Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
When intelligence and dialogue are lacking, verbal political polarization often turns into physical violence. This is seen time and again in societies around the world. And their dynamics are very similar, albeit in very different contexts. Polarization and violence occur when societies are divided by religious, ideological, economic, moral, or conflicting traditions and beliefs. Once polarization crosses the limits of dialogue and conflict resolution, societies enter into spirals of confrontation whose end is impossible to predict. The problem with polarization turning to violence is that it has no horizon for its end. And the hatred it engenders last for centuries.
That is why the President of Mexico is inviting the country to take a very dangerous route. His discourse of polarization, resentment, hatred, and provoking irreconcilable social divisions between patriots and traitors leads society into a confrontation with unforeseeable consequences. Does President López Obrador want civil war in Mexico? The rational answer is no; he does not want a civil war; he wants his party to win the next presidential election, nothing more. The intelligent answer would be that.
But his actual, day-to-day behavior is different. It is a behavior that is not guided, apparently, by the rational and the intelligent, but rather by the visceral and bitter desire to impose his law solely and exclusively on Mexican society. It expresses a dictatorial stamp that contravenes what Mexican society is today: plural, diverse and active, ideologically, religiously, economically, and separated by regions, histories, and traditions. All this diversity is what gives richness and strength to Mexico’s cultural currency.
But the President does not see it that way. He sees diversity as a danger for him because, in his reading of reality, his government could fall apart if he does not create instruments of absolute control. And he believes he has found in polarization the ideal tool to corral society into a path defined by him and for his greater control. His spirit is guided by a Mexican tradition inherited from the 19th century: the acceptance and tolerance of leaders with aspirations for long terms in office. His real intellectual heritage comes not from the likes of Hidalgo, Juárez, and Madero but from López de Santa Anna and Porfirio Díaz.
On recent mañaneras (morning press conferences), the President muses about his historical legacy and looks pretty preoccupied. He has twice compared himself to Presidents who were imprisoned after serving as their countries leaders. Of course, he always makes the comparison in heroic terms: they were sentenced to jail by dark forces defending illegitimate interests against a leader who stood up for the most vulnerable in societies.
He even reflected on what he would do if he were to go to jail after his term in office. “I will write a book”, not realizing that all the books he has published have, in fact, been written by others. But, well, that detail aside, what is striking is that both the case of Cristina Fernández, Vice-President of Argentina found guilty of acts of corruption during her time as President of her country, and a close friend of AMLO, and the situation of Pedro Castillo, recently removed from the Presidency of the country and imprisoned by the police in Peru for attempting a coup, have apparently shaken the Mexican and led him to fantasize about the possibility of a similar fate.
So the fate of Pedro Castillo seems to be of particular interest to President López Obrador. Facing his own crisis with the national Congress, although not on Castillo’s scale, the reflection revolves around the question: who will support an attempt to modify an electoral result in 2024 if the country elects an opposition President, rejecting Morena? Will the Armed Forces be willing to support an attempt to disregard the results to keep Morena in the Presidency? Will the Judiciary endorse an action against the Constitution to allow AMLO to impose his presidential candidate? Will the Legislative Branch remain passive in the face of an action that, in essence, would be tantamount to the denial of its own existence and validity as one of the three branches of government?
Because these are the issues that resonate and are at the forefront of public debate due to the situation created by the crisis in Peru and AMLO’s response to Castillo’s dismissal. The Constitutional Powers of that country refused to consent to the attempted coup d’état devised, promoted, and declared by Castillo. Even though the parties’ actions occurred within Peru’s constitutional order, the Mexican President continues to condemn the events, essentially endorsing the coup attempt.
This is not the first time AMLO has rejected other countries laws. He condemned the action against Evo Morales when he violated Bolivia’s Constitution by running for the presidency illegally. He recently condemned the decisions of the Argentinean judiciary against Cristina Fernández, and now he condemns the entire Peruvian constitutional system for rejecting the attempted coup d’état by Pedro Castillo.
López Obrador’s propensity to justify his behavior by ignoring the law with phrases such as “don’t tell me that the law is the law” or “between the law and justice, I choose justice” are leading Mexico into an abyss of illegality and severe breaches of the constitutional order. He does not accept being subjected to ordinary laws. What he demands from other countries is what he wants to impose on our own country. He wants to impose exceptionality as a practice to impose his agenda, project, domination, and empire in Mexico. In the style of Santa Anna and Porfirio Diaz, and conveniently forgetting Madero.
AMLO takes the cases of Evo Morales, Cristina Fernández, and Pedro Castillo as laboratory cases, translating those lessons to what he considers to be his own case. The role of the Armed Forces in the first place. Then the judiciary and the police, and finally, the legislative branch’s role. Each institutional space has its specific weight. AMLO must think that he has already bought the absolute and unconditional loyalty of the Armed Forces. Could it be? Secondly, he is struggling with the judiciary and the legislature, between lights and shadows. In other words, his institutional power situation is not so clear. And, in the case of Mexico, there are two “de facto powers” that other Latin American countries do not have with such forcefulness: drug trafficking and, as a neighbor, the United States and the 20 million Mexicans living in that country.
He is so interested and moved by these cases because he plans to do the same, but in a “Mexican style”. And he is measuring how to break the constitutional order without provoking Mexican society, without allowing the conditions for international intervention, and, at the same time, controlling drug violence.
In essence, AMLO is perceived, contradictorily, as Mexico’s leader for the next decades or as a political prisoner. While the enigma is being solved, he is unashamedly promoting polarization, betting on violence, and hoping to be the beneficiary of the chaos he himself is creating.
[email protected]
@rpascoep
Further Reading: