The dream of greatness is gone. It was ephemeral. So many years of campaigning, so many years of persuading people, have evaporated. Like Martin Luther King, AMLO had a dream, except his dream became a nightmare.
AMLO’s “fourth transformation” is over; everyone sees it except those in his party who are too stubborn or obtuse. The president and his legislators think that by modifying the Constitution, everything has been said, everything has been changed. It is a pity that they do not come to terms with a fundamental fact: In Mexico, the law does not change the situation. In Mexico, impunity is a way of life, and sadly, the law was meant to be broken and raped. The MORENA legislators have set the best example of it.
It is well known that MORENISTAS have openly said that they came to stay. They forget that the same thing was said with Fox, then with Calderon and again with Peña Nieto and his infamous Atlacomulco Group. They all found a “stone in their shoe” that became a massive tombstone.
Fox found his with his wife Martita and his stepchildren. Calderón, first with the terrible and regrettable death of Juan Camilo Mouriño and, of course, his bloody war against the narco. Peña Nieto found his with Ayotzinapa.
López Obrador alone, without help from anyone, dug his grave and that of his “fourth-tee”. Bad decision after bad decision combined with the pandemic made a “perfect storm”.
His “hugs instead of bullets” are making Mexico drown in the blood of its people spilled by never before seen violence. A false fight against the “huachicol” (gasoline theft) until today has not given a single result but deaths. An unprecedented loss of billions of pesos given away to parasites who vote. Except that when there is no more money, those votes will be turned around, and of course, a pandemic that comes to finish off a fragile health system. AMLO’s misunderstood and inhumane savings, have unprotected the population and the medical personnel, in order to invest in his nineteen seventies populist whims.
Today in Mexico, we are heading for a health crisis perhaps not seen since the time of the conquest, when the smallpox epidemic infected Tenochtitlán. Senators, congressmen, governors, and even business-owners told the president that it was a bad idea to undo the “Seguro Popular”.
AMLO did not listen to them, nor did he when the WHO decreed the health measures. The president continued to tour the country, kissing old people and little girls on the cheek and inviting people to eat out in restaurants. He allowed imbecil politicians to say that COVID-19 could be cured with “mole and tequila” or that “the poor could not be infected” and went out to show off his “anti-contagious” charms.
Thirty million Mexicans voted for something else. Voted for a change, voted for a correction in the course. People were (and still are) fed up with the filth and corruption emanating from the traditional political parties to enter a government that has not only made a pact with the “mafia del poder” but has given itself over to them with contracts by direct assignment and obscurity in the public accounts.
AMLO’s “four-tee” is in the ICU, and the nail in its coffin will be the massive bankruptcy of thousands of companies that received zero support from the federal government. Unemployment will take over the country, with the bankruptcy. There will be no tax revenue and no oil money, specially now that PEMEX has been downgrated to a company with “junk” bonds.
AMLO’s “fourth-tee” is crumbling like a sandcastle. In Mexico we say “when need comes through the door, love jumps out the window”. Maybe AMLO’s base will continue to applaud his quips, but not the average Mexican electorate that is fed up, disillusioned, hungry for justice, and in need of tranquility. Every day that passes, in social networks, new movements emerge against the government. Desperate people who are seeing and living the loss of everything they have. Death and illness in their families, years of work, and sacrifices, down the drain.
In 2021 MORENA will lose its majority in the Congress. If the situation worsens due to the poor management of the crisis, something unprecedented in modern Mexico could happen and revoke López Obrador’s mandate in 2022 with the reforms introduced by AMLO’s very own MORENA majority.
The punk mentality that characterizes MORENA’s people will come out –“I’ll fuck you before you do”- and they will try to cause the country as much damage as possible. They will try to change the Constitution, silence the media, fill the social networks with insolent and violent bots, and of course, they will lash out at the private initiative and “the rich” who will be blamed for all the misfortunes.
“Mexico will come out ahead,” says Lopez Obrador, perhaps the only real thing he has said. Except that it will come out ahead thanks to its citizens. It will come out ahead thanks to the business-owners, thanks to its health workers, thanks to our resilience.
Mexico will come out on top. I have no doubt. But it won´t be thanks to the politicians and even less thanks to AMLO and his “fourth-tee.” Like a terminal patient in its final stage, it is exhaling its last breaths.
José E. Urioste Palomeque
For The Yucatan Times / Times Media Mexico
Merida Yucatan, Mexico
April 21 2020
