Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Tomorrow begins the popular, massive, and organized resistance to López Obrador’s ungovernability throughout Mexico. This day, with marches in more than 30 cities across the country and in Los Angeles, California, and Barcelona, millions of Mexicans will express with voice and feet that there is an alternative vision of the country, contrary to the Frankenstein that AMLO and Morena offer as a route to the future. Our alternative to Morena’s monotonous and authoritarian voice is fidelity to the principles of the Constitution, with democracy in plurality and tolerance. We will add the necessary strength to rebuild the country after the devastating effects of the 4T’s wrecking ball.
Tomorrow’s march is just an initial step in the arduous process of organizing of thousands of citizen groups, together with opposition political parties, trade unions, agrarian movements, and student, feminist and sexual diversity organizations to structure the resistance of the people to the attempts to impose the will of one man. We must coordinate the organizational and political capacity to win the next elections peacefully and convincingly.
Mexico has a democratically elected ruler in the eagle’s chair who leads the country’s destiny as an autocrat, misogynist, and despot. He neither discusses nor convinces. He imposes and crushes anyone who lets him. The budget he presented to Congress did not allow any discussion or change whatsoever. It did not even accept the addition of a comma. And this has been the case for the last four years. The laws he presents to the legislature do not admit any suggestions or modifications. Everything has to be as he says. The President thinks his words are like the commandments carved in stone, unbeatable and eternal. Such is his self-esteem.
Similarly, he has just announced that he will not accept any negotiations on his proposed reform of the National Electoral Institute (INE). Either his reform is carried as he suggests, or there will be no reform. In other words, López Obrador’s conception of his presidency is that everything must be subordinated to exactly what he says, wants, and demands, or there will be no agreements at all. It is important to remember that he is the first President of the Republic who has refused to meet with the leaders of the political opposition, even when they serve as leaders of the legislative chambers.
The hallmark of this government is its closed-mindedness to dialogue. And its vision for Mexico’s future bears the same mark. His idea is that the following six-year terms, at least two more, should be burdened with his government’s “proposal”. He wants to take Mexico to 2036 with the cross of the 4T. Let’s say Claudia and then his son.
Today’s march is not only to initiate widespread and growing social resistance to López Obrador’s government. It also serves as a citizen’s reminder to all opposition legislators of their historical responsibility in facing a national crossroads such as the current one. This is not the time for hesitation or to fall into the traps of unequal negotiation. The constitutional moratorium was precisely to tackle this kind of problem, recognizing that López Obrador and his operators, mainly his Secretary of Interior, although he is not the only one, operate like gangsters and Mafiosi to achieve their objectives. They are ruthless and cruel when they show their genuine interest: to stay in political and economic power. The balanced, sustainable, and democratic development of Mexico is not in their interest. In fact, they do not care, as they have shown by not having an actual program for the nation’s development as a whole. Their priorities are mainly the real estate deals resulting from the construction of the Mayan Train, but also the AIFA and Dos Bocas. The deals are juicy, mainly because there is no transparency whatsoever, and they are being developed with the utmost discretion and opacity. The “national security” decrees are used to prevent oversight of the deals.
The citizens’ groups, grouped in Unid@s and others, knew how to gauge society’s mood and launched the march initiative. And the political parties understood that their role, at this moment, is to strengthen the citizens’ organizations and this social mood, ready, now, to go out to march and organize themselves to go, together, to the elections in the State of Mexico and Coahuila in 2023 and the presidential election in 2024. In other words, it is clear from the call to march that a new opposition bloc is being formed with clear aspirations to govern the country from 2024 onwards.
PRI, PAN, and PRD have said they will march today, and Movimiento Ciudadano, always hesitant, will also participate, albeit “individually”. This fact opens up the necessary space to rethink the Va Por México axis (PRI, PAN, PRD) to include Movimiento Ciudadano in an agreement different from Va Por México but superior in its integration and initiative.
But today, there is a new and unobjectionable condition. Today, citizens’ groups will also be seated around the table, with their social strength and moral authority to defend political platforms, methods of the coalition government, and their own candidates, even if they are nominated by different political parties.
This dialogue and democratic discussion exercise are totally different from Morena and the “one-man government” method. Alliances are built, yes, but from the bottom up, not the other way around, as he does. This is what López Obrador does not understand.
Mexico’s social dynamics are beginning to move away from Morena’s authoritarian bureaucratism and are moving closer to the social mood offered by the opposition. Dialogue, debate, tolerance, and open-mindedness are what Mexican society is asking for and demanding.
López Obrador’s voice at the morning news conference increasingly resounds with harshness, hatred, and resentment. In a word, he offers bitterness without a drop of joy to the people of Mexico. Such monotony is tiring and, frankly, boring.
Tomorrow, the opposition begins a new chapter in its history, which will not stop until after the 2024 elections. The task is titanic, no doubt, but the path is already marked. Tomorrow’s march, united and forceful, tolerant and plural, is the profile of the Mexico we want.
[email protected]
@rpascoepgmail-com
Further Reading: