Are we doing well? Is the best yet to come?
A little over 14 years ago, when he was just a few months away from handing over power to his successor, the then governor of Veracruz, Fidel Herrera Beltrán, used to repeat at his public events a phrase that later inspired the publicists of Javier Duarte de Ochoa’s campaign : “We are doing well and the best is yet to come!”
Two years later, in 2012, during a visit to Washington for the US election process, I wrote here that Barack Obama should pay royalties to the Veracruz native Herrera Beltrán for using the same phrase as an announcement of what he hoped to achieve in his second four-year term as a tenant of the White House.
Today we must ask ourselves, are we really doing as well as Andrés Manuel López Obrador boasted throughout his six-year term ?
Is the best yet to come with Claudia Sheinbaum as the first female president?
The first question has an immediate answer.
The second is a question that perhaps only with time we will be able to answer.
For now, AMLO’s presidential term is in the red, despite his popularity, which, according to the pollster Enkoll, reaches 80 points.
In the balance sheet, it should be noted that this high figure is due to the little that was done well and that, practically, it is limited to the macroeconomic and, of course, to the delivery of the so-called Welfare support.
And he did well in this area because they were expert hands like those of the late Carlos Urzúa, Arturo Herrera, Rogelio Ramírez in the SHCP and characters like Jonathan Heath and Gerardo Esquivel , in Banxico.
On the positive side, the meager increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) stands out, which went from $34,101 million dollars in 2018 to $36,282 million in 2023, an advance of just 6%, and which was driven by phenomena such as nearshoring, mainly during the last couple of years.
In terms of employment, the López Obrador government also fared more or less well, as the number of IMSS members increased by 11.2%, going from 20,079,365 jobs in December 2018 to 22,331,788 jobs in July of this year. It should be noted, however, that at least one and a half million jobs should have been created each year.
And the above was reflected in the informality rate, which went from 56.7% in 2018 to 54.5% in July 2024. A practically insignificant reduction.
Salary, remittances and debt!
The increase in the minimum wage is plausible, however, from $88.40 pesos in 2018 to $248.93 in 2024, an increase of 182 percent.
This, in turn, also contributed to the population living in poverty decreasing from 41.9% in 2018 to 36.3% in 2022, according to the latest data available from Coneval.
Other variables that had a significant increase, of 32%, were exports, which totaled $450,713 million dollars in 2018 and rose to $593,012 million dollars in 2023.
Tax revenues rose from $2.6 trillion pesos in 2018 to $3.34 trillion pesos in July 2024, an increase of 62 percent.
And although AMLO boasts about them as if they were a success of his administration, remittances grew from $34,435 million dollars in 2018, to $63,319 million dollars in 2023, an increase of 83 percent.
The four variables in which there was a negative balance were: the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which went from 2.2% in 2018 to 1.5%, according to the estimates available for the end of 2024, inflation, which went from 4.83% in 2018 to 4.99% in August 2024, and the interest rate, which went from 8.25% in 2018 to 10.50% on September 26, 2024.
The fourth is the riskiest for the next presidential term: The federal government’s net debt stood at 13 trillion 987 thousand 877.8 million pesos in June 2024. The six-year term will end with a record debt increase of 6.6 trillion pesos, leaving Claudia Sheinbaum’s public finances at risk, according to analysts.
A good number of these loans were used to try to finish the works that López Obrador had built to satisfy his ego. Others were used to buy the support of many of the 36 million votes that Morena obtained on June 2.
Security, health, education
The more than 200,000 deaths during the six-year term, including femicides; the multiplication of violence at the hands of growing criminal groups, as well as the increasing number of extortions and kidnappings are among the great failures of López Obrador’s administration.
A daily average of 92 homicides in the national territory, which could easily exceed 250 killed by bullets each weekend, make up one six-year term after another bathed in blood.
The number of murders has grown geometrically since 1990, when this fateful accounting began.
Under Carlos Salinas, the total number of people killed by criminal violence was 67,525. Under Ernesto Zedillo , the number was 79,759 . Under Vicente Fox, the number dropped to 60,073.
However, it doubled under Felipe Calderón and reached 122,319 thousand homicides. Under Peña Nieto, 150,451 families lost one or more members. And under Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as of September 19, 196,505 people were murdered, but if the 5,207 femicides are added, the figure reaches 201,772 deaths as victims of violence.
From “hugs, not bullets” AMLO moved on to the militarization of public security. His great failure.
In terms of health care and attention, the balance is blood red.
There are no medicines against cancer, nor against AIDS, nor vaccines for children, nor clinics or hospitals in minimally acceptable conditions, nor insecticides for dengue, nor day care centers, nor fire brigades, there are only baseball stadiums, paying stooges at palace matinees, bringing in Cuban “doctors” to support the island’s dictatorship, and creating a “pharmacy.” Millions and millions of characters have been written about all of this here and in other spaces.
The same thing has happened with education. Since the so-called change of regime, teaching has also been turned upside down and a completely ideological approach has been created, far removed from mathematics and science, when everything indicates that the vast majority of students in public schools do not understand what they read — if they can read at all — and cannot multiply or divide.
A total failure in security, health care and public education
And what can Sheinbaum do?
The next President will not even inherit the Cherokee. There will be no resources with which to deal with the disaster that AMLO is inheriting.
The so-called change of regime is already scaring away investments and the tax threats to businessmen are making them think twice about their physical safety — they are threatened with prison if they present any of their classic tricks to the tax authorities — and about their capital.
The debt is huge and must be paid. Pemex is bankrupt. The CFE cannot even dream of producing the electricity that the inhabitants demand, much less the electricity that is needed so that, through nearshoring, there are those who want to establish their industrial plants in Mexico.
Sheinbaum made even more commitments: a new pension for women, a million homes in six years.
Where will you get the resources to meet those commitments?
No. The best is definitely not yet!
Clues
Those who believed that this Political Index unconditionally supported AMLO in the leadership of what was then the DDF were mistaken , due to the criticisms that were exposed here regarding the poor management of Vicente Fox in tandem with his then recently acquired wife Marta Sahagún and, above all, due to the harassment that the one from Macuspana suffered. Here, the fraud against López Obrador perpetrated by Felipe Calderón was exposed with meridian clarity , who, day in and day out, was the patient of a thorough dissection of the tasks that, intoxicated with power, alongside the military that he took out of their barracks, he carried out and that harmed society. With Enrique Peña, the critical position of this space did not change towards what he called tolucopachucracia and from Monday to Friday his ineptitude and kleptocracy were denounced. Many readers confused criticism of the powerful in power with unconditional support for the one who tomorrow, finally, goes to “La Chingada” and mistakenly believed that the writer had changed. Never. Since the administration of Mr. José López Portillo , criticism has always been made here of the powerful in power who, in a presidential regime, is the one who holds the Executive Power. The rest are simple transmission belts, which was exacerbated in this defunct and, once again, failed six-year term. The question today is whether Claudia Sheinbaum will tolerate criticism, given that she is considered even more belligerent than her predecessor? “The answer is in the air,” Nobel laureate Bob Dylan would say . * * * I recognize that you have read this far. I wish you, as always, good thanks and many, many days!
www.indicepolitico.com
indicepolitico@gmail.com
@IndicePolitico
@pacorodriguez
