Let’s begin at the end: Mexico is in the process of destroying institutions to ensure that those in power stay forever; it is not, as they claim, the beginning of a new era but the coming to an end of a political system that allowed the country to live with a relative calm but unequal prosperity for a century. Yet, the system was no longer functional. It went from a self-dealing ruling class to a corrupt technocracy, to a mediocre kleptocracy (a government whose corrupt leaders use political power to create and expand their fortunes), to a dishonest kakistocracy (a system of government that is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens) headed by a zealot and ignorant leader intellectually disabled.
There is no 4th Transformation. It’s the End of the Mexican Political System.
Far from the obscure and pompous denomination that pretends to mark the beginning of a new era in history, the so-called “Fourth Transformation” (4T) is nothing more than the systematic and rabid destruction of institutions without any plan or model, not even a rough idea of what to do to achieve the nebulous objectives derived from campaign slogans, varnished with ideological fixations typical of adolescence.
Political parties became franchises controlled by gangs that divided the spoils of public office among themselves for their benefit through contracts, concessions, licenses, exemptions, waivers, condonations, appointments to key positions, nominations to legislative offices, amendments to laws and regulations, dismissals of criminal investigations and many other improper and illegal benefits such as granting undeserved honors that favored them or their close associates. This was increasingly public and notorious, degrading the image of public officials, politicians, and their parties in the eyes of the electorate. According to Transparency International, 91% of Mexicans perceive that political parties are corrupt institutions.
As a result of it, and in the face of the growing dissatisfaction with the precarious economic situation and the insecurity in which the majority of the population lives, the citizens rejected them at the polls, electing Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who, apparently, represented the opposite: a shrewd man who knew how to make people believe he was an honest democrat, with no strings attached to those who controlled the enormous corruption apparatus, whom he denounced and attacked in every speech, promising to do away with them and with corruption, which he blamed for the generalized poverty throughout the country.
The result of the experiment is quite expensive. Once in power, a megalomaniac caudillo emerged, resentful, ignorant, factious, and intellectually challenged, incapable of discerning anything that was not part of his gospel, who swept away professionals in public service and experts in their fields, and replaced them with loyalists of his tribe in positions for which they are not qualified, except for their allegiance to the gang leader. Hence, after more than three years, poverty and extreme poverty have expanded, insecurity is more violent and spread geographically throughout the national territory, and organized crime is tolerated and now governs parts of the country. Those previously accused of corruption are now his allies and beneficiaries of his favors, protection, and cover-up, and rampant corruption is worse than ever.
The prospects are not encouraging; on the contrary. Welfare only exists in the official discourse and in the names of programs and institutions dedicated to buying loyalties. Skillfully, the term welfare is the subject of all official propaganda.
The political strategy of the 4T is smart and clear: polarization based on syllogisms and fallacies. Here is an example: if you are poor, it is because this one is rich; If he is rich, it is because he is corrupt and associated with previous rulers to steal from the nation, and that is why you are poor; If he studied and got a graduate degree, he is a technocrat who does not understand or care about you and only seeks to benefit himself and his foreign bosses who have always exploited us; If you live in a well-to-do area and have a good house it is because you are corrupt, and because of it the others are poor. Ergo: If you are not poor, you are part of the power mafia, a neoliberal conservative, an adversary of the poor and the 4T. Ergo: if you want to stop being poor, time- travel to the past because corruption is over.
So far, AMLO has been able to evade the reality of unfulfilled promises. His speech is successful because he touches their heartstrings, making them see that the rich and the politicians who were their partners had been trampling on them and ignoring them for many years. He says this in his chatty language, slowly and with a tone of dramatic anger. His target audience is the lower-income, less educated members of society, peasants, workers, humiliated urban and suburban population, resentful of the wastefulness of politicians and their associates, i.e., the rich ( fifís) according to his rhetoric. He makes them feel that he is one of them, one of the dispossessed, that the 2006 election was stolen from him by the same people who enriched at their expense, the looters, those abusive characters linked to power. And that is why he flaunts his austerity and boasts about his poverty.
He continues the onslaught against the previous governments, making them responsible for the lack of attention to the sick, for the lack of medicines, for unemployment; he manipulates to awaken feelings of anger, resentment, hatred, violence, insecurity, hopelessness, bitterness, and fury, and with this he justifies and incites anarchy, the taking of toll booths, the theft of fuel, the blocking of railroad tracks, attacking the military who have orders not to defend themselves, to let themselves be humiliated. Authoritarian populists divide. That is their tool to justify their permanence in power.
A polarization is growing and may become violent not only in discourse but also on multiple fronts: narcos against narcos, supporters of morena against opponents, proletarians against the “aspirational” middle class, anarchists against defenders of the institutions. A fratricidal struggle that irremediably leads to further impoverishment and backwardness, while other countries that live in harmony internally and among themselves move forward to achieve true wellbeing for their citizens. The country has been there before and lost half its territory.
Institutional destruction advances despite the precarious defense of opponents, who point out that there is a big difference between modernizing institutions that need an upgrade and destroying them. The stubbornness in squandering resources on unnecessary and costly projects has the effect of weakening institutions and programs as essential as they are sensitive to the less privileged.
On top of it, there is a total disrespect for the rule of law. AMLO frequently states that if he must decide between justice and the law, justice should prevail. Except that he determines what is just. The law only applies when he so chooses. Recently, when the Energy Reform submitted by his government was debated in Congress, he stated: “Don’t come to tell me that the law is the law”. He considers that he is above it. Sounds like the definition of tyranny.
In this regard, there is a severe cultural handicap inherited from the system that is dying: While the US Constitution has only seven articles, and in its 234 years of existence, has had only 27 amendments -the first ten known as the Bill of Rights-, Mexico’s Constitution dates from 1917, has 136 plus articles and during its century-old existence has suffered 762 amendments*. It seems that every administration takes as a badge of honor to amend the Supreme Law either by adding their favorite cause as an article to grant it “constitutional rank”, or to amend some article to make it fit with a specific trending purpose.
Evidently, AMLO and his lieutenants ignore certain basic political science concepts, such as the idea that in a constitutional state, fundamental political decisions should be made by an accountable and controllable government, not by a single individual and his staff. This is not only foreign to the ideology of the 4T but its exact opposite. Also, that Institutions arise in response to social demands and are the product of collective agreements of the citizens of a Nation, which establish the responsibility of the State to meet a series of obligations through specific institutions that guarantee their fulfillment, exercising clearly defined functions.
In his last State of the Union Address as president, on September 1, 1928, Plutarco Elías Calles stated: “Mexico must pass, once and for all, from the historical condition of a country of one strong man to a nation of institutions and laws”.
It is common knowledge that institution building is part of a civilizing process that, as it advances, stimulates and strengthens the progress of society. That is the sense that gives them a reason to exist. However, we cannot be surprised. Since July 2006, we heard: “To hell with the institutions”. It was the squawk of the goose now transformed into a caudillo.
In any civilized country, campaign slogans are translated into public policies and government programs composed of specific projects, duly budgeted and scheduled with clearly defined objectives. Their results are measurable to be evaluated. The State must create the necessary conditions to attract productive investment. None of this happens in the 4T.
AMLO does not even understand that not all public spending is an investment. The subtle difference that public investment has a constant multiplying effect on economic activity while spending only has a limited and immediate impact. Once it is carried out, its effect ends. This is the drama of massive spending on social programs: it generates economic activity that is limited in impact and duration, and far from lifting anyone out of poverty, it only prolongs it indefinitely until, due to the absence of investment, the economy is exhausted, and tax collection is no longer enough to cover the social programs. But, yes, they are very effective in buying votes.
He touts his republican vocation without knowing what it is. The republican principles that he ignores and obviously does not respect are freedom, civic virtues, and the rule of law. The ray of hope turned into a tyrant; that is the transformation Mexico is undergoing.
Legend says that when President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines informed Adolfo López Mateos that he was his successor, he handed him a map of Mexico and asked if he knew what it was, to which he responded, yes sir, it’s the map of our country. Ruiz Cortines nodded and said: take good care of it and, if possible, make it better. AMLO will leave the country much worse than he found it.
Yes, Mexico needs a new system badly.
To defend the rights of citizens to be governed by the best and most qualified to do so.
To save the country from backwardness and imminent economic bankruptcy.
To have a congress that is respected as what it should be: another power of the union.
To avoid changes to the constitution aimed at maintaining indefinitely in power a group of incapable, rapacious people who feel enlightened and who are above the law and the institutions.
To prevent organized crime, both white-collar and machine-gun criminals from continuing to rule over those who should fight it.
To avoid that, due to the clumsiness in the management of the government and the lukewarmness in the use of public force to impose order and ensure respect for the law, our neighbor is forced to intervene to do what ours did not want or could not do, putting at risk and causing damage in its territory, with the ethically valid argument of safeguarding lives and properties of its citizens.
To not allow our incipient democracy to be transformed into a tyranny headed by a man who has an intellectual disability.
To prevent the majority from being hidden from reality with a triumphalist narrative, eventually turning into a tragedy.
* https://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/ref/cpeum_crono.html
SEPGRA Political Analysis Group.
This piece was published on May 11, 2022. Since then and until October 1st it has been read 532,942 times according to Google Analytics. It is by far the most popular.
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