Prospects For 2013

2013 starts in just a few days. And this is not just a the start of a new calendar year, it is an important reference in terms of circumstances and experiences. 2012 closes with a series of injustices, crimes, errors, deviations and impunities that the PAN (National Action Party) government have committed from their position of political power. A lot of water will have to flow under the bridge before Mexico can shed the awful image that the National Action leaders have given to an entire nation which in no way deserved it, much less the disgrace of having to carry it.

Mexico has treated these political figures with the utmost benevolence, much more than was proper. It seems that the nation was too tolerant with them, and there were no serious consequences, until now, for any of the people responsible. The political history of modern Mexico is that of progress and the fight to move forwards, as well as the engagement of the people. PAN leaders and their allies totally lacked these qualities, and instead they had deformed views of reality with which they unfortunately managed to infect some politicians from other parties.

Calderón’s useless war on organised criminal gangs and drugs trafficking; the spilling of a huge amount of Mexican blood; the failure of the economy for the great majority of people; the using manipulated media propaganda campaigns to cover up the terrible conditions in which the PAN left our society; increasing poverty, with a further 15 million people in six years falling into in poverty (a jump from 45 to 60 million between 2006 and 2012); the lack of opportunities and the corruption and impunity of the chosen few – among them businesspeople devoid of all sense of social conscience and solidarity towards the country – and the cynical, shameless failure to keep electoral promises, particularly Calderón’s promise that he would be the ‘jobs president’, all cast a shadow over Mexico for 12 long years, which today are rightfully called the tragic dozen.

It is worthwhile remembering these terrible experiences and their tragic results so that we can design a completely different strategy. Faced with such disgraceful acts it is impossible to simply draw a line under things and move on, because the nation was seriously offended and we must now fully recognise that in order to move forward in the immediate future, which started in December 2012. This situation should motivate the effort to not repeat previous mistakes in the application of the government’s new plans and programmes. The necessary remedy must arise from an awareness of reality, so that present and future changes are closely linked to our needs as a nation and as a society.

Of course, we need new strategies to undo the harm done to Mexicans in each area of the national agenda, and so that we do not fall back into improvisations. We must implement social policies in education and national security, as well as in work, tax, environment and agriculture, in urban development and in all the country’s other spheres of activity.

Prospects for 2013 could be positive as this new six-year term begins, but only if realistic and concrete policies are drawn up for each of Mexico’s sectors and problems. We do need individual objectives but we also need an overview that allows us to channel the work of different sectors so that they converge in a single direction. In short, we urgently need a change that will enable us to transform the economic and social model that under neoliberal dogma has dominated life in Mexico for the last thirty years, and has only brought further economic and social disorder and greater exploitation of the workforce and of natural resources. The State must regain its effective authority in all sectors and must operate sensitively and skilfully in the medium and long term.

Such prospects for 2013 will be promising, positive and encouraging for Mexico, provided that a fundamental government tool is to listen to the voices of those who have been neglected: workers in industry and services, the middle classes, campesino and indigenous communities, young people and students, women and marginalised groups. Their real demands should be met by government policies. The prospects could be dreadful, however, if we do not proceed to this permanent consultation of the people, if there is no desire to listen to them, and if the lesson of the last 12 years of incompetence, ineptitude and corruption in government is not learnt. The PAN never consulted Mexican society about anything they intended to do, as illustrated by the improvised war against the organised criminal gangs that they could never control.

The nation must change the economic and social model that has prevailed and must restore growth rates fairly and reasonably, based on an economic and social policy that transcends short-term interests and steers our country towards a future of increased wellbeing, security and new opportunities for all Mexicans.

Calderón’s Legacy: Corruption and Impunity

The end a government’s term in office must surely be traumatic, daunting and uncertain for the person who has led that government. Even more so if he is aware of the grave mistakes and social debts that he is leaving behind. In no time at all he will realise just how superficial and ephemeral his actions were and how short-lived his enjoyment of power. This must be what is happening or about to happen to Felipe Calderón, because from the beginning of his administration he was seriously criticised for the illegal means and possible fraud that installed him as the manager of private interests, and his actions once in government confirmed this suspicion.

The most conservative and reactionary corporate groups let him pretend to call the shots, despite all his limitations and incapacities, improvising wars with the military strategies they dictated to him. However, thanks to growing impunity and corruption, he ended up alone and rejected like few in history, even by the very people he thought were his friends, whom he served unconditionally and immeasurably. I am aware of the scornful, rude and sarcastic comments, some direct and others indirect, made by mining businessmen to whom Calderón handed over 25 percent of the national territory in concessions, for example Germán Feliciano Larrea, of Grupo México, Alberto Bailleres González of Peñoles, Alonso Ancira Elizondo of Grupo Acerero del Norte, and Julio Villarreal Guajardo of Grupo Villacero. In his best years at the beginning of his six-year term they said he was resentful, hung-up about his indigenous appearance, incompetent, short-tempered, and alcoholic. Who knows what they will say now, in the wake of a government that failed to find solutions for the nation’s problems and left even its own allies unsatisfied.

Calderón worked obediently to do their bidding right up until the last moment with a labour reform project, drafted by members of his administration and corporate lawyers, which drove the working class and their families to the brink. He didn’t care about the consequences of this reform initiative for Mexico in terms of greater unemployment, exploitation and uncontrolled ambition, which in time will translate into instability and threats to Mexico’s social peace. Surely he never thought or even noticed because be was blinded by ignorance, or because his insensibility, the same that he showed in government, stopped him from seeing beyond the short term. Neither he nor his collaborators see the deep wounds and crises that similar measures have left in certain European countries like Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and Ireland, all due to vested interests, whatever it were that went on, as he famously said after he came to power. Poor Felipe Calderón, alone, betrayed and abandoned to his fate, Lord help him!

Even the briefest of glances shows the impunity that bred complacency and allowed the criminal acts of many of the people who supported him to flourish, both inside and outside government. Dishonesty went beyond all previous levels. If you probe into Calderón’s government, its decomposition is patently obvious. Impunity and disloyalty were the two central characteristics of his government and his politics. A total blunder, which his media strategy, costing millions and millions of pesos each year of his six-year term, could not overcome, in fact it made it more visible. A media strategy that bulldozed the freedom of the press and freedom of expression, using the shady mechanisms of budget management with the aim of silencing or muffling the free voices of journalism, and rewarding the most submissive.

His irresponsible strategy was that whoever is in opposition or does not obey must be eliminated, and precisely for this reason he unleashed political persecution and public attacks, products of his frustration and impotence in the face of the country’s free and democratic unions and their leaders.

Betrayal and disloyalty were the other two constant factors in his government, and particularly notable is Calderón’s personal weakness of believing in those people who insulted him behind his back, and continuing to believe in them until the end of his presidency. There is a lot of evidence to show that those interest groups are the ones who really governed Mexico, not him, as he presumed. Otherwise there is no way to explain the perversity and impunity of those disloyal allies and their constant attacks on social organisations. Calderón criminalised social protest as much as possible, along with all leaders who did not bow to his accomplices’ interests, and this explains the villainous political and judicial persecution of those of us who opposed that political practice and acted accordingly, with dignity and consistency.

The dustbin of history is where that politics will end up; it must not be allowed to continue to damage the country. It is crucial at this point in Mexico’s history that society’s healthiest powers and minds ensure that corruption and impunity cannot be used again to lead our country, because with those patterns of behaviour the nation will not advance: a new strategy based on a new social pact must be established instead. It seems that this might already be moving up the agenda, and it will include the Mexican people, responsible businesspeople, unionists, women, young people, politicians, parties, students, intellectuals, academics and all sectors of society.

We must be confident that Enrique Peña Nieto’s government will learn from previous experiences and see that corporate hypocrisy, which is exempt from loyalties and a sense of social responsibility, can lead to serious errors in the management of the nation’s politics. They must necessarily, urgently listen to the majority of the Mexican population and not just a few isolated voices.