Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The march was entirely peaceful. There was no sign of any violent tendencies. The outbreak of violence brought to mind the events of October 2 in Tlatelolco. Citizens were protesting peacefully while the government plotted and organized the repression. Did the government strategists think of combining October 2 with the Halconazo? It seems so. What better strategy than to create chaos, violence, and confusion? The intention is to demoralize the movement. It is to cut off the process before it grows further so that it does not become a dangerous movement for the established power. The goal is to silence those who raise their voices, so that they flee, shut up, and hide in their daily lives. The strategy is to address the problem at its root. To prevent the spirit of change from growing and flourishing outside the centralist government that seeks to control everything: absolutist political power.
The examples are multiplying. After a week of hysterical morning press conferences in which President Claudia Sheinbaum expressed her contempt for the Generation Z march, this outcome was inevitable. The government sent in the “Black Bloc” to break up the rally. It was the last card played by a government that was cornered and oozing fear in the face of a growing wave of social discontent in all areas of society. It played the Halconazo card, just as the government did in 1971. It is the card played by every conspiratorial government. It organizes, finances, and operates incidents of violence to discredit and repress a protest movement. In reality, there is nothing new about this. That is why it was predictable. What is truly incredible is that it comes from a president whose rise to her current position was fueled by the same social protest. This event is a categorical denial of the progressive nature of the López Obrador and Sheinbaum government.
However, today’s march is not the latest example of political power trying to impose itself in the face of potential social resistance that could dislodge Morena from power. Carlos Manzo’s death comes at a time when his prestige in Michoacán was growing rapidly, and groups had sprung up in support of his candidacy for state governor. It was clear that he enjoyed widespread popularity throughout Michoacán. The federal government, through Jesús Ramírez, the operative behind the pro-government bots, wanted to portray Manzo as the “Mexican Bukele” because he was determined to confront organized crime. That attempt attracted attention. It was a declaration of war against a figure who sought, among other things, to break the links between political power and organized crime. Manzo’s proposal essentially meant the possibility of bringing prominent figures in Morena to justice for their obvious links to drug trafficking and organized crime in general.
For Morena, and for Governor Bedolla, whose links to organized crime are well known, Manzo’s proposal was simply unacceptable. It meant prosecuting all the officials in his government for their criminal links. It was better to have Manzo dead than Manzo as governor. And the Jalisco New Generation Cartel agrees with Morena. It was a coincidence of interests between the mafias: the power mafia and the drug trafficking mafia. It is not the first time in human history that mafias have agreed, nor will it be the last. But this alliance between mafias has had a fatal outcome in the case of Uruapan, Michoacán.
Another case, albeit different, is that of Ricardo Salinas Pliego. On his own initiative, he has become a controversial and relevant political actor. Unlike other businessmen, Salinas has created a movement of very diverse followers, socially speaking, which automatically makes him a threat to the regime. Polls, such as those conducted by the company México Elige, place him in a strong position to compete for the presidency in 2030. He himself has opened up the possibility of running. In a subsequent poll, it turns out that he would be the preferred candidate of a majority of PAN members. Since then, the Sheinbaum administration has launched a political campaign against him. It uses the issue of tax payments as a battering ram, but the underlying intention is to eliminate him from any possibility of running for president. President Sheinbaum has hinted that she seeks to take away his companies to weaken him in the face of the specter of competition against Morena in 2030. In fact, coverage of Saturday’s Generation Z mobilization, including the “Black Block” operation, inspired by the Halconazo of 1971, was broadcast live through images from ADN 40, now part of Grupo Salinas.
Attacking Grupo Salinas to eliminate its owner as a potential competitor against Morena in 2030, as Morena and Sheinbaum’s radicals intend to do, will undoubtedly pose another significant obstacle to the USMCA renegotiation. Actions such as those Sheinbaum wants to take against this business group will clash head-on with negotiators from the United States and Canada. They have been pressured by their most important private sectors, which have complained about the authoritarian drift and actions against the rule of law by the Mexican government. Judicial reform and the weakening of the amparo, in addition to the non-tariff barriers imposed by the 4T on trade with its “partners,” add to the possible actions seen as punitive against one of the country’s most important businessmen. It should be remembered that the president even accused Grupo Salinas of being one of the promoters of the Generation Z mobilization. But the president also blamed an international conspiracy behind the movement, while her government plotted a “halconazo” against the march to discredit it.
These three cases—the deliberate provocation against the Generation Z march, the murder of Carlos Manzo, and the attack against Ricardo Salinas—set a standard for understanding the behavior of the 4T government. It seeks electoral reform to prevent any hint of alternation, promotes the revocation of mandates to get more votes for Morena in 2027, and has already achieved the final lock: a Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation and an Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judicial Branch totally subordinate to the dictates of the National Palace.
It took barely a year in the presidency to see her credibility as an effective leader and representative of all Mexicans plummet. The Palace obviously does not believe in comfortable polls. What permeates the Palace is a sense of paranoia and harassment. That is why they have put the lock on Mexican democracy. Democracy implies alternation in power. Because a government allied with organized crime cannot even contemplate alternation.
What Generation Z discovered is that it lives in a country where repression is the work of a government that claims to be left-wing. However, it also discovered that there is a citizenry willing to confront state terrorism to change the nation’s course and return to the path of democracy.
@rpascoep
Further Reading: