The Time of truth between Andrés Manuel López Obrador begins today with a fundamental problem: when to approve the Judicial Reform. He president wants to hang that medal with the flavor of revenge, before his term ends on September 30. The president-elect, who has repeatedly expressed her agreement with what her mentor proposes, is not so sure. Before elections felt the concern of businessmen and investors the reform would cause legal uncertaintywhich led her to consider times different from those of Lopez Obrador for deliberation and eventual approval.
This is expected to be the main topic they will discuss today. Lopez Obrador and Sheinbaum in the National Palace, after a week of political, economic and legal skirmishes between the two for five days, but at the bottom of that dialogue is something deeper: if Lopez Obrador is really willing to let her govern. On Friday he hinted that yes, only yes, if he governs as he believes he should govern. Otherwise, he anticipated that he would leave the ranch where he said he would retire from public life, and point out where he disagrees. It is a clear threat with a loaded gunthe revocation of mandate.
The administration that made Sheinbaum of López Obrador during the campaign, sacrificing political capital, entered a new dynamic after winning the elections. López Obrador thinks about him and did not care about the markets’ reaction to the possibility that a qualified majority in Congress, as it is expected to have, approves the reform of the Judiciary and the disappearance of autonomous bodies, disappearing internal counterweights and returning us to a country that some of us lived in in the 70’s, with all that that entails. Sheinbaum does not finish the term with him. Her Presidency begins, to which López Obrador labeled a budget to force her to be a surrogate leader for at least a year to finish what she left pending, when she can begin to govern on her platform and what she thinks for the country.
The discussion about the timing of Judicial Reform is being the strongest public struggle, but it is not the only one. López Obrador wants him to repeat the cabinet to show continuity to his project. Sheinbaum, who was elected to continue with the project, has other plans for the cabinet and several finished profiles – in some cases already operating. During the campaign he had to accept impositions, such as that of Minister Arturo Zaldívar, who was first profiled as legal advisor to the Presidency and later as Secretary of the Interior, where they are now placing another of the presidential duties, Juan Ramón de the fountain. He wants the president to repeat Luisa María Alcalde and Raquel Buenrostro, who could do so in different portfolios.
Sheinbaum has room to make concessions, such as some positions in the cabinet – except for one that has been impassable until now, Octavio Romero Oropeza, who at the end of last year asked the president, his dear friend, to repeat in Pemex -, or he reconciled terms with others. officials, such as with the attorney general, Alejandro Gertz Manero, with whom he will work for at least two years, and the Secretary of the Treasury, Rogelio Ramírez de la O, who said he will remain in office for an “indefinite” period, a period that ranges from months to two years, depending on who you talk to on your teams. But there are other issues where it is more difficult to be on the same roadmap as the president, such as reform of the Judiciary.
Sheinbaum believes in it and supports that the appointment of ministers, judges and magistrates be by popular vote. In the meetings where businessmen and investors presented their concerns to him, he listened to them but did not speak out. Privately he spoke that the best scenario for her would be that Morena and her allies did not win the qualified majority to be able to start her government without that tension and process her own initiative to reform the Judiciary a little. later. Reality took away that space and López Obrador accelerated the times.
The elected president needs to convince the president, given the reaction of the markets, that using the qualified majority for the first time to colonize the Judiciary and destroy the autonomous bodies – reforms of the first democratic generation – is not the most convenient, nor prudent. , although he agrees with him. López Obrador does not care what happens after October 1, but for Sheinbaum, starting with the largest depreciation of the peso at the start of a government in this century, and the message to investors when he has made nearshoring the axis of its strategy to attract resources that finance growth and support social programs, will cause distrust that will take time, if possible, to modify.
Sheinbaum is in a compromising situation. López Obrador does not hide what he wants and if the president-elect does not manage to postpone the discussion of the reforms for the next six-year term, the impression will remain that, despite all the warnings, he could not with his predecessor, and it will raise serious doubts that may contain the citizen even though she wears the presidential sash. If she is successful, she will generate trust and credibility with everyone, who when they talk to her will know that her word is valid and does not depend on the ideas or moods of her predecessor.
López Obrador will never understand, because the mechanics of his mind do not work that way, that a good part of his legacy depends on Sheinbaum doing well. His legacy will not be measured by his past and ends on September 30. They are the results and the consolidation of a new regime for many that needs to give results. What the president is doing hurts her before assuming the Presidency, and it is a shot in the foot that he is giving himself. Sheinbaum’s task from today will define her, his Presidency and his own legacy.
X: @rivapa
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