Election readings

The results of the Mexican election on June 2 were overwhelming. Morena and her allies obtained a huge number of votes. With them they will be able to integrate a very large number of political representation bodies. Beyond the allegations of electoral fraud, the organic majorities will have to be maintained. This phenomenon has various readings. The explanation of what the electoral process was and the role of its main actors will depend on them and, more relevantly, the determination of the mandate of the polls for the new governments and the political and social process of the entire country.

In the near future we will witness a dispute over what the vote, metaphorically speaking, is ordering for Mexico to come. What the government—or even the State—estimates are its possibilities for transformation and its margins of action will depend on the dominant interpretations.

If we look at the election results as a text, what interpretations can be drawn from it? The first, that the preparation, conduct, implementation, results and effects of the election are the work and grace of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. That the electoral text comes from him. Given this reading, the channels of political action would have to be limited to the recreation of the ideology of the creator of the text. For this reason, the newly elected would have to limit their work to the reworking of the thought and work of their editor. His function would end up being that of mere exegetes.

Continuing with the metaphor, it could be assumed that the text was written by the transformation movement led by López Obrador, but not only by him. In this case, the hermeneutics and the results of its application would be different. What would be appropriate would be to identify the personal, ideological or operational keys of the movement and its leader, to determine, first, the headquarters of the mandate and, second, the material and temporal conditions of its implementation.

A third possibility opened by the mentioned textuality would be to consider that Claudia Sheinbaum’s leadership and project were determining factors in the writing. That it was she who built what is subject to interpretation. That beyond the existence of a text that of course she did not originally write, her decisive interventions produced a new testament compared to the one prepared by the founder of the movement of which she is his heir.

The interpretation that is imposed will determine the construction of the political and social narratives that will dominate the coming years. If she masters one of them, Claudia Sheinbaum would be able to develop her own project from a base that, over time, will be increasingly distant and diffuse with respect to her creator and his followers. If the reading dominates that the electoral text is due to López Obrador, Sheinbaum and her government would be the exegetes in charge of guiding her actions by the founder’s thoughts.

The possible readings on the electoral text of June 2 have implications for future daily life. For example, if López Obrador is accepted as a creator, it would be understandable that Claudia Sheinbaum and the new representatives considered that the package of constitutional reforms presented by him on February 5, has to be approved without further ado. If this interpretation prevails, new officials should frequently ask themselves if what they are doing as a government has the character of exegesis or if, rather, it is unacceptable revisionism.

An important question lies in the same line of interpretation. At the end of the six-year term workerist, numerous complaints – criminal and non-criminal – have been accumulating about the management of public officials, family and friends of the still President of the Republic. Complaints that have been ignored, silenced or ridiculed by the soon-to-be former head of the Executive and his communications apparatus. However, the data on purchases and sales, on interventions and missions and, above all, on inexplicable or otherwise explainable enrichments, are still there and will reach October 1. Faced with these enormities, an essential question will have to be answered: did the copious vote on June 2, in addition to making possible the democratic renewal of popular representatives, the ability to introduce a clean slate on the entire past six-year administration? To create a kind of (purple) cloak to cover complaints accumulated in the six-year term that is now ending? If the reading of the electoral text is that it was all written by the pen workerist, I fear that this cloak of impunity will spread and remain widespread. If, on the other hand, it is assumed that the writing was done by several hands, it will be possible to ask about the interventions of each one and, with this, extract differences and interpretative possibilities that, finally, allow future unnecessary actions against a crime that It has not and cannot be buried by thirty million votes.

@JRcossio

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