[D66] México: Year I of the “Fourth Transformation”

[A.OUT]

internationalsocialism.net:

México: Year I of the “Fourth Transformation”

     Liga de Unidad Socialista
     Latin America	
     January 2, 2020

This is an editorial marking the first year in office of Mexican 
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador [AMLO] published in Unidad 
Socialista, the publication of the Liga de Unidad Socialista, a 
socialist organization in México. The editorial refers to the “Fourth 
Transformation,” AMLO’s name for his program that seeks to place it 
historically among the three great transformations in the country’s 
history: independence from Spain, the period of liberal reform under 
President Benito Juarez, and the Mexican revolution. The editorial 
appeared in Correspondencia de Prensa on December 21, 2019. It was 
translated by Lance Selfa.



Nothing to celebrate

Or very little, because 2019 is already the most violent year of the 
decade, with the highest number of femicides; and the ongoing murders of 
journalists that make México the most dangerous country in the world for 
their work; with a “National Guard” turned into an adjunct of the U.S. 
Border Patrol in the surveillance of the northern and southern borders 
of the country; with the first sign of military opposition to the 
president in decades arising from the events in Culiacan (where AMLO 
decided to release the captured drug kingpin Ovidio Gúzman to head off a 
wave of Sinaloa cartel violence). What’s more, the government has made 
an absolute bet on the exploitation of the oil fields when all over the 
world, steps are being taken to create a world without hydrocarbons. And 
there is a stagnant economy, with zero or negative growth, along with 
uncertainty about where the governing party wants to take the country. 
MORENA (AMLO’s party, the National Regeneration Movement) is not a true 
party that brings together disparate forces that disagree with each 
other, but a weak conglomeration held together by AMLO’s leadership.

The huge turnout at a rally in the Zócalo [the main government square in 
México City] on December 1 testifies to AMLO’s continued popularity. Yet 
he and his government continue to propagate the same message, ad 
nauseum, in the president’s daily briefings. That is, that his 
government “inherited” a “mess” that won’t be easy to clean up and, of 
course, won’t be done by the end of 2019. How long will the government 
be credibly able to offer these excuses for a situation where things 
don’t change, and where we continue to live in the hell of a decaying 
society indelibly marked by the precariousness of life for the absolute 
majority of the population? Events in South America and throughout the 
world tell us that those times of satisfaction and apathy are coming to 
an end. México will not be exempt from those winds of rebellion and 
conflict.

In fact, all of AMLO’s supporters, both ordinary people and the most 
sophisticated intellectuals, recognize that while there has been no 
coherent expression yet, there is considerable opposition to the 
government. [The mainstream historian] Lorenzo Meyer estimates that a 
third of the population opposes him. But Meyer, like the great majority, 
considers the government to be on the “left” and destined to carry out 
the “difficult and dangerous” task of what Machiavelli called “a change 
of regime”. An in-depth reading of the electoral tsunami of July 1, 2018 
[when AMLO was elected in a landslide] points to this widely held desire 
for change among the country’s population—a population of poorly paid 
workers, subjected to long working hours, job insecurity and a future 
with few prospects. This is a population that longs for a radical change 
that, in this first year of México’s pompously titled “Fourth 
Transformation,” is far from being realized.

When one looks at the main points of AMLO’s policies, they can be 
reduced essentially to government anti-poverty programs. What’s 
forgotten is that, historically, these policies don’t really work if 
they aren’t also combined with an economic project for large-scale 
productive investment. The fact that 50 percent of families receive 
state aid (eight million senior citizens, one million scholarship 
students, among others) is no small thing, as is the 16 percent increase 
in the minimum wage. But these programs are based on México’s anemic 
economy: a decline in foreign investment, under-utilization of 
government financial resources, and a total dependence on large 
México-based private investors (clearly favored by the president) to 
move a stagnant economy forward.

The next five years in AMLO’s term will be more contentious. Already in 
the first year of the “Fourth Transformation,” and in spite of AMLO’s 
speeches (which are also increasingly moderate, moralizing and vague), 
his government is basically a continuation of previous neoliberal 
governments. The aspiration for radical change in the political regime, 
which powered AMLO’s victory on July 1, 2018, remains unrealized. The 
government’s daily briefings and its demagogic rhetoric can’t evade the 
harsh reality that savage, neoliberal capitalism continues to dominate 
society and will deepen social inequality in the country that, according 
to the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 
ranks above only Haiti, Honduras, and El Salvador in the region. This 
will be the real reason why the electoral tsunami that brought AMLO to 
power will continue to be frustrated. And it will be the reason why 
sooner, rather than later, other tsunamis—and not just electoral ones— 
are coming in México.