Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Mexico is undergoing accelerated progressive militarization. President López Obrador is most likely allowing it because he feels his days as President are running out. He trusts the uniformed as the only ones capable of continuing the transformation that he fantasizes is underway.
The military will almost certainly end up betraying AMLO’s objectives for the simple reason that they do not believe in them. The Guacamaya Leaks have uncovered that our glorious Army is run by a caste of mediocre, vicious, dishonest, and corrupt men (no women, as in a Church) who have no respect for human rights, neither of the soldiers nor the general population.
But the military occupation of Mexico is happening at an accelerated pace. In the rest of Latin America, the military occupation of the central posts of the federal or national public administration commonly occurred after the coup d’état. In Mexico, this occupation of the public administration is happening before the coup d’état.
Some commentators argue that there is no militarization phenomenon in Mexico because, according to analytical standards, a country becomes militarized when military institutions seize power by force. But Mexico is demonstrating that there are sui generis ways for the generals to gain access to power. The unusual phenomenon is observing how the President of the Republic has decided to establish a strategic alliance with the military to ensure his political control and not lose power in the country.
Read the other way around, the President of the Republic has obviously concluded that having control over the Legislative Power and significant influence in the Judicial Power does not guarantee him to keep control over the country…. What are the problems? There are two aspects of national life that, from the President’s perspective, are factors that put serious pressure on his political power.
In the first place, there is the phenomenon of drug trafficking, which, as the President himself acknowledged, is a much more severe problem than he had imagined (!!!?). In order not to change his policy of “hugs, not bullets” (remember that the President is never wrong), he hides behind the skirts of the Army so that it is the Army who assumes the responsibility of controlling, but not repressing, organized crime. That is the instruction he has given from the National Palace to Military Camp Number 1.
The second problem of governance is something more intangible but powerful. It is the criticism of a large part of the country’s political class to his Cuban-authoritarian model of government to which he openly aspires. In the face of the opposition’s demand for a plural and tolerant debate to define the country’s direction, AMLO puts his proposal of a single-party model and monolithic thinking without tolerating criticism. This critical mass drives the President crazy because his own -the so-called organic intellectuals and journalists- are weak and notoriously inorganic to society. The President fervently wants the military to put an end to the opposition by way of intimidation, or will it be by some more drastic method? He already feels impotent before his critics, which is evident by the high decibels of fury he rants against them.
Mexico is like this: a civilian hands the country to the military. They are already placed in all federal, state, and local public administration spheres, learning how to run the country. They are discovering a new pleasure: the aphrodisiac of political power. The next step for the ambition, thinking, and military method is to occupy power without the hindrance of political alternation and democracy.
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