Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The dangers threatening Mexico in this transitional period between governments are highly explosive and have the potential to dynamite the incoming government. Despite coming from the same political movement, the differences between the main actors are beginning to emerge and suggest the profile of the conflicts to come.
While it would seem a no-brainer to divide Morena into radicals and reformists, these categories carry weight in the distinctions among its members. Their differences surfaced during the campaign, especially in Mexico City. The conflict around the nomination of Morena’s candidacy for the post of Head of Government was between “hardliners” and “opportunists” or “radicals” and “reformists”. The radicals grouped around Clara, and the reformists around Harfush. The radicals consider themselves the heirs of Morena’s true transformation program, while the reformists are the newcomers to the movement or those who have joined over time and are seen by the pure ones as opportunists.
The best proof that there are political currents within Morena is what happened in Mexico City. Those currents, thus described and thus confronted, have survived in the left and in revolutionary movements since time immemorial. The reign of terror during the French Revolution is the best example when Robespierre had his comrade Danton executed for treason to the principles of…Robespierre. Later, Robespierre himself ended up beheaded by the same Committee of Public Safety he headed. Marx and Engels debated with the currents of thought not akin to them and embodied, they thought, the last word of the revolutionary creed in the Communist Manifesto. They created the Communist International, to which only believers adhered.
Then came the times of the Second, Third, and Fourth Internationals, where they not only disagreed ideologically among themselves but went to the extreme of exterminating each other, as if they were the real enemy and not capitalism.
Examples of the same conflict between currents have occurred in all the experiences of regime change: China, North Korea, USSR, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela, and now, it is threatening to take hold in Mexico.
Plan C is presented as Claudia Sheinbaum’s government program. But its entire conceptualization, design, and execution came from the government of López Obrador. The intention is to install a change of regime in Mexico based on the most fierce revolutionary and radical cadres of Morenoism.
Hence, the idea has gained strength that López Obrador is surrounded by hard or radical cadres, determined to carry to the last consequences the epic revolutionary idea that “whoever is not with me is against me and must be eliminated.”
The content of Plan C is straightforward: the demolition of the Judicial Power, specifically to take over the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation by placing Justices close to the government, the militarization of the National Guard and all public and national security, the disappearance of the autonomous bodies that watch over the government and ensure the citizen’s right to information and the transformation of the highest electoral body to change all its members to be aligned with the government, in addition to eliminating reelection together with the elimination of plurinominal legislators.
This Plan C obviously contradicts Mexico’s current constitutional order. Its approval implies a radical change in the legal and constitutional regime. That is to say, it complies with the ideal of regime change and considers it necessary to eliminate everything that opposes its achievement.
It does not seem evident that the electoral mandate granted to Morena supports this change of political and constitutional regime in Mexico. Surveys simply show that 90% of the population lacks knowledge about what judicial power is and should be. Disapproval of the security policy reaches 70% or more, which does not indicate an endorsement of the militarization of public and national security in Mexico.
If the public were asked if they agreed to pay taxes to the government, the disapproval rate would be close to or above 90%. And if the people of Mexico were asked if the option of political alternation, implicit in Plan C, should be canceled, there would undoubtedly be no consensus.
Plan C is based on the idea of remodeling the political system based on a single, hegemonic party in the Cuban style. Hence, eliminating the plurinominal system is equivalent to eliminating important but minority voices in public debates. Eliminating minorities from the legislative chambers is equivalent to reducing all discussions of public affairs to a single voice.
Continuing with the historical lessons of all political revolutions of humanity, they turn against their own to detect and eliminate the lukewarm reformists, nonconformists, or non-believers after reaching absolute power. The monster created by the revolt of the insurgent masses turns against them to repress their nonconformities and protests. Dogma, which is unappealable, is imposed over intelligence.
The destruction of the institutions that serve to balance decision-making and avoid the arbitrariness of power against the citizens is considered a necessity and an instruction in regime change. It is at that turning point that radicals and reformists in any process of change separate and confront each other.
A clear example is that now, the more moderate voices are beginning to impose themselves on the radicals in the discussion on the Judiciary, as perceived in the news emanating from the Legislative Branch. The radicals will undoubtedly mount their offensive. And all this within Morena.
Parallel to this process, Sheinbaum’s cabinet is configured. It is evident that there are significant differences within Morena on the final decisions to be made: Interior, Secretary of National Defense, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Education, Welfare, PEMEX, Federal Electricity Commission, National Intelligence Center. In other words, it is the heart of the country’s political and security control system. This will be the Gordian knot of the next government’s profile. And, with this, it will be accurately defined who will be in charge in the next six-year term: radicals or reformists.
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