Governors of Morena in a party act. Mario Jasso (CUARTOSCURO)
A friend, a sports journalist, commented to me a few days ago, after the appalling episode of violence in the Querétaro stadium, that Mexican soccer has become so soporific that the evolutions of the brave fans already function as a spectacle in itself: in the field sometimes nothing happens, but in the stands what about.
Something like this happens with the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
In the "playing field" of public policies, his arrival in power has meant little progress, if not a clear setback.
The core of his exercise has been given, in reality, in the continuous show of his controversies, disqualifications and slaps.
The Mexican reality in 2022 is harsh, if not bleak.
Let's see: there is more poverty, now, than when the presidency began and less hope of getting out of it, because investment has contracted, not only due to the consequences of the closings and bankruptcies of the pandemic, but also due to the general mistrust in the performance of the government.
Education and health have become "small cash", stripped of budget at the cost of life, for example, of children with cancer who have stopped receiving treatment, or the stability of full-time school students recently defenestrated (and that's not to mention the slow and incongruous official reaction to covid-19, which included discouraging the use of face masks, denying the seriousness of hospital saturation and minimizing the human cost,
Violence in the streets has reached historic highs: almost 115,000 homicides have been perpetrated in just half of the six-year term when, just as a reference, in the entire ultraviolent period of Felipe Calderón there were 132,000;
and the criminal groups, we see it every day, dominate large areas of the national territory, while the press is under fire and seven journalists have been murdered so far this year.
As if that were not enough, the reports regarding rigging, envelopes, preferences and business as in the government have continued to occur, even in the immediate environment of the president (his son, his brother and a cousin have already been splashed, in addition to officials first level and not a few cheerleaders).
The achievements that the president presumes are modest: organizing programs to distribute money to young and old, and launching the construction of megaprojects that no one considered essential before the presidential stubbornness, such as the Mayan Train, the Dos Bocas refinery or Felipe Angeles airport.
In reality, his efforts are concentrated in the stands and in politics understood as a show built on the basis of controversies and disqualifications: the day he does not attack academics, intellectuals or journalists who do not support him (and accuses them of being conservative and corrupt), attacks Spain or Austria (for not offering apologies for the conquest of the native peoples five centuries ago, in one case,
Last Friday, the president unleashed his fury against the European Parliament, which asked to protect journalists and recalled that, statistically, Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world to practice the profession.
The official communication from the suburbs in response to parliamentarians and the “closing of ranks” of officials, spokespersons and paleros of the regime is an unbeatable example of the barra brava policy that López Obrador has established, where the important thing is not the results ( because they are lousy) but "defend the shirt" by hitting the rivals, the unbridled cheers and the mother talk.
This is how the six-year term goes: while the country is thrashed on the field, the president acts as the leader of a brave bar dedicated to distributing firewood in the stands.
The results are visible.
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