Antonio Navalón
Every moment that passes, with the parliamentary majority assembled, doing whatever it takes to maintain it – such as, for example, dismissing and appointing senators instantly, as happened last April 28 – the lightning that does not cease; the relentless flow of the consolidation of the 4T; the destruction of the old neoliberal regime that made us so wretched and, above all, so morally reprehensible, is being dismantled by the will of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The country is different. The change not only took place on July 1, 2018 but – alluding to the words of Heraclitus of Ephesus – it is involved in a dynamic of constant change. Every morning, every week, and with every incident – for example, health – Mexico is being transformed to the measure and taste of President López Obrador. It has become clear that in the current regime, there is no will other than that which resides in the National Palace, and anyone who is against it has either already suffered the consequences or will suffer them in one way or another. Every act carried out by the current administration has fervently sought to erase any trace of the neoliberal state that preceded us.
We must recognize that President López Obrador never lied to us. When some intellectuals, such as Enrique Krauze, called him “the tropical messiah,” many considered the definition an exaggeration and even an offense. However, we were wrong. If anything, Krauze was moderate with that definition.
Now the senators and deputies -who have a name and surname, sign the minutes, and are part of the payroll of history- have been accumulating barbarity after barbarity. The brutality is not in exercising the popular will since that is what we elected them for and what we pay them for. The barbarity is in the legal destruction being done to the country without considering any structural consideration, much less legal. The focus is no longer on what has been destroyed but on deciphering what will replace what – whether by personal design or spontaneous occurrence – has ceased to exist, causing this time to be characterized by defects of form and aggressions to the substance.
I was not surprised that opposition senators chained themselves, literally, to their chairs in the alternate Senate seat to pressure the appointment of the Institute for Access to Information ( INAI) commissioners. I was also not surprised that, despite their efforts, the Morena bench passed a series of reforms in ten minutes. It should come as no surprise that Morena is a movement supported by all the ideas, designs, and ideas that the President comes up with. In that way, the actions of the senators who represent the party that currently governs the country are justified, they do not have the freedom to decide, nor do they have their own will; they act as and when their commander-in-chief tells them to do so.
If one sees and analyzes the pace of systemic and institutional destruction that has taken place during these five years, there will be few doubts. You tell me if it will be necessary to make a legal change that allows reelection or create such conditions that it will not even be possible to lose the election because who will be capable of ruling against the will that emanates from the National Palace? Who will have the courage to defend the Magna Carta of our country and respect the elements that give us the pride of calling ourselves a democracy? Because the reality is that the Constitution is increasingly acquiring the role of an enemy or of being an uncomfortable instrument for the President and has left the future of the country to depend on the inevitable confrontation that will exist between the robes – that is, the Judiciary – and the Executive and Legislative Powers merged into one.
We are making a revolution as revolutions are made, that is to say, without any attachment or respect for the current order. Moreover, a revolution is made to do away with the existing order. Usually, revolutions – even if they begin with the pens as bayonets – end up more in the hands of the bayonets than being resolved by the ink emanating from the pens. And it is in this context that we arrive at our current circumstances, with a centralized State that is getting stronger every day – the Federal Pact is better left out – and with a hazardous administration of resources to the States, destroying and at the same time collecting funds to continue paying for social programs. Such programs would be much needed if, instead of giving alms, helping people to survive or momentarily keeping them out of poverty, we would give them tools so that they could evolve and develop a life full of material triumphs and not only of moral reason, as the 4T intends to do.
President Lopez Obrador is angry with history and, above all, with the laws. He believes -and has never lied to us about it – that institutions are there to be sent to hell. The Mexican leader is convinced that – just as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, in which a situation of complete collective depravity was reached – only total destruction is the key to transforming the corrupt place in which we lived, allowing the birth of a society with some chance to live.
Starting with Morena, in Mexico today, political organizations have disappeared. There is no government. There is no party. And a majority of deputies and senators will do whatever the president asks them to do at the cry of “Banzai, Banzai”. When the so-called “Black Friday” of the Senate of the Republic is examined in a few months or years, I do not know what will happen. In case the Supreme Court ends up outliving this administration and in case the Constitution ends up being repealed, calling for a constituent process, we will see how we will legalize everything that has happened during this time. Meanwhile, the opposition is neither here nor expected. It is completely overwhelmed, and we as a country are alone in the script prescribed every morning by that man capable of even defeating COVID-19 on three occasions and whose name is Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
There are no proposals that highlight the dangers of the current situation, and, of course, there is no counter-proposal that could give hope for a change that would benefit the Mexican people. And it seems that the main challenge of a war or a confrontation has already been met, which is, before defeating it, to take away from the enemy any possibility or desire for victory. President López Obrador has managed to snatch away any dream of victory from the opposition and anyone who wishes to confront him. And the reality is that at this moment, it has been demonstrated that there is nothing that the opposition can do to change the national panorama.
We have reached a point where no one can save themselves. The UNAM did not save itself, the private universities did not save themselves, nor did the many journalists and analysts who have questioned this regime, much less those who have seriously confronted López Obrador. We are all questioned. But not only that but – as Pol Pot did at the time by reducing the age at which a person could enter politics – López Obrador seeks to give young people the reins of the country without basing his capacity on previous experience. He thinks that in this way, those who hold office will be free of corruption and sins due to their young age, but is this the solution?
It is a pity that the president needs collaborators and even family because, at this moment, as things stand, what he would need would be irrefutable proof that he never fell into temptation. That he overcame the 40 days and 40 nights in the face of the billions of pesos that move year after year in our country under the concept of corruption. But not only would he need that proof, but it would also be indispensable to prove that those around him were also immune to temptation.
Today in Mexico, there are two Constitutions or mandates. One is the one that lists all the Laws that govern and have governed our country since its promulgation on February 5, 1917, and the other Constitution is the one dictated by the will of President López Obrador.
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