Ricardo Pascoe Pierce.
Liz Truss and AMLO suffer from the syndrome of promoting policies without consensus that clash with real society. They promote programs that sound like political slogans accompanied by commercial jingles but lack any technical, budgetary, or feasibility soundness. Both rulers came to power assuming that their legislative majorities would give them automatic carte blanche to twist reality as they pleased.
And both, although in different ways, are stumbling upon the harsh reality. They are two examples of contemporary rulers, supposedly of opposite ideologies (Mrs. Truss of the extreme radical right and AMLO of the extreme radical left). Despite this formal reality (right-left), they are actually surprisingly similar.
They both start from the need to polarize the political environment of their respective countries. This happens because Truss and AMLO consider that they are the bearers of a new message for society. They carry a proposal that they intend to impose on the majority that voted for them, but it is a majority that was not clearly informed of the scope of their offer. And when that majority becomes aware of the facts, it reacts, albeit differently, depending on the society.
The British, a society with more deeply rooted democratic state institutions and more proven experience, has responded on the whole to the extreme radicalization proposal with haste and decisiveness. But also because Truss had a highly developed economic plan in mind that she wanted to impose from day one. She was explicit from her first appearance in parliament when she created her program of “low taxes, high growth and temporary indebtedness to maintain social subsidies”. Basically, her proposal was to drastically lower taxes on the rich, assuming they would invest their surpluses in creating more and better wages. From then on, Truss envisioned Britannia returning to its historical place as the world’s great leader.
It was a rhetorical offer that failed to account for a tiny detail: Great Britain, like the rest of the world, was in recession resulting from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. It was neither in a position nor the mood for such an economic-social experiment.
AMLO came to power in Mexico four years ago with an equally grandiloquent offer like Truss’, but on a much more vague and imprecise basis. It was an offer more ideological than concrete, reflecting, to a significant extent, the low degree of maturity acquired by Mexican society during our “democratic spring” that began in 1997 and showed clear signs of exhaustion. Mexico’s democratic institutions show signs of frustration, weakness, and even collapse. The option of returning to an authoritarian night without solid responses of rejection by the legislative majorities is open.
He started his first day of government without an alternative economic proposal but with many gestures indicating where he wanted to walk. As he had no real plan, he embraced the option of governing through gestures during the first three years. He launched relevant signs such as the cancellation of the large Texcoco airport to make do with several small, scattered, unconnected, and, therefore, inefficient airports. Another gesture has been to favor fossil fuels, such as constructing a refinery near his home, while ignoring renewable and clean energies. He ignores world trends in this area, even in the face of the evidence offered by the war in Ukraine. On the other hand, he never promotes internal political dialogue with the opposition. On the contrary, he favors the “pack of dogs” policy as a method of government in the face of dissent. Polarization, our President, apparently thinks, is convenient for him to succeed in past, present, and future elections.
It was not until after the mid-term elections of 2021 when he lost the qualified majority in the lower chamber of congress, that he finally let the country know what he wanted. And probably this is so because it was then, and only then when he finally formulated his desired government program. He established three premises: an energy reform, excluding foreign investment, an electoral reform to control the election executing body from his office and the merger of the National Guard with the Army to create an autonomous military force free from any transparency or social surveillance, and which would supposedly govern with him, making a civic-military combo.
Unlike Truss, who proposed her program of radical change on the first day of government, it took AMLO three years of government (half of his six-year term) to understand what he wanted to do and how to achieve it. It took him three years to formulate what the “4th Transformation” meant. Just as well. At least we all know now, beyond his first three years full of “hints”, what he proposes to transform Mexico. And we also know how he proposes to achieve it: by promoting social and political polarization, establishing secret alliances with organized crime, and taking the Armed Forces by the hand.
And what he is proposing is not sitting well with Mexican society. His last two years of government promise to be one of open conflict because the radical authoritarian populist-not leftist-authoritarian program has already been made publicly known. His love for the Cuban model stems strictly from the fact that, his mind being a “tabula rasa” with no substantive proposals, he found in that style of government the attractive model for his limited vision of the construction of a new State.
He had initially thought that the revolution he envisioned would come with a change in certain budgetary criteria. Specifically, the distribution of a lot of money directly into the hands of millions of poor people, the pressure of taxing the rich, reducing their businesses in the country, and three pharaonic works of the government. Three years later, he resented the electoral defeat in the mid-term elections. It was necessary to go deep, he must have thought. And he chose the Cuban model, which was confirmed when he traveled to the island with the secretaries of the Army and the Navy so that they would also be enthusiastic about the project. Apparently, the generals liked the business part more than the small communist detail.
Today, the path chosen by AMLO’s government means breaking with the reality of its geographical, economic, social, and political situation. It is one step away from breaking with the USMCA and, therefore, with our central economic partners, the United States, and Canada. He believes China is the epicenter of the world’s future, with Russia as a relevant partner. He does not dialogue with the opposition because his model of society is for those who accept a single party and single ideology. Like the pied piper, he invites us to his idea of paradise, which is nothing more than a precipice.
Truss fell because she offered a right-wing authoritarian radicalism. AMLO should fall with his leftist model of civic-military imposition. Both are leading their respective countries to a fiasco.
It is time to summon serene and mature minds to power.
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