AMLO made a bet… and lost. Op-Ed.

When the President of Mexico is upset about something, he lights the bonfire and accuses as an inquisitor because he is infallible, superhuman, he is never wrong. Like Neo in The Matrix, he is the chosen one, the voice of the people.

The smallness of the Mexican leader is evident. Instead of looking for money through investments in the country, creating opportunities, opening up to better business practices, AMLO has a “small village” vision. His global narrowness and deep-rooted complexes make him better off stealing the country’s trust funds, and perhaps in the future, the retirement funds. 

Mexico today is the world’s ridicule, except for AMLO’s bootlickers, who compare him to a “messiah.” By the way, the “messiah” has proven not to care about “his people” since he has been unable even to get his feet wet since he has refused to visit those affected by the floods. Just as he has refused to visit others affected by many other tragedies. Let’s not even talk about traveling abroad unless he was to “pay his respects to Mister Trun.”

At this moment, Mexico has fallen one place in the ranking of the GDP in the world. We were the fifteenth economy, and now we are the sixteenth. The pace at which we are going, by the end of these six years, we will be below the top 20. AMLO does not believe in or bet on investment. That is “neoliberalism,” he says in his press conferences. Capitalism, for him, is the devil. Nor does he bet on the generation of wealth. It is better for Mexico’s president to “settle for a pair of shoes,” says in his morning conferences, while his children live like princes of fable. 

For AMLO, generating money is frowned upon; it is synonymous with being corrupt. His leadership is born from the veneration of poverty, without realizing that it leads to misery. There are no aspirations in this government. Everything is reduced to giving money to “the poor” instead of giving them jobs or opportunities, improving their living standards. But let’s be realistic, populists love poor, messed-up, ignorant people because they need “daddy government.”

Thirty million Mexicans voted for Lopez Obrador, hoping for real change. There hasn’t been one, and insight in the future indicates a change, yes, but a dark, terrible one for Mexico and its economy. In the purest style of a dysfunctional banana country, with a government similar to Cuba and Venezuela.

Today, López Obrador is worried that he has lost his candidate “Mister Trun” as he calls him. There will be pressure for the USMCA to be carried out as it should be and even for specific terms to be renegotiated with Biden. It hurts López Obrador that he will no longer be “Juan Trump,” and as a fervent admirer of Trumpism, he feels cornered, aggressive, and will become even worse, the polarization of the country.

Yesterday, in the purest style of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, he had a peroration of more than three hours in his conference. He attacked everyone. A group made up of the country’s civil society that is not in favor of his government’s policies left against “Yes for Mexico. He attacked, once again, journalism and threatened “Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity” who have investigated multiple acts of corruption emanating from his government. Like a good autocrat, AMLO resents criticism. Those who dare criticize him are all “conservatives,” “fifís,” “rapacious minorities” and the press is “filthy” and “immoral.” “Traitors to the country,” as he loves to say. When Mexico’s president is bothered by something, he lights the bonfire and accuses as an inquisitor because he is infallible, superhuman. He is never wrong. Like Neo in The Matrix, he is the chosen one, the voice of the people.

Except that AMLO is neither chosen nor enlightened. He is a great destroyer; the proof is the disappearance of trusts, among them the FONDEN for natural disasters like Tabasco-. The trust funds for science, for protection of human rights defenders and journalists. A widespread shortage of medicines that has caused the death of children with cancer, a health system on the verge of collapse, hundreds of women murdered, and a total lack of empathy for the feminist movement, a country that is drowning in rivers of blood from unstoppable violence and an economy that is sinking more and more every day. 

AMLO does not know how to govern. Like Donald Trump, he bets on division, anger, and social fury, and the Mexicans are fed up with that. In the United States, a historic vote was taken, and everything seems to indicate that the populism of the Trump era has come to an end. It remains to be seen if, in this country, the Mexicans do not get fed up with receiving more of the same, especially since this government has a vision of vengeance, polarization, and an insatiable appetite for destruction.

Perhaps it is time for Mexicans to put aside all their differences and focus on one thing they all have in common… their homeland. 

For Times Media Mexico
Editorial Board The Yucatan Times.
November 12, 2020
Merida Yucatan, Mexico

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The editorial board of The Yucatan Times consists of a group of 9 people of different nationalities, selected for their background and objectivity, which are based on research, analysis and individual experience to reach a concerted vision of the important issues of Mexico and the world.