Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
In three days, the campaigns will be over. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday will be “reflection” days, and Sunday is the election. We are in the final stretch of the campaign. And yet, there is a state of suspended social credibility about the outcome. There is a lack of credibility about what is happening in all electoral matters.
What is the reason for this state where a surprisingly large part of the voting-age population finds itself? It is illustrated and explained using the textual words of President López Obrador in a recent mañanera: “Imagine how frustrating it would be if, after having laid the foundations for a transformation, nepotism, classism, and oligarchy were to return soon after. I could not be calm, but that’s how it would be…”. He anticipates his defeat on June 2.
This lack of credibility regarding the trends and possible results, which President López Obrador himself confesses to have regarding the June 2nd elections, is what the rest of the country feels. This is the most precise explanation and definition of suspended social credibility that permeates a large part of the electorate.
Uncertainty permeates the campaign’s closing. Of course, the presidential candidates express logical optimism about the possible outcome. But each one, in their own way, clings to the public survey data and, they would say private polls.
Polls have been perversely used in the campaign as weapons of war and have become public opinion mobilizers. They fire projections in any direction, usually aiming their bullets in the direction convenient for whoever has paid for the poll.
It is precisely because there is a socially widespread conviction that some polling houses are for hire to the highest bidder that uncertainty hangs over the whole process. How can we explain that the non-response rate to pollsters’ questions is still hovering around 50%? It is due to the distrust that their very work and origin have provoked. They are not reliable. Non-response directly expresses the state of suspended social credibility that we suffer.
There are two large blocks of poll results. One block gives Morena a very large majority of votes, and the other indicates a technical tie between the candidates or a slight advantage to the opposition. All agree that MC has nothing to do except get in the way of this process.
But if the President himself expresses that the polls about his candidate’s wide advantage are not credible and that the opposition may win, then the situation in the Morenista ranks must be of great concern.
The hidden vote is what is keeping the ruling party awake at night. Their brilliant strategy so far has been to try to scare those hidden votes so that they do not go out to vote. But their campaigns of terror and harassment have failed. This is what happened to the head of Government, Martí Batres, when he tried to terrorize the Pink Tide so that it would not reach the capital’s Zócalo, putting all kinds of physical and material obstacles, in addition to an environmental contingency and the teachers of the CNTE to block the entrance to the Zócalo. All obstacles were useless, and the march reached its highest attendance of free citizens in the central square of the capital of the Republic since it began its life as Marea Rosa. If, by chance, some were frightened, more was their indignation and anger against the government and its arbitrariness. The attempt to silence the voices of millions failed. The same is happening all over the country.
The substantial fact is that the angry vote is alive and will be present on June 2. How many percentage points will it have added to Xóchitl Gálvez and Santiago Taboada in Mexico City and the other opposition candidates in the more than 100 cities where the Pink Tide mobilized? We do not know, but they were not few because many undecided people strengthened their conviction to vote for the opposition.
This state of suspended social credibility is undergoing an accelerated change process and is preparing to go to the vote on June 2. The President is absolutely right when he expresses his fear that a majority could vote against the continuity of his project. Every day, that possibility expands in new areas of the country.
The time has come to dismantle the fraud of the fourth transformation and its pretended “second floor”. It is time to continue building and improving our democratic, liberal Republic in freedom and tolerance, aspiring to full employment, security, quality education, and health services for all. The aberrant deviation of the 4T in the path of national history will be corrected next June 2.
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