Antonio Navalón
It is well known that for many leaders, the easiest thing to do, instead of assuming leadership responsibly and capably, is to blame their predecessors for the mistakes and shortcomings that plague the present. Without acceptance, there is no responsibility. The problem is that in Mexico, we have spent more than seven years blaming those who left power long ago, and, honestly, blaming them will not fix anything.
Mexico has become the land of unfulfilled promises and dreams. A country where a leader arrives every six years to take us on a journey of illusion and hope, only to lead us through the valley of disappointment and despair.
A country, like a person—because in essence a country is nothing more than the sum of millions of wills—can look back on its past with sympathy or suspicion, but, whatever the case, it must incorporate it into its common heritage.
There is no text without context, no history without continuity. In this sense, we must be aware that our history has sometimes been written by friends, sometimes by adversaries, and sometimes, most often, by those who lead and shape the country’s political—but also the economic and social—reality.
In a situation of political defenselessness as great as that currently facing the Mexican Republic, with a monopoly on power as secure as that granted by more than 35 million voters, and with a majority in Congress and the Senate as that held by the current administration, everything they have come up with—and everything they may come up with—has ended up becoming law.
López Obrador’s 4T promised change, and today, with his successor, who, incidentally, is the most voted person in the country’s history and also has the distinction and pride of being the first woman to be head of state, he is achieving it at a devastating pace.
We may be witnessing the birth of a movement that can do without making even the slightest concessions to others. Still, it is dangerous, very dangerous, to burn everything down to ensure that the government of the present is built on the ashes of the past.
The most recent example is the smear campaign against former President Ernesto Zedillo, following his controversial statements against the current and previous administrations, which he even accused of turning Mexico into a “police state” and of being responsible for the death of democracy in our country.
Amidst what both leaders have said or not, the question arises: where are all the campaign proposals and democratic authenticity? President Sheinbaum has not only failed to promote her own projects, but—like former President López Obrador—has insisted on continuing with the systematic destruction and disappearance of everything that came before, except for what was done by her predecessor, just as the creator of the Fourth Mexican Transformation did in his time.
The mania for destroying history and the past is always the easiest recourse when things are not going well. This is especially true because the construction of countries inherently involves enormous contradictions. For example, until a few years ago, the regime’s favorite enemy was former President Salinas de Gortari.
Curiously, the biggest battle today—and where the system’s strength is being tested the most—is in the mechanisms implemented to defend and ensure compliance with and enforcement of the USMCA. This agreement would never have been possible without the historical precedent of NAFTA, which is entirely due to Carlos Salinas de Gortari and George H.W. Bush. Furthermore, we must not forget that NAFTA facilitated Mexico’s economic integration and brought it to modernity.
We cannot forget that, naturally, in the life of a president, there are great mistakes and great successes. Given that we were not born yesterday and are here due to many things, it is neither fair nor good to forget that “courageous honesty” was thanks to the fact that we looked the other way.
Now, after replacing Salinas de Gortari with Felipe Calderón, on this path of historical destruction, we have finally arrived at the need to revive the ghost of Fobaproa and to end the recognition that had been given to former President Zedillo for the transition of power from the PRI to the PAN.
Without the Zedillo platform, Andrés Manuel López Obrador would surely not have become head of the Mexico City government in 2000, nor would he have laid the political foundations for his presidential victory in 2018. However, this does not mean that Zedillo can be held historically responsible for what happened next, when the Mexican people voted as they did in 2018, and then when López Obrador governed as he did during his six-year term.
What is important for the Mexican president to understand is that she does not need to erase history to leave her mark.
Erasing history through censorship of archives, biased rewriting of textbooks, or systematic disqualification of the opposition only reinforces the idea that in a democracy, there is only room for the “truth of the moment.” At a time like the one we live in, with political monopoly, dissent, however well-founded, is reduced to just another opinion.
The real challenge lies in coexisting with loyal and constructive disagreement.
The problem is that no matter how well one has done in an election, we must be aware that history and political developments are shaped by the present, what will come next, and what happened before.
In any democracy, it is legitimate to dream of a better future. It is not legitimate to rush its transformation by sacrificing the legacy of those who came before us. Without a shared memory, there is no tomorrow.
For a movement of such force to choose to “burn everything” to ensure that the annihilation of the past sustains the present is, at the very least, dangerous. From Robespierre in revolutionary France to Mao in the Cultural Revolution, those who attempted to erase all historical memory ended up raising a tree without roots, doomed to wither away due to a lack of debate and creativity.
If we eliminate all opposing points of view or positions, what will flourish is passive authoritarianism: a hollow structure, incapable of renewal, which will slowly wither away in the absence of opposition and elements that, rather than being contrary to our own, could serve to nourish the country’s development.
At this point, it has become clear that the country has more than enough explanations for why Mexicans, despite the fact that soccer unites us, simply cannot understand each other or come up with a shared vision of the country we want, but above all, the country we deserve.
Fearing the consequences of judicial reform and unable to ignore why it was carried out, many people are distrustful and believe that this change in the system will ultimately lead to the silent and inevitable disappearance of one of the pillars sustaining the country’s stability and preservation.
Today, the proposed judicial reform can only dispel the doubts of the public if it demonstrates two things:
1. Transparency in appointing judges, ensuring competitive, public, and free procedures free of patronage. In other words, the winners will not be chosen by luck or by controversial actions and presentations of their candidacies, as has already happened with some candidates.
2. Effective balance of powers, proving over time that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches act independently and responsibly when protecting the common interest.
Whatever constitution the current dominant political force wants or is seeking to create, let us hope it is consolidated, protects the democratic system, and guarantees the separation of powers at all times.
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