By Sergio Negrete Cárdenas-Econokafka for El Financiero Newspaper.
The President of the Republic has found the solution to all national problems: to ignore them. They are not talked about, so then those do not exist, or eventually, they will disappear. Andrés Manuel López Obrador contemplates the national disaster and decides that it is better to deal with more pleasant issues.
In February, before the global outbreak of the pandemic, AMLO said he did not want to talk about feminicide because it “overshadowed” the presidential plane raffle. This week he did not want to talk about the damage caused by the storm “Hanna,” nor about the deaths from the COVID, let alone the violence that continues to explode. He announced that, please, his morning questions would focus only on his obsession: the raffle.
Yesterday, the INEGI published its estimate on the evolution of the GDP in the second quarter: a historic drop of 17.3% concerning the previous period. The collapse in the first semester was 10.5%. The tenant of the National Palace was so “fresh” and said that it was expected, cited figures of formal job losses, ignored the devastating informal sector, and announced that the rebound was about to begin. He also said that by the end of the year, there would be a complementary measure, additional to the GDP, which would include peace and happiness in Mexican households.
12 million people have lost their jobs and income according to the INEGI. Millions more will go into poverty and extreme poverty, according to Coneval. Crime exploits and the criminal mafias show their power in public, and with tens of thousands of households mourned by the COVID-19, the President speaks of measuring peace and happiness.
While the dead pile up, the people of Tabasco express themselves with horror at the luxuries involved in the presidential plane and the millions of pesos it costs to operate. His officials boast of the hundreds of millions saved by that extraordinary austerity. In the same period that AMLO stopped using the plane, Petróleos Mexicanos lost almost 1.3 billion pesos (12 zeros), enough to operate the aircraft for 8,783 years. But the billion figure doesn’t matter because national sovereignty is being rescued.
It’s been 20 months of government, and there are 50 more to go before this government ends. The situation cannot be expected to improve, but rather to worsen as López Obrador tries to divorce more than what is happening around him. As an opponent, the President offered simplistic solutions and chose the issues to attack. The simplicity has deepened, as he is obstinate in ignoring the problems, and believes he can choose what is important and what is not.
López Obrador should be removed from office for his manifest inability to be President of Mexico. He will not be: he has Congress under his thumb, and there is no historical precedent to guide him in the face of such ineptitude. On the contrary, the institutionality that has prevailed for a century makes it impossible to consider a coup d’état by the military. An option that would also be undesirable because it would represent the removal by force of arms of a government elected not only democratically, but with an overwhelming majority. The irony is that the person who wanted to carry out a coup d’état in 2006 was AMLO himself, but that is no reason to justify that he should be deposed by force.
The only thing that can be expected in the next 50 months is a dreadful human cost for an inept man who was unworthy of even his excessive ambition.
