Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
President López Obrador is beside himself. He is what follows from furious. He’s raging. What conditions made him resemble Adolf Hitler in the last days of World War II when German defeat was inevitable?
The latest externalization of his inner state of mind occurred, as it had to, in a mañanera with his vicious, violent, and rancorous attack against María Amparo Casar for her pension as the widow of a Pemex employee. He indirectly blames her for being responsible for Morena’s fall in electoral preferences.
Once again, he violated the laws in our country regarding protecting personal data, so he went for Casar’s jugular. He did it because he could and knew nobody could stop him. The jurisdictional bodies responsible for the containment, correction, or punishment of public officials who commit administrative or criminal offenses have been emasculated in Mexico. Most of these bodies have been colonized by militants of his party (where they do not mind ignoring their legal responsibilities) or have been reduced in their members and budgets, often making it impossible to make correct and legal decisions.
Such is the case of the Electoral Tribunal of the Judiciary of the Federation, TEPJF, which lacks so many members that many of its decisions could be challenged, especially in the case of a ruling in a competitive presidential election where Morena could be harmed. There is a real explosive landmine buried and waiting to be exploited in case of an emergency.
Of course, AMLO cannot admit such a scenario. According to public data, most polls give Sheinbaum a sure winner. So how can the first poll that predicts victory for Xóchitl provokes such anger? The Massive Caller poll that put Xóchitl ahead of Sheinbaum provoked an earthquake of anxiety in the President and his ilk.
It would seem that Sheinbaum’s entire campaign is rooted in the artificially created idea about her invincibility and inevitability of victory. The problem with that strategy of building an artificial electoral result is that it has to be accompanied by a genuine social mood, which is obviously not the case.
At this moment, there are two Mexicos. One is the one that demands submission to what the public power says and orders in terms of people physically present at an event or promises of votes, all paid for with black public money or support from organized crime. The other Mexico is one of the mobilizations on one’s own feet, without money, with the conviction that there is a cause to defend, such as freedom, security, democracy, and the future.
In the first Mexico, there were neither causes nor convictions but interests, pressures, threats, and imposition. There was no freedom of expression. There was the obligation to give support and, why not, to vote for the candidate.
In the other Mexico, the one of freedom, democracy, and a viable future, there will be debate, discussion, and even disagreements, but, finally, there will be the essential coincidence of the need to defend a country with tolerance to differences, but with solid institutions that bind the powerful to obey the law and the mandate of the democratically elected majorities.
May 1 was both symbolic and illustrative of this situation. While the union leadership manifested their “support” (which is nothing more than their subordination) to the federal government, their rank and file rallied around the opposition candidates. This expresses two things. First, union leadership may lack representativeness. Second, the union rank and file rebelled against their leadership due to their discontent with the country’s economic, political, and social situation.
This situation was clearly expressed in Mexico City. While the leaders of the Mexico City workers’ union sections met with Morena’s candidate for head of government, the union rank and file met with Santiago Taboada, the opposition candidate. Moreover, the union rank and file clearly expresses what is happening within their union sections. They affirmed that the leadership, in an act of political opportunism, accepted that they should go to the ruling party’s call while endorsing that their rank and file should go with the opposition. It is a hypocritical double game, the product of the pragmatic need of the moment: to flatter the boss, while behind the scenes, you prepare what your eyes and ears tell you: that the opposition will win. This is the only way to explain such a game of political castling between the leadership and the rank and file; otherwise, it is pretty obvious.
There is an air of total uncertainty about the possible electoral scenarios as of June 2. The country’s social mood is quite fluid and not very predictable. Nothing is certain, much less Sheinbaum’s “assured victory.”
This has the President more than insecure. He is out of sorts, which is what his outbursts, insults, and blatantly illegal behavior reveal. He is determined to win the election the hard way, if necessary. He does not think, not even for a minute, of ceding power to the opposition. And yet, sitting in the National Palace, he resembles Hitler in his bunker in Berlin: the options are closing, and the possibilities of victory are shrinking, day by day. Presidential anguish is at its peak. Anger is coming out of every pore.
That is why he insults and offends María Amparo Casar and will do the same against other individuals or groups in the coming days. He is the caged tiger, not Mexican society. The people will accept the verdict of the ballot box. Some will be sad, and some will be happy. But, unlike the citizens, the President does not intend to accept that verdict. It would be an unacceptable slap in the face of his perception of himself and his own exaggerated greatness.
His anger takes away his lucidity and strategic clarity. He knows what he wants, but he perceives himself on a path that leads to losing everything. He is like a train that has lost its brakes. The social mood accompanying him in 2018 has already been erased from the map. It is one thing to force the beneficiaries of social programs to vote for Morena by employing terrorist tactics, and another thing, completely different, was that free and enthusiastic vote he received in 2018. That no longer exists. Moreover, millions of those who vote today will vote against him. That vote against him is a consequence of so many unfulfilled promises or outright lies told, day after day, in the mañaneras. And of the offenses launched by a chronic liar.
How can those millions of free votes be recovered? There is no way. They were irremediably lost because trust in his word and his project was lost. Without the fulfillment of the word promised and without tangible results in freedoms, democracy, and security, faith is lost. And in the case of Morena and López Obrador, faith is lost.
It is for this essential reason that Morena will lose the election. And, as the President knows it, he cannot get out of his anger. He will continue attacking and insulting people and institutions and ignoring the law until the last breath of his administration.
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