Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
When a government feels cornered, it contemplates a coup d’état as its only salvation.
It is nothing new. The drama of Latin America is filled with the actions of governments that have resorted to desperate decisions to “save themselves”. These coups considerations of desperate governments are recognized through several indicators.
Operating a “coup d’état” is not defined by a single act and can take many forms. One form observed in Latin America has been the transformation of a democratically elected government into a civil-military junta. This means that a government elected by free vote decides, due to conditions it considers imperative, to make a pact between one or several political organizations and their respective Armed Forces to form a cabinet made up of civilians and military, in defiance of democratic practices.
In the popular imagination, a coup d’état is commonly identified with a military uprising, when the Armed Forces take power, overthrow a democratically elected government, eliminate civilians from its mandate, and assume total control of the country. This type of coup d’état occurs when the Armed Forces consider that the situation in the country has exceeded the capacity of civilian authorities to handle it.
A “soft” coup d’état is typified by the actions of civilian forces, or a strong political leader, who decides to declare a situation of “State of Exception” in a country, abolishing the constitutional Powers of the State and governing by decree, without necessarily requesting the intervention of the Armed Forces, but counting on their consent and accompaniment.
The three typologies – agreed coup, military coup, or soft coup – summarize the history of Latin America during the last two hundred years. Obviously, this history accompanies and goes hand in hand with efforts to build republican and democratic institutions during those same two hundred years of history. The tension between the construction of a republican institutionality and the forces opposing or contradicting that effort summarizes the history of our peoples.
What are the indicators that hint at the possibility of a coup d’état? One indicator refers to the stability or weakness of state institutions (constitutional powers, electoral, autonomous bodies) and social institutions (free press, organized civil society, labor or business associations), and the systematic harassment of the political power when it feels that its political project is not advancing as it would like.
Another indicator is the stability or fragility of the economy and its capacity to generate satisfaction for the population. Along with this, the ability of the State to provide quality services to stimulate economic growth. Economic deterioration puts a government in check.
A third indicator has to do with factors that can disrupt the country’s social peace, such as poverty, corruption, climate change, criminality, and violence in general. Also, elements generate internal social divisions and polarization, such as religions and clashing ideologies.
A fourth indicator refers to the quality of the relationship maintained with the international environment, both economically, in terms of respect for legality and the flow of interests that these ties bring. Many international conflicts tend to incite the discontent of a people.
A final indicator, without which all of the above cannot be understood, is the relationship of the rulers with the Armed Forces and the role they have played in society as a decisive factual power. Mainly if the military commanders have emerged from the upper echelons of society or have a more middle-class origin, or from traditional military establishments. Also, what has been the military’s links with the de facto powers in society (people in business, political parties, organized crime, foreign intelligence agencies) to know which way they lean in times of crisis.
What corresponds to us in Mexico is to see to what extent the internal and external crisis of the government and the country can lead the political power to consider as a possible option the planning and execution of a coup d’état, under any of these modalities.
The current democratically elected government systematically and permanently attacks the institutions of the State by applying the policy of “republican austerity”, whose fundamental objective is to weaken them to the point of making them disappear. It implements a procedure of reductionism of the State instrument, leaving only the Federal Executive and the Armed Forces. It considers that any State or social entity not subordinated to its wishes is an enemy that must be destroyed. Press, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, electoral bodies, judges, legislators, political parties, labor and business organizations: all are in their sights and are considered enemies to its cause.
The economy is seen as a burden on the public purse that must be regulated or extinguished. If they are not allies of the government, the full force of the law must be applied to them and beyond to achieve their submission, surrender, or expulsion from the country in the case of foreign investment. Investment is considered a human perversion that must be avoided.
The government thinks that the factors of social nonconformity can be satisfied with the distribution of public money. It does not solve poverty, but it appeases possible protests and buys wills. It also allies with drug trafficking to help sustain the “popular economy” in socioeconomically deprived areas. This fatal agreement increases violence throughout the country. This “freedom of action passport” for crime to operate at will, as long as it helps control the impoverished masses, is a boomerang against social peace and has gotten totally out of control. His discourse of fighting corruption serves to create the idea of a government empathetic with the suffering of others. But the facts belie his claims.
International relations are seen simply as an instrument to modulate internal relations and conditions. Indeed, he is not interested in international relations when they do not serve a domestic purpose. Panama? Let’s send it a perverse internal political commitment. What difference does it make? Same to Spain, the Dominican Republic, Bolsonaro’s Brazil, France, and Great Britain. And the United States? Let us send an ambassador appointed by a business ally, no matter his interest or aptitude.
And the key to it all. The government’s statement that without the support and collaboration of the Armed Forces, it could not achieve its objectives. The Executive considers its civilian cabinet incompetent and useless to attend to its desires and projects. He affirms that only the Armed Forces can accomplish this feat of pleasing him to the fullest because they obey and comply, unlike the civilians, who neither follow nor comply. Civilians are a factor of internal discord, unlike the military. The Executive has also discovered that filling the military’s saddlebags helps to encourage its obedience.
With all these indicators comes the corruption crisis of his eldest son, which promises to grow into a situation involving more immediate family members. Since it is a corruption problem, it hits directly at the waterline of the government narrative that justifies it. It is the narrative that brought this government into being. Without it, it would not have won the elections.
This is the worst moment of this government. Together with its lack of tangible achievements – rather with a string of setbacks – the fact of losing control over its anti-corruption narrative literally shakes the government.
The Executive knows this. Hence the anger that everyone has witnessed. Determined not to lose control of his government and committed to giving continuity to his “project” with the next one, he is determined to seek options to provide himself with a “new governance”.
We should not rule out that he may fabricate a major crisis to justify a declaration of a State of Exception in Mexico under the pretext of threatening national security. This would allow him to temporarily suspend the terms of the Constitution and the suspension of civil and human rights. He could then constitute a “national salvation” government based on a co-government between civilians and the military. Henceforth, the suspension of civil rights would imply canceling all upcoming elections with no expiration date.
The threat is not far-fetched. A “Fujimorazo” in Mexico is perfectly possible. Fujimori did something similar in Peru, and it allowed him to retake political power for years, hand in hand with his military and the Peruvian security and espionage systems.
Neither the USMCA nor foreign powers will save us from this. Only we, Mexicans, facing the future head-on and without fear.
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