Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The politicians of the 4T are trying to explain what is coming with the change of government between AMLO and Sheinbaum. Is it change without change? Or is it continuity with change but continuity at the end of the day? If the change of government between the same party in other countries does not generate confusion, why are we in Mexico troubled by a definition of something so apparently simple?
We are troubled because we are trapped by another question that is more difficult to solve.
AMLO defined the problem, while at the same time making it more complex. In a tour of Oaxaca to “present” the next president, he assured: “Now the first stage of the 4T has been consummated…now comes the continuation of our project without changes…”. In response, Sheinbaum promised him, “To give continuity to the transformation means to give continuity (sic) to the principles with which López Obrador has governed…and there can be no rich government with poor people.”
Immediately after, López Obrador blurted out, “I do not aspire to a Maximato, to be the strong man, moral leader and much less a cacique….” When he spoke of “Maximato” he was obviously referring to the experience of former President Plutarco Elías Calles, who established the so-called “Maximato“, to continue governing the country behind the throne of the one who, formally, held the appointment of President of the Republic.
It is very revealing that he is the one who says so when, at least formally, no one had asked him if he aspired to establish a Maximato to continue being the power behind the throne. Words have their specific weight. The fact that AMLO spoke of Maximato is because he has not discarded it as an option. That is how he has governed. He drops an idea with the apparent intention of achieving its rejection but calculating the possibility of its realization.
To reiterate that there is an unresolved debate on the issue of the role that López Obrador will play in the next government, which is reflected in the struggle over the appointment of Sheinbaum’s government cabinet, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, future Secretary of Foreign Affairs, made a bizarre statement, which pretends to be a clarification on the subject. He said, “There is a transition without rupture but without submission.” Without “submission”? Is that the debate? Submission or non-submission. It is an enlightening approach to the problem that is silently appearing everywhere.
Could it be that de la Fuente is answering López Obrador’s question about his brush with the Maximato concept? These questions crave answers because they have and will have a practical effect on the management of the next government.
What we have in front of us is the internal struggle over the appointment of the cabinet. It is true that the first tranche of its members was well received. It was the pinkest of the cabinet. But, in reality, the important thing comes now: the security cabinet (Public Security, National Investigation Center, National Defense Secretariat, Navy, National Guard) and Welfare, Education, and Health. That is the national security and social policy cabinets. The true character of a possible Maximato will appear in this part of the cabinet. Especially in the security cabinet, there is a very dense intertwining of economic interests, agreements with drug trafficking, and the continuity of the model of a new political-militarist regime in Mexico. A model designed and forged during his entire six-year term by López Obrador. Does someone like Harfush, for example, have a place in that model, according to AMLO?
The definition of the cabinet coming this week will clarify in an important way whether there will be a Maximato in the next six-year term—or, as de la Fuente says, a government “without submission.”
President Cárdenas exiled Elías Calles to end his Maximato.
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