Mexico will almost certainly undergo a second season of Fourth Transition governments. With less than five months to go before the elections, the chance of the opposition candidate overcoming her deficit (between 20 and 25 points) is almost impossible given the current balance of power. Claudia Sheinbaum will become the country's president from next October. If that is sufficient certainty, what follows is pure uncertainty.
The underlying question is to what extent it will succeed in maintaining, deepening or modifying the government's proposed change pushed by López Obrador. This question is relevant because the seizure of power in the elections and its subsequent exercise focused on the will, charisma, idiosyncrasy and popularity of López Obrador.
The beginning of the change emerged in 1988 as a reaction of PRI members (Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo and AMLO himself) against the technocratic tendency led by Salinas de Gortari; It was not strictly left-wing, but progressive tendencies joined it. The PRI dissidents and the left together formed the PRD, but in the years that followed, López Obrador's leadership dominated the various factions to the extent that “Obradorism” is the quickest definition of this movement. And what is the workshop? What López Obrador thinks, says and does.
What else do the cadres who are active in Obradorism today have in common? The belief that Mexican society owes a debt of gratitude to those most in need and that it is therefore a priority to correct inequalities and social injustice. How and with what intensity has López Obrador personally defined himself so far. The big question is how it will be interpreted once he disappears from the stage in ten months.
A large part of the answer will lie with Claudia Sheinbaum, who has a very different background than the founder. Urban, modern, progressive, scientific and more cosmopolitan middle class. Loyal to López Obrador, but with a different worldview. He was not properly trained in the opposition, but in the scientific academy and in public administration, he was a member of the PRD, never of the left-wing radicalism or the tribes.
For Sheinbaum, the problem is not just the conceptual redefinition of a workerism without López Obrador; Perhaps that is the simplest thing: to modernize the proposed amendments and make them more viable and to make them more favorable to the majority. The difficulty is not “what are you going to do” because that is answered by the diagnostics your teams perform. No, the challenge will be in the “how”.
And that is because López Obrador is not only the ideologue of change, but also the factotum that made it work: operator, arbiter, propagator, factional controller, link to the rest of the real powers, leader of the masses, dominant shaper of the public opinion. How can you replace all of this?
The restructuring following the departure of López Obrador will be serious, since the movement is a constellation of cadres of all kinds who have no other ideology than the agreement to favor the poor, but are always subordinate to the task associated with the conquest and consolidation of the power is connected. The modus operandi of a recently arrived PRI member is very different from that of Pablo Gómez, the former communist leader, or Román Meyer, an academy-trained cabinet member. The main mortar of this whole racket is loyalty to the founder and his ideas, but this will now disappear on its own.
You don't need a crystal ball to know that once the personal style of such a strong leader disappears, powerful groups inside and outside Obradorismo will seek to expand their power. Governors who will count the days, generals who will want to consolidate their spaces, businessmen who will try to impose conditions and restore privileges, left-wing radicals who will declare themselves true heirs of the movement and vigilantes of purity, de facto powers that will challenge the new duty. Everyone will test the consistency and press in where it feels soft.
Sheinbaum must develop a tremendous ability to neutralize some, give in at times and push back at others. Find the balance necessary to convey an image of solidity without it being interpreted as hardness or rigidity. All of this means putting into action the personal political skills you are developing. It seems to me that even if it is not easy, the doctor has the intelligence, spirit and discipline to achieve it.
But it's not just personal characteristics. It goes beyond an adequate strategy regarding your leadership style. The difficulty lies in operating a system based on the support of the majority for one person, on the polarization fueled by charisma, on the enormous ability to impose a discourse on the media, on the ability to free political submission to each protagonist within the movement (and sometimes outside).
To be successful, you must solve several challenges. I will name a few: First, quick results relative to the expectations of the vast majority. The polarization that López Obrador managed so skillfully to make people feel that there is a leader who speaks on their behalf and for their demands cannot be repeated. Sheinbaum must seek popular legitimacy through results.
Secondly, loyal and very capable cadres are needed in political operations. It is impossible to replace AMLO in this sense, but it can be tempered by teamwork at a high level, with greater autonomy and personality than this Cabinet was.
Third, a different relationship with the media and public opinion, based on professional respect and the legitimacy of words and actions. Only López Obrador could face the media and emerge victorious. A complex topic that would require further breakdown.
Fourth, a reconciliation strategy with the private sector to create a favorable climate for job creation and economic growth. No transformation is possible if annual growth is 2% or less. The redistribution in favor of the poor has already been carried out with the existing margins. What follows is to increase them or take them away from those who have them (which will not happen either because of the conviction of the Obrador movement or because of Mexico's international orientation). Context). However, such reconciliation with the productive forces must take place without loss of legitimacy in the eyes of the majority and without boycott by radicals.
Sheinbaum faces the difficult task of showing that progressive government is possible in a market economy and integration context such as this country's. How to dissolve the resistance of the system, leave polarization behind and not lose your ideological identity. How to grow and sell at the same time in a market society. In short, how to survive López Obrador.
@jorgezepedap
Subscribe here Subscribe to the EL PAÍS México newsletter and receive all the important information on current events in this country
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_