Luis Rubio
A tweet at the beginning of the week summed up the moment: “The President prepared more for the march of women than he did for the vaccination.” The extraordinary fence built in the Zócalo betrayed the true perceptions inside the presidential palace, revealing the fear that afflicts the President. For a government focused exclusively on the midterms, its reactions are a testament to the recognition that the President’s popularity may not be a guarantee of success.
Trying to justify the monumental testimony to that fear that the wall represents, the President stated that women “have every right to protest, but there may be people attempting to infiltrate [the march].” Once again, the President shows that he does not understand the essence of the feminist movement and is not willing to learn from it. He responds from the hip to something that is not under his control, reacting like a caged lion. Instead of taking the lead and merging the movement to the demand for change that characterized his arrival to the presidency, the President feels threatened and shows it in the form of dread, disdain, and an endless spree of verbosity that reveals his total disregard for feminist demands, which offends and alienates even his followers in Morena. The dogma always ahead of the nation’s problems.
It is not only the lack of empathy in the abstract to feminist claims (something for which politicians the world over tend to be stars at faking), but his stubbornness in denying the existence of rape, sexual abuse, an implicit “pact” with abusers, and inequality of opportunity. Rather than seeing these as legitimate claims, the President sees the protests as a personal affront, which leads him to see them as a provocation.
Is he justifiedto be that afraid of the electoral result?
The polls evidence two things: on the one hand, a high approval level for the President; on the other, a very low grade for his government and its policies. Even though the high approval is real, it is not very different from the what the numbers showed for the majority of his predecessors at this stage of the game. Still, two factors make them quite distinct. First, on the negative side, the gap in grades between the person of the president and that of his government is unusual: in general, historically, both numbers ran in parallel, one explaining the other. The experience of Coahuila and Hidalgo would suggest that the popularity of the President does not translate into electoral support at the local level, which would justify the anxiety.
However, in another sense, the nature of presidential popularity is distinct from that of his predecessors. Those enjoyed a recognition for what they had achieved at this stage of their respective administrations. López Obrador has built a personal bond that transcends his government and that is more grounded on a communication based in faith than any earthly accomplishment. This connection is the result of a belief in the person, of a rather religious nature, which makes it very difficult for pollsters to make the right judgement call because it incorporates an impossible variable to their measurements. It is not surprising that, in this context, the surveys (the majority of which are national, rather than local) forecast an almost absolute victory for Morena and its branches in the coming elections.
The poor (in fact, pathetic) performance of the opposition political parties in the process of nominating candidates up to date further strengthens this perception that the government does not face a significant challenge because it would appear that they have not only fielded candidates of little luster, but they have alienated those with greater odds of winning a congressional seat, a municipality, or a state government.
Considering these images, the question of why the presidential team is so concerned is not idle. Might they know something we common mortals do not? It may be that the explanation dwells on something as simple as their realization that the respect and even reverence that the President commands does not translate into electoral support, and even more so at the local level, where issues are very different in nature. Above all, the same contempt that the President has lavished on women he has shown to the average voter by assuming that their vote for Morena is guaranteed.
I do not have the slightest idea of who will win on election day, June 6, or by how much, but I do not have any doubts that the President is right to be worried. Despite the many people who profess unshakable faith in him, it is impossible that the (lousy) performance of his government in the economy, the pandemic, the vaccination, the political environment, and now with women, will have no impact on the citizens’ vote.
Most importantly, the President faces two potentially uncontainable forces: one is the weak and clueless opposition that may prove incapable of attracting the electorate, forcing it to an exacerbated pragmatism, like the one observed in 2000 and 2018, but this time in opposite direction: in favor of any option that penalizes the President and his party. The other force is the one that the President himself has unleashed by succeeding in turning the feminist movement into the great agglutinating force of the aggrieved, the angry and all those whose expectations have been shattered, even though it is not obvious how this might translate into votes.
Failing to understand the feminist claims while despising them and attempting to undermine the protests and the legitimacy of their grievances, is transforming the movement into a great alternative for the citizenry, perhaps the most expensive of the mistakes and dogmas of the President.
@lrubiof