By Verónica Ortiz “Defend the institutions. They will not defend themselves.” Timothy Snyder As we approach the June 6th election, shadows are looming over the fragile Mexican democracy: the ghosts of the authoritarian, one-party regime that we thought to have left behind in the 20th century.
Since the PRI lost its congressional majority in 1997 after seven decades in power, cautious voters opted for divided governments and incumbent parties tended to suffer setbacks in the midterms. But in 2018, López Obrador swept the presidential election with 53% of the vote. His party, Morena, received 40% of the Senate and 38% in the Chamber of Deputies, which resulted in many more seats thanks to an illegal abuse of coalition rules. In the end, the president and his party achieved a supermajority in the Lower House, and control over 19 out of 32 local legislatures, all needed to amend the Constitution. This year, the latest polls give Morena the lead to maintain its position in Congress. AMLO, as López Obrador is popularly known, won the election by promising to end corruption, combat violence, and fight poverty. His overwhelming victory created great expectations on his ability to deliver substantial change. But almost halfway into a turbulent administration, none of these promises have materialized. Quite the opposite, corruption accusations mostly only targeted political rivals, violence is out of control, and the economic growth needed to create jobs and raise incomes has fallen since 2019. Moreover, a long recovery is expected after a record-breaking loss of GDP following the COVID-19 pandemic. However, one field where the new administration has been successful is the concentration of power through a systematic erosion of the institutions created over the past thirty years to reign in the excessive powers of the imperial presidencies, as Enrique Krauze labeled them. Claiming that the “neoliberal” administrations’ (1982-2018) only goal was to privatize the economy and undermine the nation’s sovereignty, López Obrador set to reverse course and is steadfastly taking the country back to the authoritarian ’70s. The toll on democratic institutions has already been significant, and Morena’s majority in Congress has been instrumental to the process of democratic erosion. Take a few examples:
With unwavering determination and the help of a solicitous Congress, AMLO is taking over the independent entities and even the Judiciary. All in the eyes of a faint opposition still unable to recover from the 2018 trauma. Should the result of the upcoming election lead to the consolidation of López Obrador and his party, there will be no democratic institutions left to resist the assault. Verónica Ortiz Lawyer and political analyst. Former CEO of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations (COMEXI).
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