Antonio Navalón
We are already well into the year 2023. A year prior to the Mexican presidential elections and in which, everyone is already showing what they are made of and what they really want. This is the first time that when we go to vote on June 2, 2024, we will have already witnessed an uninterrupted campaign that lasted more than seven years. Nowhere in the world is anything like it was before. However, in Mexico, we are undergoing a change – or the intention to change everything – of such magnitude that it can truly be said that, if, at the end of this year, things continue the way they are going, the road back will be absolutely impossible.
What would you think of a country that, at the beginning of the year, receives the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of Canada in its capital, meets in its National Palace, reaches a series of agreements, and days later it seems that everything agreed upon is forgotten? What would you think of a nation that, at the same time and without taking its finger off the table, is doing everything it can to organize another summit with other nations that do not belong to North America or to the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC? This being the consequence of the political understanding between the honored Cuban President and the Cuban experiment. Because that is exactly what President Lopez Obrador and his administration did. By day he made good friends with the Canadians and Americans, and by night he gave awards and recognitions to the Cuban leader.
We all have dreams. At some point, we have all thought that perhaps the world would be a better place if, instead of the Marines having triumphed, comrade Fidel Castro had triumphed – with all his lies and totalities. Although the truth is that, if we were to take a free poll in Cuba, assuming that this were possible, we would find that more than half of the Cubans would give anything to live in this decadent, absurd world of worms that those of us who do not belong to the success of the Cuban revolution are.
First he had the Soviet Union as an example, and perhaps that is why Castro turned out to be such a convinced communist. Then, when the Soviet Union disappeared, and the Western world with its capitalism triumphed, the former Cuban dictator found that, in the land of Simon Bolivar, Venezuela, there was another dreamer who, in addition, was a low-ranking officer, but – more importantly – of a lower socioeconomic level who one day dreamed of Bolivar and the next day dreamed of making Castro’s revolution triumph. It would not be possible to understand what Venezuela was and is if it were not for Fidel Castro, and today he would only be a nightmare of history if he had not had the oil and the destruction of Venezuela to consolidate his last years. Not only the years before his death, but also the last years of economic, political, and social maladjustment that the Caribbean island has had to date.
That world is the one we contrast with the world of the great international agreements and the formation of the first global internal market in terms of consumption, production, and spending levels. That is the country in which we live. Therefore, it is not surprising that last February 16 -after an abstention by the “Va por México” pact- Morena and its allies have agreed to appoint those who will form the Technical Evaluation Committee that will review the profiles of those who will aspire to be National Electoral Institute (INE) board members.
Despite the fact that INE has always been a matter of parties and politicians, this is the first time that – as the winners of the elections that have been held from 2018 to date – those in power are convinced that there is nothing to preserve from the electoral institution, everything is put in the hands of a draw. Today INE is in the middle of a game in which, despite complying with what is stipulated in the Law and fulfilling its functions, it has everything to lose. And it is, since regardless of who is elected as board members, it is a body that simply no longer deserves the trust of those in power.
What happened could be fuel for the flames that will burn next February 26 in the macro demonstration, or it could also be proof that, no matter what they do and no matter what, those who are not part of the Four What? and the President’s group say, they will not be able to change anything.
Everything seems to be decided. Moreover, for the avoidance of doubt, last week, the results of a preliminary poll on who would be the candidate for President of the Republic within the ranks of Morena were published in different places. The poll conducted by the Enkoll agency showed two main facts: one, that Claudia Sheinbaum is the best positioned within Morena to succeed López Obrador, ahead of Marcelo Ebrard by eighteen points. And, two, that whether Sheinbaum or Ebrard, either of them would win the presidential election with a thirty-one point lead.
At this time in our country, politics has become grotesque. On the one hand, there is a lost opposition, practically non-existent and dedicated to striking blows within the different municipalities of the country, without a clear candidate and, what is worse, without a proposal that could integrate and serve the millions of voters that President López Obrador obtained in 2018. There is no proposal, no candidate, and with a slogan that dictates that “Va por México“, but the question is – just as with the current regime is the Four What? and what is this movement made of -, where is it going?
What exactly does the opposition have to offer the Mexican people? Because one thing is to go around with the dead man’s trousers at big parties, and another thing is to define who will articulate a proposal that means hope for the people and that can allow them to count on a candidacy with the possibility of triumph. It is not important to collect things that one would not do, nor what is anti-politics for one; what matters is who does them and what happens with the consequences of those facts. And, today, we have a double fork in the national tragedy. First, too many changes have been made in such a short time that they have no substitute elements. And, second, all that, the mistakes of the enemy that remind us of Napoleon’s old saying that “when you see your enemy make a mistake, do not interrupt him”, raises the real question of whether the opposition will be up to the task in 2024.
At the end of the day, the one that our country continues to have is that there is nothing on one side and nothing on the other. As in magic tricks and how sleazy magicians act, it is all an optical effect. However, from now on, it is necessary to clarify what is the real proposal of the Four What? and what is really being offered by that opposition that says and repeats that it is “Va por México” (” Go for Mexico”).
In politics, it has always been said that ambition, dreams, faith, or arguing that God appeared in the night, are fundamental to triumph. But the truth is that here neither the morena pre=candidates nor those who could represent the so-called opposition – assuming it exists – have received either of the two calls. Up to this moment, none of them have received either the call of God in the middle of the night or the call of Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the end of the daily morning press conference saying: “you will be my successor”.
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