Without an agreement by society regarding the political agenda, the Pact for Mexico is doomed to constant fragility and to suffering the effects of any momentary political situation, which can lead to its failure, warned political scientists from the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) and National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Some days after the first clash arose between the federal government and the PAN and PRD leaders for the alleged use of public resources for electoral purposes in Veracruz, which involved the head of the Secretariat of Social Development, Rosario Robles, specialists in the national political system noted that
"the political parties that signed the agreement have shown they are for the interests of the parties and not for achieving better results for the country."From the beginning, they said, the Pact for Mexico
"was born as a leadership agreement between the political forces in which there was no debate even with their membership, so it is extremely fragile. It is a pact signed only by the party leaders, but not their political forces and much less by society as a whole."Martha Singer Sochet, research coordinator of the Center for Political Studies in the School of Social and Political Sciences at UNAM, said that without a social support base for the agendas of the top party leaders,
"if there is a disagreement between what the leaders of the parties think in relation to any issue, the Pact may fail. There is no real political base to defend these positions. This reflects the enormous fragility and that there is no social consensus around their agenda."She questioned whether PAN's complaint against the alleged diversion of federal resources to combat poverty for electoral purposes,
"isn't just a smokescreen for the political leaders that signed the agreement in order to renegotiate some of its terms."In a separate interview, Telésforo Nava Vázquez, an expert on the national political system and professor at the UAM-Iztapalapa, said President Enrique Peña Nieto
"has them by the short hairs, because PAN and PRD know that it will cost them dearly to get out of this jam, because these parties have also been involved in the possible diversion of public resources for election campaigns."The decision to put pressure on the federal government with the case of Sedesol in Veracruz, he said,
"put the Pact for Mexico in a critical situation. Who could resist this slip-up? But it will present constant surprises, as the main party leaders need this agreement in order to address their own internal battles."It is evident, he added, that the time
"for the new government to boast that it was 'going for a horseback ride on the hacienda' with all the political forces is over. The obvious decomposition of the leadership agreements can no longer be hidden. As examples there are the protests by the teachers of Guerrero, the formation of the community police and the constant insecurity in the country in the face of the strength of organized crime," he said.Spanish original