Reforma: Denise Dresser*
Translated by Amanda Moody
It’s time to participate in the public adventure by proposing ideas. Time to make an audit of Peña Nieto’s presidential term, and all that lies ahead in 2018, and think about what we’re going to do. Here is the deadly hobble of corruption and impunity, of Malinalco [house of Secretary of Treasury Videgaray built and financed by Higa Group, government contractor] and the Chinese high-speed train [contract cancelled because of Higa Group involvement with "White House of president's wife], of reforms which were contaminated or badly implemented. Here are Tanhuato, Apatzingán, Ayotzinapa, Tlatlaya and all that they bring with them.
Hence the repudiation, the disappointment ... and the importance of an independent citizens' agenda like that outlined by Jorge Castañeda in his book Solo Así [“Only This Way”]. Ideas which are able to contribute something outside party politics, outside tribes, currents, cliques and leaders. Something which truly comes from the citizens. Something which is ours.
For all the issues that the parties don’t want to touch. The corruption they share, the impunity they tolerate, the human rights they ignore, the defense of minorities which they disdain, the exploitation of consumers which they allow. All of us suffer the consequences of what Castañeda calls “a rule of law which lacks a leg, an arm and a head”. Trapped, with no way out, with what his collaborator Héctor Aguilar Camín described as “the vision of a first world country, the governmental execution ability of a third world country and the public rejection of a failed State or country”. Grievances against Peña Nieto’s government for which the structural reforms have no answers. Grievances against a partyocracy which is ossified, isolated, distanced from those it supposedly represents, who declare themselves willing to vote for an independent candidate by 62 percent.
Because the electorate sees a PRD [Party of the Democratic Revolution] which is bankrupt and sometimes useless; a Movement for National Regeneration, led by Andres Manuel Lopez Obredor, that is intolerant and threatening; a PAN [National Action Party] whose faction supporting former president Felipe Calderón helped Peña Nieto’s reforms in exchange for political protection for the former President on issues of human rights violations and the costs of his "war". A new government which covered up for the previous one and thereby appropriated all the blame and responsibilities of its predecessor. And an alliance that proved disastrous for the President and the country: the pact with the PRI [Party of the Institutional Revolution] from the State of Mexico [Peña Nieto's home state].
The sacred silence, the guaranteed protection, the time-honored omertá [code of honor that places importance on silence, non-cooperation with authorities and non-interference in the illegal actions of others]. The unbroken line of continuity between one administration and the next. While the war continues, human rights are violated. While human rights are violated and people like García Luna [head of Public Security, i.e. federal police in Calderón administration] remain unpunished, impunity is institutionalized. By institutionalizing impunity, it extends to other areas. It stains everything, absolutely everything.
And this explains why citizens are fed up, it explains the spillage of voters to a handful of successful independent candidates - the rotten partyocracy. But that does not mean that 2018 [presidential and congressional elections] will see a milestone of participation or of partisan rejection. Again and again we have seen the capacity of civil society to neutralize itself by voting for “the lesser evil”. And the only way to break the inertia is through a civic agenda that focuses on combating impunity, with an international mechanism like the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala. A radical, urgent and non-negotiable demand for human rights. A direct attack on corruption with a completely autonomous inspector who has the ability to prosecute.
An attack on the partyocracy and its money, dismantling obstacles to candidates without party affiliation and a dramatic reduction of party privileges. A drive towards holding a second electoral round [run-off election between the two presidential candidates receiving the most votes in a three-candidate race]. Protection of consumers, who are exploited in transaction after transaction by one monopoly or another. Here is a first - valuable - draft agenda by us, for us.
Jorge Castañeda and members of his coterie are probably right to insist that there should be a single independent candidate. But hopefully not one proposed by them or monopolized by them or with barriers to entry erected by them. Hopefully not a perpetuation of the intellectual Mens Club that smells macho, exclusive, of the establishment - although they say they form no part of it.
Hopefully not the same names as always on the same lists as always. Men with great attributes and intellects whose time has passed. Whose ability to rally people has already expired. Whose ideas are necessary but whose personalities do not have what it takes for an independent candidate to catch on. Independence, charisma, the ability to connect with young people, combativeness, irreverence, a sense of humor, the ability to create confidence in a common - and not just a personal - vision. In Mexico, there must be a man or a woman with that profile. Someone who bends the rules, but due to conviction rather than ego. Only this way.
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Denise Dresser is a Mexican political analyst, writer, and university professor. After completing undergraduate work at The College of Mexico, she earned her Ph.D. in Politics at Princeton University. She is currently a faculty member in the Department of Political Science at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), where she teaches courses such as Comparative Politics, Political Economy and Contemporary Mexican Politics. She has taught at Georgetown University and the University of California. In December 2015, she was decorated as a Knight of the Legion of Honor by the French government. Twitter: @DeniseDresserG