Antonio Navalón
In all major political and social movements in history, generally – over and above attempts to change the legal or historical profile through a process of assimilation – the tendencies that sought legal stability and constitutional defense won out. However, there have also been times when – whether due to the great popularity of the leader in office, the failure of systems, the abuse of corruption, or the supremacy of impunity – the structures of countries were significantly breached. Be that as it may, the battle between legality and popularity has always brought with it dire consequences for the life of nations.
It took Mexico many years, more than a century, to achieve a legal stability that -despite all the ups and downs, the fabulation, and the national tendency to make laws in order not to comply with them- resulted, despite everything, in the conformation of a State. Another very different thing was the use or abuse that, with the passing of the years and the political hegemony, was made of corruption and practices that harmed the exercise and tasks of the State.
“…in Mexico, the Law is only something annoying, and its compliance is not mandatory”.
On July 1, 2018, Mexico took a step like never before. It is true that this step – which was accompanied by more than thirty million voters who elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador as their President and the 4T as their regime – was a step that came from a continuous failure. A failure that had been dragging on for at least the last eighteen years and where all promises, expectations, or capacities to use the force of the State to self-regenerate and consolidate a positive evolution for the majority of the people were disappointed six-year term after another.
The big question to be asked with this ongoing revolution we are living in is whether the 4T fits in the Constitution or whether the Constitution has any chance of surviving the regime led by President López Obrador. In just four years, there have been many substantial tests and changes that not only change the behavior and preeminence of Mexico’s political capacities but also – over and over again – play on the same thing. Despite knowing the insurmountable consequences it will bring about, the dispute between popularity and legality continues to be put into practice.
We have reached a point where it was not very difficult to predict we would come. The internal struggles within the 4T, enjoying presidential closeness or being the best interpreter – regardless of the limits set by law on the presidential will – have become factors that reflect the current political reality. A reality that, far from giving us certainty or assuring legality, is moving us further and further away from stability. Little by little, we are placing ourselves in a situation where it will be increasingly difficult to understand the costs of choosing presidential and regime popularity over the legality and constitutional defense.
“In Mexico, our leader does not allow himself to be trapped by that vulgarity for the weak, which means that the Law is the Law“.
In addition, and as if this were not enough, we are facing two crises linked and embedded in the very essence of the regime. Two situations that demonstrate the true seriousness of the problems we are facing. On the one hand, there is Ayotzinapa and the impossibility of discovering what really happened and who is responsible for what happened. On the other hand, we are facing a situation in which the reality of numbers, violence, insecurity, and the fact of not knowing where and how we can continue to live, is confronted with the current dilemma of military preeminence. It is not known with what purpose, guarantees, or under what plan, but it is increasingly sought to give a more predominant role and function to the Armed Forces in the country’s public life. From the President’s point of view, this action – which he defends under the argument that no Mexican leader would dare to carry it out – would reduce diseases afflicting our nation, such as corruption, impunity, and insecurity, among many others. Placed in that situation or, rather, under the position that the guarantee of military control is the guarantee that they will never cease to be the nation’s assets, we move forward regardless of the outcome.
The confrontation of legality with popularity is causing the rule of law to lose its position. But, in addition, we need an explanation that goes beyond conflict for confrontation’s sake and imposition for imposition’s sake. It is necessary to know why or for what purpose the Mexican Armed Forces are to be kept until 2028 as the ones in charge of the country’s public security. When that position is offered, and that is what is wanted, it is necessary to explain what motivated him to take that course, but, above all, the results of the figures that justify it.
The army has always been an institution deserving the respect of Mexicans in spite of everything. It has been so despite October 2nd – which curiously today marks the fifty-fourth anniversary of the Tlatelolco Massacre -. Still, we have also respected it despite Echeverría, Díaz Ordaz, and the abuses and massacres of students and civilians. However, at this moment – with all this confrontation and with the accompaniment to impose politically what by constitutional mandate is forbidden to the military – we are creating a situation in which the country is more weakened and confused every day.
It is necessary to explain if the police will disappear definitively from our security system and the separation of the three powers. It is required to answer when and how the bullets will replace or, at least, balance the hugs. It is necessary to explain that, politically speaking, once these decisions have been made and implemented, what will we do with the Constitution? Will we leave it once again, as has happened for so long, as a piece of paper that exists, but without the need to comply with it or even respect it?
The revolution is underway. The only thing we lack is knowing in which direction it will unfold. I have always thought and said that, for many reasons, Mexico could not be like Venezuela. There is a physical imperative that changes and transforms reality and makes it impossible for that to happen, and that is the fact that Mexico is the first internal security problem in the United States.
Regardless of the fights or interpretations of the energy chapter of the TMEC, we must be aware that we have reached a point where we have to answer two questions. First, will we actually get to the point where we will call a constituent congress to draft a new Constitution where the 4T fits within? The second – and much more important – is to define whether we will be able to continue weakening ourselves, being a country divided and atomized by internal security problems, and continue to be a manageable problem for the United States.
Those are the two questions we have faced in the last two years. Meanwhile, the great bacteria that ends up destroying countries and political forces have already begun to manifest in our nation. Mexico’s internal division is so strong today that it is about to provoke serious consequences. In this dichotomy of legality versus popularity, the dispute and the level of confrontation among politicians is so great that we are weaker every day and, worse, we are more and more at the disposal of our enemies.
Postscript: in this early autumn, the days are very loaded. We are in wars that are brewing in parallel and simultaneously. Some of them are political and internal. Others are against those who share borders. It is clear that, as much as some would like to maintain the current status of things, this will not be possible.
The hacking against the Mexican Armed Forces is the latest demonstration – but also the beginning – of what it means to expose how much of the current regime is true and how much of it is a lie. The group of hackers known as “Guacamaya” may be whatever they are, but the reality is that there are currently only three countries in the world that can genuinely perpetrate a hack like the one that took place. Two of them do not make sense, although I have my doubts about the third one. What is unquestionable is that the best way to weaken a hostile regime is to erode it from the core.
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