Federico Reyes Heroles
In the dance of power, the traitor leads the dance.
The quality of his dancing reveals the quality of his spirit.
In praise of betrayal,
D. Jeambar and Yves Roucaute
Is loyalty an attribute, something consubstantial to a person? Or is it perhaps acquired by principle, by conviction? Loyalty is not required for couples in love, but fidelity is linked to faith. But in politics, faith in a person can be suicidal. Some loyalties go beyond the personal. That is the territory that Machiavelli discovered. It is a code of its own.
“A prince,” the sage asserted, “never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promises”. We all know that politicians lie; that is how they conquer consciences; they have no alternative. It is not a perversion but engineering. Anyone who talks about what the future will be like is lying. But it is not infidelity or disloyalty. Nor is it amorality, as has been attributed to the Florentine. The prince must defend his people. And, if he disavows, contradicts, lies, or… betrays a fidelity in that struggle, his actions are justified. It is another ethic. Mexico is living crucial days in its history. If the overrepresentation is approved in the National Electoral Institute (INE) and later in the Superior Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal, we will have gone back half a century. In democracies, the interests of majorities and minorities, potential majorities, are defended. If Morena takes over the Constitution, we will return to authoritarian darkness—a historical regression.
It is time for definitions. Sheinbaum has in front of her disjunctures that will determine the life of a country of 130 million. First: loyalty to AMLO and Morena, or to the principles she defended as a young woman. Second: to be loyal to credible truths or to continue in the dance of lies. If she opts for the truth, she already knows that public finances require a severe adjustment. She will not say it, but she will have to impose it. Third: she knows that the attack on the autonomy of the Judiciary will bring Mexico a terrible institutional rupture… and impoverishment. For many investors, Mexico would no longer be a reliable country. She knows that healing that wound would take many years, more than she has. Besides, the reform is impossible to implement, and failure would be very expensive in pesos. She would inherit a republic pregnant with a monstrosity: three branches of government in one. She knows that the obsession to do away with the autonomous bodies (National Institute of Access to Information INAI, the Energy Regulatory Commission CRE, the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics INEGI, the National Commission of Economic Competition COFECE, the Federal Institute of Telecommunications IFT, the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy CONEVAL, the National Commission of Human Rights CNDH), and to continue watching over the National Institute of Educational Evaluation INEE, will detract her enormous legitimacy. Being a judge and party in the accreditation of public truths is a lousy business. All for the sake of saving 84 million pesos. Another mockery.
She knows that the obsession is pathetic: to disappear the INAI (one billion), but to subsidize Pemex’s losses for 300 billion is an affront to common sense. She knows many people close to the President are entangled in severe corruption. She knows that the United States -whoever wins- has already made a shift in its anti-drug policy; they will go after whoever it is. Everyone included. She knows that she needs very serious professionals to move the energy sector forward and that the future Secretary of Energy, with that profile, needs to control the boards of Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission. The initial cabinet -with ostentatious impositions- hits her in the demand for distance, but there is a solution. She knows that within the Armed Forces, there are also problems of corruption and violation of human rights, and the security scheme has failed. She knows that ‘huachicol ‘, the illegal siphoning and sale of fuel, is skyrocketing. She knows that businessmen promise the virgin’s pearls, but the figures are not going well, just like in Foreign Direct Investment. Sheinbaum knows that the educational apparatus is shattered to pieces and that the construction of the future starts there.
For years, she has always been there, accepting, to gain access to power. It has been the path of others. She has arrived. The first woman president faces a moral demand, beyond any compromise, a demand for power. The prince has no debts to anyone.
Betrayal would be not to think of the Mexicans.
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