Antonio Navalón
In power, there is no deception; you are what you seem or what you appear to be. Put it as you wish. One is made up based on words that turn into deeds. In politics, only two chapters are generally judged: the beginning and the end. Some competently start their administration to justify the votes obtained, but once in power, they forget the trust placed in them and neglect how they conclude their mandate. Between morning press conferences (mañaneras) speeches, I have been able to know what it means to be one of the elected ones, to be the one who governs, and to whom the others obey. And so, between morning speeches that do nothing more than confirm that power is in the hands of one man, I still remember that October 17, 2019, when President López Obrador, giving his reasons – which only made sense to him – ordered the release of Ovidio Guzmán López. Those were times when the slogan that distinguished the new security policy had already been repeated many times: “hugs, not bullets”.
In 2019 it was already beginning to be seen that this era, so promising and so generous from the social point of view, was going to be an era in which the laws, the accompaniment, and the structure of power would depend only on one person. And that person was President López Obrador, who was the one who had decided and ordered the Mexican army to release El Chapito. Three years and months later, Ovidio’s release is shocking. It is even more incredible if one thinks that in a few minutes and with a figure that is not that of the President, who does not have the powers of the President, and who does not have the magnetism to be the leader of the nation, different things were concluded. First, the process in which the President had ordered the release of El Chapito. Second, in less than three minutes, it was reported that SEDENA had launched an operation that night in which the son of Joaquín Guzmán Loera had been arrested.
Could it be that the President is there to explain the ultimate demonstration of power? A power that, as all those who have held it, knows that it consists of having the authority to forgive. Or, in other words, the ability to free someone detained. Years after what happened, Culiacan, some areas of Sonora, and the Mexican army have to pay the price for arresting Ovidio Guzman, alias ” The Mouse”.
I don’t even want to think about who, when, and how – beyond the line of command – the operation was prepared and ordered to be carried out. Nor do I want to attribute it to the fact that the arrest happened just days before President Biden’s first visit to Mexico City to meet with López Obrador and Trudeau. Here it is necessary to point out that, despite the lack of the security the airport required and the uncertainties about President Biden’s safety, he lands today at AIFA after seeing the pilgrimage of migrants and the tragedy that can be seen in the border area.
Nor do I want to think – as some have suggested, written, mumbled, or pointed out – that this is simply a gift we want to give to the emperor, the one who is above us. Nor will I waste much time, nor will I make you waste it, in making political conjectures such as that it was not President López Obrador who ordered the arrest. That the arrest resulted from reaching the end of the profitability of the policy of hugs and not bullets. That we cannot have a preferential trade partner if we cannot serve him as he wishes or if – despite having detected or detained criminals – we cannot exercise actual control over our territory.
All these theories may or may not be accurate, but in reality, that is not relevant. What is important is what is written in the DNA of the people, and everyone who is Mexican or knows how our country works know that the fifth year of the presidential term is the year of truth. Everyone knows that, without having the overwhelming proof of Texcoco, Dos Bocas, the Mayan Train, or the AIFA, in the first year or the fifth year, every Mexican will look for answers in the wind and will try to decipher where or how the new history will take shape.
We are all immersed and submerged in the fifth year, although it seems that the only one who does not seem to want to find out is the same one who has the same disease that all the other rulers before him had. It is necessary to know, first, that power is not eternal. Second, to become President of a country, it would be very important to study physics. If they studied physics, they would be able to know that one thing is the speed of the ascent and another is the multiplication of the rate, by weight, of the descent. And now we are already on the decline without stopping. Be that as it may, the only true thing is that in this fifth year, every day has passed, and there has been a new mistake. And as some chests are not wine cellars and as some brains were not made to think before speaking, but the other way around, we had been and began a year with a fiasco per day.
It is unnecessary to understand that the plagiarism issue was already unpresentable per se. Although this event was consummated when the President rushed and let himself be embraced by his two nominees for the Supreme Court Presidency, Yasmín Esquivel and Loretta Ortiz, and unintentionally tipped the scales definitively against the first of them. What seemed to be a prank made explicit what was written in the wind: that powers do not perpetuate themselves.
The poor. For everyone’s sake, them first. I agree, and that is something I always thought the same thing. What poor Mexicans, or poor people anywhere in the world, were not prepared for was to hear from the president’s throat that such support was subject to restrictions. Of course, the poor are supported in Mexico, but – being the most grateful sector of the population – the flow of funds was always conditioned to defending social conquests and counting on their votes whenever necessary. One thing is political criticism, and another is the admission on one’s part. According to the political logic expressed by President López Obrador, if you were poor, you would know that, first, the game is never to stop being poor. Second, one’s socioeconomic status guarantees the lode of votes to remain in power. And third, one is destined to be poor for life for political reasons.
With these facts and these thoughts, the President of the Fourth -what? does not need many enemies. Moreover, unfortunately, all these only needs or only has one vital problem: there is no one in front of him who can put and give hope and a solution to the people of Mexico. There is no opposition that can prostrate itself in front of the various mistakes and witticisms committed by the one whose mission was to keep the tiger guarded. Empires fall, and new ones replace them. The question is, in the face of the fall of the gods, what can be in store for us?
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