Antonio Navalón
For many decades, the U.S. capital has been the silent witness – and sometimes even participant – of significant changes that have taken hold across the planet. After all, this is a place that, after 240 years of being a free and independent democracy, has had to deal with more than two hundred wars or conflicts. It is true that many of these conflicts, especially those that have broken out after 1945, are clashes that Americans have lost. Today, the United States faces two of the most decisive conflicts – not exactly armed – in its recent history. The first is the one raging within its own territory. The second is the conflict of not knowing what to do with its neighbor to the South, a neighbor that is becoming more uncomfortable by the day.
It did it. Since the times of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and Samuel Houston, Mexico, and the United States have been the protagonists of a relationship condemned to confrontation and imposed to find solutions at any price by the divine work of our location. Today, after recent events, Mexico has occupied a place on Washington’s agenda almost as crucial as Ukraine. And it is not only because, for the first time, a Mexican president – with a human rights report issued by the U.S. State Department – has told them to stop politicking and even called them liars. It is not only because of that but because President Lopez Obrador has curiously managed to get Democrats and Republicans to agree on one thing and have a common concern.
For political, personal, and social reasons, the concern about what the possible disappearance of the National Electoral Institute (INE) means is growing more and more. Lorenzo Córdova’s visit and tour of Washington, visiting different think tanks and meeting with influential figures such as Brian Nichols, who serves as Undersecretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, was – from my point of view – a grave political mistake. Although if for the moment, and as he has already mentioned, his intentions are outside the political realm, and in reality, he did it to highlight and demonstrate the grave danger suffered by the institution he still presides over, then in that sense, his visit can be considered as a great success.
In addition to the hugs instead of bullets and the cartels, Washington uses recent events in Mexico to make two fundamental points. First, the guarantee of the electoral process has disappeared. Second, the third branch of government, the judiciary, and the system that emanates from it are in severe and fundamental questioning due to the campaign of harassment and siege against Norma Lucia Piña Hernandez, President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.
The conflict is served, and the critical point is that our president is not willing to play politics with the United States. López Obrador is ready to go down in history as the president who stood up to the empire in difficulties in a more frontal way and with more face about the demand for respect for national sovereignty. It is a pity that the data does not accompany our president since, as far as the intention is concerned, it is very difficult not to agree with him. Of course, we agree in asking for dignity in treatment and respect for our principles of sovereignty. However, the problem is that the fundamental economic data, the data on the country’s security, and the data on threading better levels of development beyond the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC do not match the brilliance of the dialectical positions we take. All these data do not match or agree with what, morning after morning, the Mexican people have been hearing for the last five years.
Nothing is written. No one has won the elections yet. We do not know who will occupy the White House in 2024. But, although everything seems to have been decided, the worst thing is that we still do not know who will be in 2024 in the National Palace or wherever it is determined to put the presidency from now on. In the meantime, we must not forget that many fundamental elements of our economy and peace depend directly on the United States. We are not hostages or colonized or dependent, but we belong to a world and to an economic, political, and social order that pushes us – as does our geography – to coincide or at least to match interests with the great Republic of the North.
It is very easy to engage in demagogy by arguing or saying that the political destruction perpetrated in our country leads to questioning the outcome of the next elections. And that is as legitimate as thinking that behind all this false war against INE and its privileges, there is also the intention of making the loser win. Or, what is the same, that the ground is being prepared so that any claim or questioning of the validity of the result will completely stop the political stability after the next elections.
From here, it is complicated to articulate a way out when the political alternative is laminated and when the policy emanating from the dominant regime is increasingly selective, more violent, and brutal. Through deeds and words, it becomes more evident daily that there is no real intention to continue being a country with a clear and efficient separation of powers. We are interested in justice, but we are not interested in the law. However, it is impossible to have justice without the law. Without genuine and clear respect for the law, any democracy is doomed to failure.
At this moment, we are touching the central nerve of the democratic system, and all this is being done through a political articulation based on the morning press conference each day. A series of speeches that before had the mission of producing the monopoly of the truth, which was the truth of the regime, and that now has the mission of increasingly building a path without alternatives both for Morena and for the other players, even though at times it seems that they do not exist as political alternatives.
Regarding the visit to Washington of the almost former president of INE, Lorenzo Córdova, I would like to make just one comment. He is the leader of the much-attacked, personally and institutionally, INE. However, in addition to the fact that the law does not allow it – since two years would have to pass after leaving office – the electoral leader is not, nor in theory could he be, a clear political alternative. His steps in his last days at the head of INE make him far from being a clear opposition figure. And if he does not wish it, he must know that the best contribution he can make to the Institute that he still presides and that – in my opinion – has done so with great efficiency and effectiveness is to conclude his mandate by leaving through the main door in a respectful manner and without seeking confrontation, even though the other party does not think the same way.
Although the legal framework does not allow it, in today’s Mexico, anything is possible. Just as someone from his morning press conferences can destroy or try to destroy the public credibility of the highest electoral and judicial institutions, in the same way, the administrator of the very prestigious INE can become the solution to the political alternative of our country. If this were to happen, it is worth mentioning that this would be an unprecedented event. It would also lack a clear plan for continuity without respecting the time needed to solidify a change of this magnitude.
Plan B was intended to be the beginning of the end of INE; however, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation – for the time being – has decided to suspend its application. Amid a political crisis characterized by a deliberate disregard for the law, the tricky thing here is to define how to proceed. We must clarify how we can sustain the fact that – to give an example – a law can prevent a person from being a presidential candidate, as is the case of Cordova, but that the legal framework cannot prevent the violation of that same set of laws that had to be stopped in its tracks on a Friday afternoon by freezing Plan B by the Supreme Court. At this time, there is one thing that has not been understood or has not been willing to be understood: to change constitutions, regimes, and laws, it is necessary to do it from law to law. Otherwise, the result may be similar to what we have in Mexico, which is nothing more than nonsense.
From now on, just as it cannot be said that laws only work for their benefit, the current regime is forced either to open a constitutional process seeking to produce a complete change – not only dialectically through insults said in the mornings but from the legal structure – or to accept that this is its most significant political defeat since July 1, 2018. And it is all due to one simple reason: we cannot be a one-man country. Moreover, we are not alone. Without going any further, next door – albeit in crisis – we still have the remnants of the greatest empire that has ever existed on Earth.
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