By Kathleen Bohné
Below you will find an excerpt from the May 1 edition of “La Semana” newsletter. To read more and subscribe, please visit www.TheMexpatriate.com
“In Mexico, the Constitution is very clear: the energy resources and petroleum deposits belong exclusively to the Mexican people in perpetuity. Any other speculation on the matter is treason. Industrializing the country does not require selling our natural resources to the highest bidder, nor the indiscriminate transfer of our national wealth.”
This paragraph is taken from a letter allegedly written by President Adolfo López Mateos to “the Mexican people”, dated September 27, 1960. This letter has been referenced by President López Obrador since 2014, and surfaced again during the aftermath of the defeat of his energy reform bill in Congress on April 17. The letter goes so far as to tell Mexican citizens that López Mateos “exempts” them “any obedience to future leaders who intend to turn over our energy resources to outside interests” and warns of “bad Mexicans” who will try to hand over petroleum and other national resources to foreigners.
The letter seems tailor-made to vindicate the nationalist, populist rhetoric of MORENA and the president and their predilection for epic historical narratives. And perhaps it was: the letter has no proof of authenticity. In response to a freedom of information request made in 2021, the executive office came up empty-handed. “This ‘letter’ brings to mind two conclusions: first, that if the president turns to the dead to muster support, then he doesn’t have enough among the living; second, if lopezobradoristas are capable of falsifying the work of López Mateos, they are capable of falsifying everything,” noted historian Soledad Loaeza in a scathing opinion piece in Nexos.
This document, whether written by one López or the other, provides context for the increasingly inflammatory political rhetoric unleashed in the last two weeks. “This is the foulest I’ve seen,” said Alejandro Moreno, president of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) in an April 26 interview. On April 25, the president of MORENA, Mario Delgado, announced his party’s intention to pursue criminal charges of treason against the 223 representatives who voted against the energy reform bill. This comes after posters have been printed and put up with photos of members of Congress from opposition parties labeled as “traitors to the country”.
Members of the opposition parties have called this a “hate campaign” and many commentators have expressed concern about AMLO and his supporters taking an anti-democratic turn. “How can there be a peaceful transfer of power if you consider anyone in the opposition to be a traitor to the country?” asks Pablo Majluf, an analyst who views this as “fascist” rhetoric.
“We call it treason because [the energy reform] wasn’t just any bill, it’s about national sovereignty,” claimed Mario Delgado in defense of MORENA’s strategy. While this appears to be a bold political move to motivate the party’s base with the electoral battle for 2024 in mind, the short-term effect has been waking up an opposition that has so far been disorganized and uninspired during AMLO’s term. Few things unify a disparate group more than being lumped together as the “villains” on the national stage.
On April 28, the president announced his next legislative gambit: an electoral reform bill. Opposition parties have already fiercely contested it and claim they will never allow it to pass. The aim is to “make Mexico’s democracy cheaper” by substituting the INE (National Electoral Institute) with a new federal electoral agency, reducing the number of members of Congress and purportedly saving 24 billion pesos. The bill would reduce the number of “plurinominales”, or representatives chosen by proportional representation, who make up 200 of the 500 members of Congress (more detailed explanation on this to come).
“There is not an intention to impose single party rule, what we want is for there to be authentic and true democracy in the country, and to end election fraud,” said AMLO of the reform. It’s difficult not to read between the lines of the proposal the president’s desire for revenge: his accusations of election fraud going back to 2006 were centered on the federal electoral body (INE) and tribunal, both of which would be either replaced or drastically overhauled by this legislation.
“Electoral reform bills have always been a way to resolve demands made by the opposition,” explains INE director, Lorenzo Córdova in an interview. “From this perspective, the reforms have been a way to assure inclusion and prevent players from leaving the game. I mention this, because as far as I know or remember, this is the first reform requested by those in power. Instead of the opposition threatening to break the democratic contract if conditions are not improved, the political party in power is the one pushing for a reform.”
Perhaps this is attributable to AMLO’s lengthy career in the trenches of the opposition and the fact that MORENA is a social movement more than it is a political party. “MORENA is a phenomenon,” as described by Delgado, its president. He is confident (and polls tend to agree) that they will be victorious in upcoming governor’s races in Oaxaca, Aguascalientes, Durango, Hidalgo, Quintana Roo and Tamaulipas on June 5.
“I hope the opposition begins to focus on the results of this sexenio, and doesn’t fall into this new snare laid by the regime,” wrote Jorge Castañeda of the electoral reform. There are ample statistics to draw upon to demonstrate the paucity of change during the first half of AMLO’s term, despite his and his party’s assurances that Mexico is living a moment of historical “transformation”.
