Who knows if it was just a pageantry or a way of trying to further widen the distance that today separates the opposition forces, but the statement by the Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López, that new consensus could be built with the PRI to revive the electrical reform and promoting an electoral reform, would demand from the tricolor at least a clear and firm response on what they are willing to support and what is impassable for that party. Without it, they will end up being a testimonial party, with or without an opposition alliance.
Adán Augusto is right in saying that this should be a time to build consensus, but the way in which the electricity reform is proposed (which was already rejected in the Senate and now wants to be revived) as well as the electoral reform that would be based on the one presented several weeks ago by Horacio Duarte (already in Delfina Gómez’s campaign, after yesterday he resigned from Customs) and Pablo Gómez (a person in charge of the Financial Intelligence Unit who became an electoral consultant) the only thing that will be achieved is to increase dramatically the polarization that the country is experiencing.
The electricity reform is part of the anti-American dynamic in which the federal government is moving and the only thing that will be achieved would be to harden positions in the TMEC negotiations, which will inevitably end with sanctions for Mexican exports that could reach up to 30 thousand million dollars in tariffs. This hardening is also perceived in the appointment of Raquel Buenrostro in the Ministry of Economy.
It is not just about punishment via tariffs: if we insist on the current energy policy, we would also be left out of the investments proposed by the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, through the production of semiconductors and the anti-inflationary program of the Biden administration.
The electoral reform presented by Duarte and Gómez is profoundly anti-democratic. It weakens the electoral authorities, it only benefits the ruling party, it reduces the plurality. I do not think we need an electoral reform when in fact the process for the 2024 elections has already begun and it has been President López Obrador himself who has promoted this early succession.
But if a reform is carried out, it must be with completely different objectives than those announced: the system that today has so many locks that it fosters controversy must be liberalized; the resources and the free television and radio time received by the parties should be reduced; electronic voting should be promoted; the general council of the INE must be strengthened, not tried to be finished; plurinominals cannot be removed or drastically reduced (an error that would cost a lot in terms of plurality); it is not possible to reduce the budgets for the electoral organization while keeping the resources of the parties intact.
If the opinion goes along the lines proposed by the federal government, it will be a true and profound democratic regression for the country, one more step towards the consolidation of an authoritarian regime. That is not a consensus formula.
military airline
Many times we have defended military participation in public security. But since we believe that this presence is essential today and in the medium term (which is why its extension until 2028 is pertinent), other decisions are incomprehensible.
President López Obrador had already said it once, but it seemed like one more occurrence. But it turns out that they are not, that now that of creating an aviation line for commercial use dependent on Sedena, they are taking it seriously and have even presented an initiative to move it forward.
It is nonsense. The national airline industry is going through one of its most difficult moments in decades. In addition to the cancellation of Texcoco (which prevented the growth that many airlines had contemplated), the pandemic was added; the AIFA has not even remotely finished taking off and the AICM has serious structural problems, both in terminal one and two. Aeroméxico has just emerged from virtual bankruptcy, Volaris and Viva have had serious difficulties surviving, although they have succeeded and all three have growth prospects. Interjet is bankrupt and in virtual liquidation and Aeromar is about to go bust with a multi-million dollar debt that it cannot pay.
The biggest obstacle to recovery is that the authorities have not fulfilled their duty and we remain in category two, which prevents access to new routes in the United States, which deepens the penetration of foreign airlines in Mexico and makes it difficult for national airlines to recover. As new routes cannot be opened, the airlines have new planes, bought in the expectations of growth, which they cannot use because those new routes do not open and cannot be used on existing US routes either.
Specialists say that it may still be a year before Mexico is in a position to regain category one.
Creating an airline from the military field that competes with commercial airlines will require investments, personnel training, marketing, technology, all charged to the treasury and will end up being a burden for the military institutions themselves. Don’t they understand that they should invest in recovering the sector, in getting out of category two, in allowing existing companies to clean up instead of spending money on occurrences?
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