Two are the reasons propped up by the opposition to explain the June 2 defeat. The first insists on the version of a state election. We are attending the first elections of the new regime. The fairness of the contest is a thing of the past. Today is the government intervention in favor of MORENA and their candidates, omitted electoral authorities and political actors far from neutrality. The second consists of the presidential ability to impose a narrative on the Mexican population. He PRIAN represents the past and the corruption. The megaphone of “the morning” from National Palace conditioned the success of the candidacy of Xochitl Galvezeven dragged her.
Neither version is false, but they are incomplete. The distinction is transcendent if the aspiration is to define a new political horizon for the opposition. I don’t think in academic terms, but political ones. Beyond “understanding” the causes of what happened, the challenge is to define “what’s next”. Impossible to do it, provided we decipher the nature of the social phenomenon in which we transit.
The simplest way to explain it would be in electoral terms. Not all elections They are to transfer power. Not when it comes to “authoritarianisms competitive.” Although there are elections, these are to consolidate their support for the regime. The cupular agreement has a real social base, much larger than the opposition. The democratic façade remains, but only as an alibi. The mandate is not in the votes, that is typical of democratically competitive regimes, this is no longer the case.
It looks too similar to the “old PRI” regime certainly, although with a mitigating factor. We are talking about an authoritarian regression; in the past the dynamic was the opposite. Now it is about dismantling the institutional mechanisms that gave rise to democratic coexistence; previously you cemented the conditions for plurality. Today you not only torpedo the path of partisan electoral competition, but you end with partisan representativeness expressed in the territory and translated into spaces in the Congress of the Union and the Senate, without failing to mention “the coup de grace” to the Power of attorney and the intermediate organs (INAI, INE, COFECE, etc.). And all this, with the popular support to do it. Hence the most important question: what is the origin of this popular support?
The social resentment of the Mexican is real, losing sight of it is equivalent to not hearing the message at the polls. If the president had ECO, it is not because of the power of the morning nor by repeating “a lie” a thousand times, but because to a greater or lesser extent society feels aggrieved. It may vary according to the social stratum or region where we live, but the feeling is quite general. Lopez Obrador He didn’t invent it. He identified it, uses it politically, and exacerbates it daily, but he did not create it. He was already there.
Mexico is a deeply unequal and unjust country, it goes without saying. Large sectors of society feel a deep grievance motivated by their socioeconomic condition or by some experience of abuse and/or frivolity of power.
The Perception and Impunity 2022 study talks about some measures to combat insecurity. Made by the organization Impunidad Cero, directed by Federico Reyes Heroles, it captures the feelings of Mexicans regarding (in)justice. It is not a question of concepts, but of emotions regarding his own safety and that of his loved ones.
To the question, “should all crimes be punished with jail?”, 8 out of 10 Mexicans strongly or somewhat agree. When asked if, “should all people accused of committing a crime remain in prison while it is found out if they committed the crime for which they are accused?”, 3 out of 4 Mexicans totally or somewhat agree. In short, Mexicans look for who pays them, not who made them. They also don’t look for someone to respond to them, they want punishment. López Obrador understood “that feeling,” and appealed to the most primitive of Mexican social feelings. No other president had done so, due to lack of understanding or institutional good sense.
The hypothesis of social resentment explains why the vote for MORENA is not a matter of social classes, but of changing skin in favor of a regime. Regardless of what is born, but different from the current one.
The political horizon of the opposition involves recognizing this reality, so as not to get lost in the attempts. The transcendence of “resentment” in conditions of regime change is in the route to follow for the opposition. It is NOT enough to think about the next election, because that would be thinking in electoral and not political terms. A strategy is urgently needed to combat its legitimacy, first, and channel its erosion, later. It will be a long march.
The short-term response must come from practices in the way of doing and understanding power. For this reason, the most “naive”, if not perverse (to play into the hands of the regime), would be to change the name of the usual party, recycle the same leadership, maintain the practices within the parties at the origin of the grievances. , plus whatever accumulates. It is the practices and attitudes of the opponents that will make the opposition cause viable, or not. That new flag remains to be defined.
So be it.
Juan Alfonso Mejía is a Doctor in Political Science and a social activist in favor of education.
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