How to demolish the State in four express sessions
Scholars say that normally all processes to reform the State end up “constitutionalizing authoritarianism, not democratizing countries.”
In Mexico, the political forces that emerged from the first substitution of the ruling party in 2000 were unable to agree on a reform of the State, not even on the agenda for the discussion of its issues and the subsequent negotiation. There were enormous obstacles to proposing them. The opposition was unable to exert pressure and the PAN did not want to.
The reform of the government system (nor even a minimum of obligations to the legislature) never took place, although it was eagerly awaited.
However, under the “old PRI regime,” a pact to transition to democracy was seen as a sign of early defeat. It encouraged the system’s opponents to “gather their marbles” and fight it. It was a bad omen.
It could arouse suspicion among voters that, in the face of the imminent defeat of the old regime, the latter was seeking to protect itself. This stance was enough for its “opinion leaders” and supporters to give up the effort.
Nobody wanted to leave their “comfort zones” in the old PRI. A big mistake on the part of their strategists. They looked like English marshals declaring victory with a cannon and monocle, in front of a pile of corpses of their armies scattered on the battlefield.
Friendly observers of the PRI concluded that it was enough to have free and well-supervised elections for effective democracy to take hold. After the opposition won, they found that it was the PAN who were now flatly refusing to allow for an agreed reform of the State.
The struggle for transition became a common place for excesses, petulance and fuss, in which the opponents of the displaced dominant system found a space to thrive or to pontificate, in the shadow of any fear. Many founding fathers of the country were erected.
It was proven that the “great theorists” who reveled and gorged themselves in the San Ángel Group only went for the photo, the stipends, the prebends and the culinary and Bacchic pleasures that the government offered for free, in exchange for not “touching” it even with their breath.
The opportunity to change the balance of power, authoritarian controls on power, irresponsible arbitrariness and to establish conditions and consequences for institutional reforms that would make the governability of the State, sought by all, possible, was overlooked. It was a farce.
The two PAN presidents who entered Doña Leonor’s house set their priorities, and as is the practice of El Sistema, all the political actors made them their own. They were usually whims for their businesses, those of the family, those of the couple, those of the couple’s children or those of their fellow electoral party goers.
The basic question was always: Why share power, if we have won it legitimately?, said those who were comfortable. Why run the risk that the President’s people take over the constitutional reform process for their benefit?, asked those in the PRI regime who were pushing to replace them.
The supreme legal principle of comfort for the politicians of that time, of one sign or another, seems to have been the village cliché: “don’t look for what you haven’t lost.” They learned two or three paragraphs from the popular books and went out to search and raid improvised means, of which there were plenty.
EPN’s reforms, a comic opera
Indeed, traditional politicians, always opposed to any change that would mean diminishing their power, preferred not to test a President who could use the media to build a plebiscitary power — achieved with less than 40% of effective votes — supported by constitutional reforms and the incense of the media.
The underlying fear was the possibility of strengthening any right-wing president, lest he, through constitutional reforms, privatize electricity, oil and gas, and propose re-election for himself. How horrible! They never knew how close they were!
They came to him through a supposed left — narcosocialism, in reality — and his name is Andrés Manuel López Obrador .
Talking to some of the actors in that sleight-of-hand comedy, they admit that they never thought that ten years later those tricks could have been attempted, “structural” reforms of incalculable magnitude would have been achieved, and there would have been no “results.” The corrupt Enrique Peña Nieto hit them in the head.
Neither the government imposed its will, nor did the opposition ensure a solid project to guarantee its political future, and total paralysis was installed, disguised as a “Pact for Mexico.” The feared tax reform was a great failure, only a regressive stumbling block that caused instability and stagflation. The educational reform was a fiasco. The reforms to privatize electricity and oil are, to date, a pipe dream, which do not transcend the threat.
Insecurity and violence are rampant throughout the country. A drunkard swept the house clean and ended any possibility of a solution. However, drug trafficking is the only activity that creates jobs, generates money for circulation and defines the agenda of the establishment in all operational areas. In the worst case scenario, the reform of the State is a historical fact. Almost a comic anecdote.
The reforms that are really urgent
At a quarter to 12, when he only has a few days left to formally — I repeat: formally — leave presidential power, AMLO got his submissive benches in the Congress of the Union and, at turbo speed, the state legislatures to approve his reform to the Constitution to demolish — Norma Piña dixit, quite rightly — the Judicial Branch of the Federation.
All with a sloppiness that, as colleague Andy SK Brown rightly says , makes them similar to the criminal cartels with which, now without a doubt, they maintain a partnership for crime. Kidnappings and extortions were evident in the four sessions that changed the face of the Republic.
Such a mess that, if the SCJN dares — after the opponents present the corresponding resources — it could invalidate those ugly patches to the Magna Carta.
Worse still, the mental confusion of the author of the proposal is enormous. He does not even know that the Public Prosecutor’s Office is part of the Executive Branch. He thinks that it is part of the Judiciary. And from there his reform proposes the election of judges!
The only agenda of “state reforms” that is of interest today and that the still-President-Elect will necessarily have to face is the one that emerges from the same fiscal, financial, monetary, economic and oil crisis.
Even so, there is no way to go. The response of reality has been budget cuts to allocate resources to works that extol AMLO’s megalomania.
There are too many pending issues in the areas of governable democracy, of results in various sectors, such as education, employment, security, productivity and competition, health, food and, in general, in all the minimum levels of well-being that the population demands in order to live in an equitable system. However, that is no longer a priority, because it is impossible. What is urgent is to know if at this point there is still a State.
The Morena supporters have already shown us that their absolute inability is enough to finish off any “little bull” that is put in front of them. They are insatiable and incompetent.
And the President? Fine, thank you
In a system like Mexico’s, when the presidency expands its powers, only the population, through blood and fire, can recover them.
Power has lost its aura. Its infallibility is no longer the same. The supreme facilitator of the impossible, the last negotiator in the chain of command, no longer exists. The State is destroyed.
Why do we need reforms if the political apparatus no longer exists?
And the President?
Fine, thanks.
So where are we going?
In less than six years, the State has been demolished.
Clues
Don’t be surprised if next Sunday, at 11:00 pm, on the presidential balcony of the National Palace, among many cheers, cheers, a cheer for the Judicial Reform is pronounced! It is planned to be published in the Official Journal of the Federation on September 15th itself, so that it comes into effect on September 16th when, oh paradox! –or parajoda– the National Independence is commemorated. * * * Thank you for reading this far. I wish you, as always, good thanks and many, many days!
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