In May 2022, we published “Mexico does not need a new leader but a new System.” It is by far the most read piece we have published so far. The essence of it is explained in the first paragraph:
“Let’s begin at the end: Mexico is in the process of destroying institutions to ensure that those in power stay forever; it is not, as they claim, the beginning of a new era but the coming to an end of a political system that allowed the country to live with a relative calm but unequal prosperity for a century. Yet, the system was no longer functional. It went from a self-dealing ruling class to a corrupt technocracy, to a mediocre kleptocracy …, to a dishonest kakistocracy (a system of government that is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens) headed by a zealot and ignorant leader intellectually disabled.“
Then we announced what we are living today:
“There is no 4th Transformation. It’s the End of the Mexican Political System.”
The following paragraph detailed what we are witnessing two years later:
“Far from the obscure and pompous denomination that pretends to mark the beginning of a new era in history, the so-called “Fourth Transformation” (4T) is nothing more than the systematic and rabid destruction of institutions without any plan or model, not even a rough idea of what to do to achieve the nebulous objectives derived from campaign slogans, varnished with ideological fixations typical of adolescence.”
The collapse of the opposition’s political parties in the past election confirms what we alerted back in 2022:
“Political parties became franchises controlled by gangs that divided the spoils of public office among themselves…. This was increasingly public and notorious, degrading the image of public officials, politicians, and their parties in the eyes of the electorate.
“As a result of it, and in the face of the growing dissatisfaction with the precarious economic situation and the insecurity in which the majority of the population lives, the citizens rejected them at the polls, electing Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who, apparently, represented the opposite: a shrewd man who knew how to make people believe he was an honest democrat, with no strings attached to those who controlled the enormous corruption apparatus, whom he denounced and attacked in every speech, promising to do away with them and with corruption, which he blamed for the generalized poverty throughout the country.”
“The result of the experiment is quite expensive. Once in power, a megalomaniac caudillo emerged, resentful, ignorant, factious, and intellectually challenged, incapable of discerning anything that was not part of his gospel, who swept away professionals in public service and experts in their fields and replaced them with loyalists of his tribe in positions for which they are not qualified, except for their allegiance to the gang leader. Hence, after more than three years, poverty and extreme poverty have expanded, insecurity is more violent and spread geographically throughout the national territory, and organized crime is tolerated and now governs parts of the country. Those previously accused of corruption are now his allies and beneficiaries of his favors, protection, and cover-up, and rampant corruption is worse than ever.”
Yet, he managed to impose his candidate to succeed him after faking a primary in his movement and also imposed the electoral calendar (unlawfully), campaigned in favor of his candidate, diverting a massive amount of public funds to finance her campaign (illegally), including anticipating and doubling the handouts of “social programs” before the election and using public servants in charge of its deployment to threat the beneficiaries to vote for his candidate or else, lose those benefits; imposed a loyalist at the helm of the electoral body and another at the electoral tribunal.
That, combined with very effective propaganda blaming the past administrations and the rich for all of today’s maladies, convinced the majority that even if corruption is even worse than before, at least they were receiving something, unlike before when the elite kept all the spoils.
If that was not enough, the next step is to illegally snatch the first minority plurinominal congressional seats, invoking some articles of secondary laws contradicting what the Constitution clearly establishes regarding overrepresentation. They need it to secure a qualified majority that will allow them to make changes to the Constitution to take revenge against the Judiciary, which has limited the President’s constant and evident violations of Constitutional norms, and also the elimination of the autonomous agencies that guarantee access to public information, government accountability, and a healthy balance in economic activity.
As is normal when someone speaks in public for three hours a day without a script or filters about his witticisms and fixations, López Obrador confessed, without anyone asking him, that he used to call the Presiding Justice of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation to intervene in matters that were of his interest so that they would be resolved not according to law but according to his convenience, and that the Minister-President of the Court agreed to do it. Hence, to make sure that things stayed that way, he explored the possibility of sending a law initiative to his movement legislators that used to approve everything without changing a comma, so that contrary to the provisions of the Constitution, the mandate of the President of the Supreme Court would be extended for another four years to ensure that for the rest of his administration, he could do and undo as he pleased in the Judiciary. However, the opposition in Congress prevented it, and since his legislators did not have a qualified majority, they had to discard this idea.
As the new President of the Supreme Court of the Nation did not have the same unworthy attitude as her predecessor, López Obrador waged a war with all the power of his office against not only the Minister and the Court but also the entire Judicial Branch. Yes, it is a spoiled child’s tantrum.
In other words, a Coup dÉtat is developing, destroying the Judiciary and replacing it with a system enabling morena and organized crime to appoint judges, magistrates, and Supreme Court Justices who respond to their interests. The rule of law in today’s Mexico is shaky, not free of corruption or nepotism, and to a certain extent, influenceable by the Executive. Still, the Judiciary has dramatically advanced its professionalization since its 1996 and 2021 reforms. But if López Obrador succeeds in his Coup, there will not be an independent Judiciary as a separate power, and given the manipulation of the law to gain control of Congress, the checks and balances required in any democracy will be absent, and Mexico will become an autocratic tyranny disguised as a democracy.
This has consequences; to begin with, this would violate the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC -which is based on equality before the law and the rule of law- in several of its articles related to compliance with due process, the separation of powers to guarantee them, as well as the commitment to the independence and constitutional autonomy of the regulatory bodies, making it no longer enforceable. The problem for Mexico’s economy is that its main engine is its trade with its northern neighbors, which, absent or curtailed by tariffs, would cause a severe disruption, which in turn would force rating agencies to downgrade its sovereign debt, no longer enjoying lower interest rates and the appetite of investors who require and investment grade.
Sadly for Mexico, AMLO does not care. Just as he canceled the new airport for metropolitan Mexico City when it was one-third completed, at a cost to the taxpayer of 300 billion pesos and deprived the country of a major hub just to demonstrate who was in charge, he is doing the same with even more significant consequences for the Nation.
Yes, we were right when we published that piece; it finished as follows:
“Yes, Mexico needs a new system badly.
To defend the rights of citizens to be governed by the best and most qualified to do so.
To save the country from backwardness and imminent economic bankruptcy.
To have a congress that is respected as what it should be: another power of the union.
To avoid changes to the Constitution aimed at maintaining indefinitely in power a group of incapable, rapacious people who feel enlightened and who are above the law and the institutions.
To prevent organized crime, both white-collar and machine-gun criminals, from continuing to rule over those who should fight it.
To avoid that, due to the clumsiness in government management and the lukewarmness in the use of public force to impose order and ensure respect for the law, our neighbor is forced to intervene to do what ours did not want or could not do, putting at risk and causing damage in its territory, with the ethically valid argument of safeguarding the lives and properties of its citizens.
To not allow our incipient democracy to be transformed into a tyranny headed by a man who has an intellectual disability.
To prevent the majority from being hidden from reality with a triumphalist narrative, eventually turning into a tragedy.”
SEPGRA Political Analysis Group.
Further Reading: