Katu Arkonada

 

After the speech of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in the Zócalo (name of the main square in central Mexico City), 12 months after December 1, 2018, this is a good moment to take stock of his first year in office.

 

Perhaps one of the first things AMLO has learned is that getting into government is not the same as having power. He won the presidentship of the government on July 1, 2018 for a lifelong struggle in defense of the social majorities, but the year since December 1, 2018 has served to teach that the government is only one part of a beast called the State, and that the political and economic elites that governed Mexico for years have lost political power, but continue to control a part of the country’s economy, while entrenching themselves in media and judicial power.

 

But despite the difficulties, it is undeniable that the country has changed. The image of AMLO a year ago while he was heading to the inauguration in his white Jetta, when a cyclist beside him says “You do not have the right to fail us”, is the image of a country full of hope, but above all, tremendously politicised.

 

There is hope, because AMLO has been able to channel the discontent with the neoliberal model, incapable of guaranteeing dignified living conditions for a majority of the population, towards a transformation of Mexico, by explaining to the people that in order to leave this neoliberal model behind, it is necessary to build a new, post-neoliberal, model, while attacking at the root one of the main evils of the State: corruption.

 

1 year of government, 12 months of pending tasks

 

AMLO said in his speech in the Zócalo: “How much time will we need to consolidate the transformation? I think that in one more year; that is to say, by December 2020, the foundations for the construction of a new homeland will be established. By then, under any circumstances, it will be practically impossible to return to the era of abuse that the neoliberal period meant.”

 

It is clear that there has been a lot of symbolism in the first year of the AMLO government, from the disappearance of the Presidential General Staff to the opening to the public of Los Pinos (the opulent presidential residence from 1934 to 2018, till AMLO decided to convert it into a public museum), passing through AMLO’s trips in commercial airplanes.

 

But, although the symbolism is crucial for challenging the cultural hegemony of neoliberalism, the transformation taking place in Mexico will ultimately be measured in two material and concrete issues:

 

First, the reduction of poverty and inequality. In a country where 41% of the population lives in poverty, and 16% more in extreme poverty, the commitment of AMLO to reduce these levels of poverty will be measured by the implementation of a process of redistribution through different social programs. This redistribution will allow consumption and internal demand to be stimulated in order to generate growth (and this is Keynes, not Marx). If this is accompanied by a commitment to (re)industrialisation (with the recovery of Pemex, the Mexican state oil company, at the head) and development of major infrastructure works, such as the Mayan Train, the social indicators (which do not always go hand in hand with the economic ones) should improve.

 

Second, the commitment to a new security strategy. Mexico has been suffering from a real internal war, as its statistics of violence bear out. AMLO has promised to bring this under control. As 2019 comes to a close, the media is going to start bombarding him, pointing out that the number of deaths due to violence is the highest in history. But the reality is that the increase with respect to 2018 is only 2%, while the year-on-year growth during the two previous six-year periods was 25-30%, implying that some success has been achieved. If we are able to achieve a reduction in the number of deaths by 2020, however small this percentage may be, it will indicate that AMLO has been able to initiate a strategic shift.

 

12 months of government, 5 years of challenges ahead

 

If the reduction of poverty, inequality and violence are the main indicators to evaluate the  transformation taking place in Mexico in the short term, the success or failure of López Obrador’s government in the remaining 5 years of his term  can be evaluated on the basis of the following 5 indicators.

 

In the first place, it is urgent and necessary to build a party that pushes to the left a government that by inertia will always tend to push towards the center. That is all the more important as mid-term elections to the Mexican Congress are due in 2021 and AMLO will need to again win a clear majority if constitutional reforms are to be made.

 

Likewise, the politicisation of society is essential. What happened in Bolivia is the best example of how the inclusion and redistribution of wealth are useless if you create a depoliticised middle class of consumers. Or, more accurately, politicised by the media. The millions of people who are going to see their material living conditions improve should know that this is due to specific social and economic policies of the López Obrador government.

 

It is urgent and necessary that those responsible for the looting of the country during the previous governments be tried and imprisoned. AMLO has taken a tactical decision of not pushing for the prosecution of previous presidents so as not to open new battle fronts. But sooner or later, he will have to take measures to attack structural corruption.

 

This looting has only been possible through creating an atmosphere of terror in Mexico, with the help a criminal economy protected by narco-politics, which has transformed Mexico into a cemetery, or worse, into a large mass grave. AMLO’s human rights policy, such as  uncovering the truth and ensuring justice in the case of the 43 Ayotzinapa students who were forcibly disappeared five years ago, will be another of the pillars by which to measure the success or failure of the ongoing transformation.

 

And finally, since people do not subsist on ideology, the redistribution of wealth and the country’s growth, especially in a context of global recession like the one we are entering, must be accompanied by fiscal reform and getting the rich to pay more. That is the only way to sustain the transformation process. More will have to be paid by those who have the most as a way of structurally improving a G-20 country that has among the highest poverty and inequality rates in the OECD.

 

If all of the above is faced with courage, the entire lifelong struggle of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and millions of others, will have achieved some success at the end of his six-year term in laying the foundations of a long-term radical transformation of Mexico,.

 

(Katu Arkonada is a  Basque political analyst and journalist.)