Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The number of leaked lists of Morenistas that Washington allegedly demands be handed over to the US justice system is implausible. The number of “extraditables” on each list varies from 2 to 50. Are these lists of criminals or heroes in the fight for a just homeland? Both versions have been heard. One of the alleged extraditables stated, “It is an honor to be with Obrador.” Will he say the same thing while in a US prison, sentenced to years of imprisonment for being an accomplice to drug trafficking?
Is López Obrador aware of the harm he has done to Mexico with his ambition to come to power at any cost? Because that is where the terrible pilgrimage that Mexico faces today began. It all started with the pact with drug traffickers that allowed him to count on their social, political, and economic support to come to power through the ballot box.
From this agreement emerged the falsely humanistic slogan of “hugs, not bullets.” The underlying intention of the pact was to legitimize the action and presence of drug traffickers in entire regions of the country and to allow them to continue their business unhindered. In exchange, Morena received something almost magical: it could win elections across the country, at the federal, state, and municipal levels, with this invisible criminal “support.” It seemed like manna from heaven. The revolutionary struggle is paying off, they must have thought.
But Morena’s alliance with drug trafficking was not a phenomenon limited to the presidential election. No. All the party’s structures and candidates embraced the new political license granted by the supreme leader with renewed fervor. The relationship between Morena supporters and drug traffickers occurred at all levels of society. And like any criminal pact of this nature, it is unspeakable and unmentionable. It was also necessary to be guided by the unwritten rules of any mafia: total silence, complete discretion, absolute loyalty, unquestionable impunity, and any betrayal is paid for with one’s life.
That agreement to win the 2018 presidential election inevitably turned Morena into a mafia group, not united by an ideological or electoral platform, which, if it existed, would be a mere smokescreen. The real driving force behind internal unity is the complicity that unites leaders in corruption, ill-gotten votes, and money from illegal sources. And the determination that, in order not to be discovered in their mafia association, they considered it essential never to lose control over the government and the State.
To avoid losing power and preserve the mafia structure that unites them, López Obrador and Sheinbaum agreed on the need to destroy all State institutions that could facilitate Morena’s loss of power. Therefore, it was necessary to corrupt the elections, storm the national Congress, destroy all administrative and regulatory traces of their corruption, and corrupt the Armed Forces and the Judiciary.
Having done the work to prevent alternation and having made progress in annihilating the opposition, they now look around them and can see the result of their actions. What they have created is a political work that can be summarized as follows: Mexico, under Morena’s rule, poses a national security threat to itself and its neighbors. It has become a hotbed of infection across North America and the Caribbean Basin.
It harbors the worst anti-democratic practices and fosters discontent, both internally and regionally. In addition, Mexico is in a process of isolation and self-absorption that alienates both its own people and outsiders. At the same time, the economy stagnates, and per capita income declines.
The lists of those eligible for extradition are the perfect metaphor for how low Mexico has fallen. Whether many or few are extradited, the truth is that the central task of Mexican society today is to cleanse politics of the criminal mafia entrenched in power and build democratic, credible, and reliable institutions capable of defending the Republic from the evil influences that have prevented the development of a democratic, dialoguing, and prosperous society in freedom.
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