Prisoners of Hope

One hundred days have elapsed since López Obrador took office. It might be more precise to say 210 days, for he started as an “acting president” as soon as he was elected. Or at least 180 days since his party took hold of the majority of Congress on September 1, 2018, a majority that has grown due to both coalitions and the migration of legislators from one parliamentary group to another. Today, the president holds a two-thirds majority in the lower Chamber and a simple one in the Senate. This means that the president can do almost whatever he wants. The opposition is fragmented and, in the best scenario, it holds a veto power for legislative matters that require a qualified vote: constitutional reforms, various appointments, and the right to introduce constitutional controversies before the Supreme Court.

The reasons for the landslide victory in the presidential and congressional elections are more than clear: mounting violence, corruption, privileges, abuses, lawlessness, and inequality coupled with mediocre growth and disregard towards public needs. All of these, alongside 12 years of campaign touring around the entire country and showing extraordinary communication aptitudes.

How would I describe the situation at this stage? Most Mexicans are prisoners of hope. The latest polls show not only an average approval rating of 73%, but also great confidence regarding the success of the new president in solving Mexico’s most pressing problems: violence, insecurity, corruption, and inequality.

The other and far smaller segment of the population is regarded by the new administration as conservatives, right wing and, ultimately, the enemy of the people and of real change.

The problem is whether high and growing approval and popular support is enough to govern and tackle the above-mentioned problems, and the simple answer is that it is not.

If we put together the hectic activity deployed by the president and/or his party over these past months and the premises that underlie his policies, there are many reasons for concern.

Let me concentrate on three reasons. The first is the economic sustainability of his project. His demagogic rhetoric is that Mexico has enough public resources to alleviate social needs and create opportunities without a fiscal reform, incurring public and foreign debt, or offering incentives to private investment. According to his discourse and the policies we have witnessed up until now, eradicating corruption, cutting bureaucratic privileges, and redirecting budget priorities is enough. Well, it is not. On top of this, there is a widespread contempt towards any sort of technical knowledge or hard data that does not back his course of action. Public policies are being decided not based upon some sort of economic or social cost-benefit analysis or viability diagnosis but rather on ideological or even whimsical premises.

The second is AMLO´s redistribution or social policy. The term is in fact being misused. A social policy is a set of interconnected decisions or ways and means to “reduce poverty, insure against social risks, provide equal opportunity for all, enhance economic growth, and foster the expansion of social citizenship and social rights.” What we are witnessing is plain assistentialism that may translate into a much-needed temporary relief for many people in distress; however, it does not solve the causes of either poverty or inequality. It does, however, have great visibility and an even greater political payoff. The name of the game is a very old and cultured practice in Mexico: clientelism. And, as everyone knows, clientelism thrives on poverty.

The third and, in my view, utmost concern is that which may be termed the disdain towards institutions that are seen as an obstacle to the president´s will and the ensuing  concentration of power that is being operated. A few examples may illustrate this point: the creation of the so called super-delegates or state deputies in order to control governors and create clientelist networks around the country; the reorganization of the public administration so as to absorb as many decisions as possible in the presidential office; the personal stamp and overarching control by the president of all social programs;  the assault on autonomous constitutional bodies and independent commissions either through budget strangling, normative changes, or outright threats; the monopoly exercised over appointments such as justices to the Supreme Court or the Attorney General´s Office; and the relentless scorn, if not harassment, of non-governmental and civil society organizations, professional associations, and academia.

Nowhere are these lesser concerns, but they are magnified in a country with low levels of social participation, weak institutions, disregard for the rule of law, and little support for democracy. The good news for him is that most of the population does not envisage a better alternative to his policies, that people seldom think on a long or even medium-term basis, that the “traditional” parties are literally wrecked, and that the opposition is increasingly fragmented. 

The views expressed here are those of the author.