Antonio Navalón
At this point in my life, I have realized that I am not very sure, nor could I blindly assure that democracy matters to anyone. By this, I do not mean that there are not romantic, intellectual, thoughtful, and honest people who cling to its existence but, above all, to its essence. Winston Churchill once said that “democracy is the worst system of government designed by man. Except for all the others”. I believe that, when compared to all other forms of government, he was right. The truth is that if you look around and analyze, for example, what is happening in the United States, in Israel, or in a multiplicity of countries, you will realize that democracy is under siege and in grave danger of being unrepresentative.
It has been many years since the loyalty pact between the elector and the elected was broken. We had not yet finished inserting the ballots with our votes in the ballot boxes, and the electors already felt free of the commitment we had made about our choices. We began to see this exercise as so simple and commonplace that we lost sight of its importance and all that it entailed. Before, one vote was enough to change the course of history. Then came the polls and, with them, the manipulation and mass popular confusion. Recently, “likes” appeared, and with them, a new way of measuring the success of elections. However – and opportunely – the last electoral exercises demonstrated that a “like” is no longer a vote, and neither is a “tweet” a political proposal.
Looking closely at what has happened, one cannot be very optimistic about the future. The tsunami, cyclone, hurricane – or whatever you want to call it – that has been Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his movement has completely erased the essence of political parties and a century of political tradition in Mexico.
With the passage of time, I can say that the ruler that President López Obrador most resembles is the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And I see that sooner rather than later – I don’t know if with the experiment of leaving the toy for a while – the big question that will be raised will be reelection. It is inevitable. The election and the fact of continuing to play at democracy does not guarantee anything and, therefore, now that we have entered into a complete crisis, why not aggravate it and make a final push by changing the Constitution, allowing his term of office to have no end? And it seems that there are only two options, either we allow this to happen or we opt for a complete change of model.
In the recent elections held in the State of Mexico and in Coahuila, what had to happen happened, although I confess that I had a glimmer of hope that the result would have been different. I think that the people have the opportunity to rectify and -despite what the polls show and despite the collective brainwashing- I believe that the peoples can perfectly well have a reaction and produce a change that represents much more than the election of a ruler.
After analyzing and seeing what happened, I can say that the democratic model is based on the behavior of human beings. Neither the miracle arrived, nor the surprise was consummated, but what is very important is that -despite all the mañaneras, all the money, and all the uniformed people- the summoned and the summoners, especially in the State of Mexico, did not reach fifty percent of the electoral roll of the entity. Hence my question, is there really anyone who cares about democracy?
In this modern democracy of social networks – blessed for some and cursed for others – there is a responsibility and a demand for what State action means, for example, in a sector as important as education. In the short term – as we have seen – it is clear what one needs to do to be a loyal follower of the regime is to swear loyalty and pay attention to what happens in every mañanera. But what about the others, the institutional revolutionaries, the national activists, or the democratic republicans? And the fact is that in the face of 2024, it is still uncertain whether there will actually be an opposition that can provide a real counterweight to the movement headed by President López Obrador.
With a political map that shows 21 state entities led by Morena against 5 by the PAN, 2 by the PRI -which, together with the PRD, can practically be considered dead-, 2 by Movimiento Ciudadano and the other two entities governed by the Green Party and by the Partido Encuentro Solidario, there is not much to study or analyze. Without ending the debate and giving space to the culmination of a miracle, the big question arises: what does the opposition need to do in order to truly be a worthy adversary of Morena?
In Mexico, we only have a gigantic figure that resembles the nine-meter statue of Nelson Mandela in Pretoria that is impossible not to look at; that figure is called Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. There is nothing next to him, nothing surrounding him, although he is also a constant reminder that democracy and power can never be the work of one man.
Next September 15, the State of Mexico will give the shout that commemorates Mexican independence by the hand of Delfina Gómez. Or, rather, the team of the recently elected governor and her main partners (such as Senator Higinio Martinez and Horacio Duarte, who until less than a year ago was the head of the National Customs Agency) will be able to begin to exercise power on that day. A shared power that will be presided over by Delfina Gómez but which will actually be carried out by them. And in the midst of all this, we still do not know what the proposal is. We do not know if the pension for the elderly will be increased or if more support will be given to young people. Nor do we know -considering that she has been the Secretary of Education for a little more than a year- what educational offer she will make available to the Mexiquense citizens, who are part of the most populated state in the country.
The world has a problem: it does not know very well how to represent itself, and when it finds a way to vote among several – or almost always among one or two options – it is not willing to keep the pact of loyalty that means having chosen someone. And as for the chosen one, he considers that once he has won, he acquires with the voters the same relationship as a one-night stand in a bar. All this alone would be the representation of a huge crisis in the system. However, to all this, we must add the fact that for the person in charge, the laws are a hindrance, and no law has the slightest importance when it comes to “building the future”. Now what really matters is the emotional discharge of the winner of each election. And, of course, with all this context and panorama, it is just as impossible to invent a country and create the necessary conditions to make it more serious and responsible.
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