncertainty that invades the President is the presentation, before the Congress of the Union, of 20 bills for constitutional reforms. Many of the points are confusing and mix unrelated areas. Others are poisoned darts for several reasons, such as the reform to the Judicial Power, the disappearance of the autonomous bodies, the incorporation of the National Guard into the Army, the reform to the pensions, the disappearance of the plurinominals, and the National Electoral Institute (INE), among others.
Why does he present the reforms as constitutional matters if he knows beforehand that they will not necessarily be approved since his party does not have a qualified majority in Congress? Many of his proposals are matters of ordinary legislation and do not require their inclusion in the Constitution to be approved. Obviously, the President is not interested in their approval. He wants to take over the campaign discussion and be the great driver of the electoral process. It is urgent for him to be at the center of the debate.
Is it because of idolatry, or is there something else? It is idolatry, but there are other reasons as well. He perceives the weakness of Sheinbaum’s candidacy. He also noticed the growth of Xóchitl’s candidacy and campaign. He urgently needs to stop talking about insecurity and violence, about the disappeared and their murdered relatives. He needs people to quit pointing out the failure of the healthcare system and the ridiculousness of his failed mega-pharmacy, along with the issue of children dying of cancer for lack of medicines. He wants people to stop asking about corruption in his government, starting with his children and other family and friends. And he urgently wants people to stop hearing stories about his relationships with drug traffickers, his conversations with Chapo’s mother, and the release of Ovidio. The DEA reports are poison for him and his entourage. No matter how much he denies it, things are sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of disbelief and questioned by his stumbles and contradictions. The hashtag #PresidenteNarco is permeating, permeating deep with all naturalness. And the issue does not disappear; quite the contrary.
In this scenario of uncertainty, AMLO turns to the Armed Forces as a refuge, ally, and potential protector in the face of future political storms. Moreover, he proposes a pact: he allows them to put their hands thoroughly and without accountability in the public budget and legitimate and illegitimate businesses in exchange for their unrestricted support and loyalty if the results of June 2 are not what he wants, and he would be “forced” to alter the national public order to regain control of the country.
Stated more clearly, if AMLO, Sheinbaum, and Morena find themselves in a situation of weakness because of adverse electoral results, they will want to break the constitutional order to stay in power. There are several routes they could follow: from disregarding the results along with a declaration of a State of Exception in Mexico, with powers to rule by decree (which is the route Pedro Castillo tried in Peru) to a hard coup d’état, Pinochet-style.
It so happens that the Armed Forces would have to accompany the President in any attempt he might stage to keep his current in power. For this reason, and given the prevailing uncertainty, AMLO’s tactical and strategic rapprochement with the Armed Forces is equivalent to releasing the mermaids’ song. It is a seduction project to involve the Armed Forces in his plan of anti-constitutional continuity.
He uses everything he can, from vile corruption to the sale of his “transforming ideology,” to involve the military commanders in his path towards the reproduction of his party and, why not, of himself in power.
The consolidation of his proposal implies, necessarily, the replacement of the Constitution by a new one that facilitates the existence of a legally constituted civil-military regime in Mexico, which will not be able to coexist neither with an independent Judicial Power nor with a Legislative Power with new majorities and minorities. For this reason, he did not go to Queretaro this past February 5. It clarified his position: “This Constitution does not represent me, and I want another one”.
On February 5, he sent his ill-considered initiatives to reform the Constitution. Decision and consequence. The President longs for a consolidated relationship with the Army that will allow him to ensure its absolute and selfless loyalty to the Federal Executive’s plan.
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