López Obrador, an uncomfortable mirror for Cambiemos

The most perfect and enduring case of gradualist orthodoxy is about to lead, in the second largest country in Latin America , to an unprecedented populist experience. ] If opinion polls fail, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), left, will be dedicated the day after tomorrow to the most important elections in contemporary Mexican history. Its eventual triumph will mark the end of a long transition phase that initiated a process of democratization and pro-market reforms that were considered globally successful. Ernesto Zedillo allowed Mexico to overcome the alternation test 18 years ago: he ensured a transparent election against the interests of the PRI, his own party.

The country is about to try an old and new recipe: populism was its main state policy since the 1930s, when General Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized oil, until the disaster of the debt crisis of 1982, which swept the entire subcontinent and virtually everyone emerge. So began the stabilization and structural reform programs that Mexico followed to the letter, to become the most disciplined student of the Washington Consensus.

With the political reforms was much more cautious: they started in the early 60s with a marginal touch to the electoral system. Strictly speaking, they have never finished putting in place a truly democratic, transparent and participatory system. They eliminated, indeed, the electoral fraud that had allowed the PRI to become the hegemonic party. In this sense, the 1988 elections, just 30 years ago, marked a turning point: it was obvious that Carlos Salinas de Gortari was not a legitimate president, since Cuahutemoc Cárdenas, the general's son, had broken with the PRI. a few years earlier because of the ideological differences in forming the Democratic Revolutionary Party-PRD, it gained much more support than that recognized by the electoral authorities.

From then on, the PRI allowed the National Action Party to win some state elections. In one of them, Vicente Fox, the first non – PRI president in 70 years, was elected Governor of beautiful Guanajuato (when Marcelo Bielsa shined as Atlas technician). Then, AMLO forged its deep distrust of Mexican political and energy systems. He was a prominent member of the PRD and even became an effective mayor of Mexico City between 2000 and 2005.

López Obrador is an expression of failure or, at least, "broken promises" (Norberto Bobbio would say ) of the economic and political dimensions of Mexican gradualism. It's an uncomfortable mirror for Mauricio Macri and his strategists. He suggests that the point of arrival of the transformational project so difficult to implement is not a modern, competitive, democratic, plural and integrated Western country. On the contrary, after three and a half decades of gradualism, Mexico is on the brink of a destitutionless regression that produces a mixture of tingling, terror and paralysis in its establishment. Come back
in toto The former regime of state-centered populism is literally impossible. But AMLO was in this campaign so ambiguous and contradictory that the degrees of uncertainty are immeasurable. In search of some clues to so much distress and distress, Mexican friends ask me questions about Nestor Kirchner. Others, directly by Perón. The most excessive seem resigned to find themselves in a decadent and shocking scenario like that of Venezuela Maduro. The presence of Trump on the other side of this feverish border further aggravates the situation.

Is this a scenario also feasible for Argentina, especially if Cambiemos baderts to power with a triumph in elections next year? Is there a risk of another populist regression with an authoritative whiff? The potential paradox is interesting: a government that seeks to preserve the "monopoly of rationality" (is that why it feels so comfortable with crack and postpones any consensus building effort? with more moderate opposition?) his plan of operations, and then succumbs to the enemy that he proposed to eradicate.

Mexico beat inflation; he devoted (and maintained to the letter) the independence of his monetary authority, the prestigious Bank of Mexico; It has enormously opened up its economy and has become commercially integrated into the world, thanks largely to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTA in local jargon, better known as NAFTA). As a result, it has reconverted its former import substitution industry into foreign direct investment; its capital market has strengthened and even expanded the supply of mortgages to the medium and popular sectors; implemented a very aggressive social policy focused on the most vulnerable sectors, widely recognized for its innovative character and spirit of solidarity; is a full member of the OECD (its owner, Ángel Gurría, is a former Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs) and has been able to significantly develop and modernize its physical infrastructure. I do not know a program like Cambiemos. How is it possible that AMLO, a favorite in PRI and PAN polls, wins so easily?

The world is not what it was when Mexico stuck to the gradualist style in its reform program. With Trump dismantling the liberal-democratic political and economic agenda that his predecessors had tried to structure (to the enormous benefit of all parties involved, certainly including Trump's voters himself), Mexico will have a president who, in general terms, coincides with the fatalistic and insubstantial diagnosis of his neighbor and magnate.

The war against narco in Colombia infected the Caribbean and Central America, multiplying the problem exponentially and deepening the structural weaknesses of many national and provincial apparatuses that may be considered today failed states . Organized crime networks not only export drugs from Mexico (eg to Asia). They also carry organs, people, weapons, oil and even iron filings. The epidemic of violence is unprecedented: in this election, more than 120 candidates were killed in various positions, including at the local level. Mbad killings and other gross violations of human rights are commonplace.

AMLO is a very controversial figure. Generate hatreds and loves. Volunteer, confident in his destiny and his star, the victory of this Sunday would come after two defeats in 2006 and 2012. He founded his own force, Morena (National Reconstruction Movement), when he noticed that his old party was reproducing the towers the system, particularly in the areas of fraud, clientelism and negotiated corruption.

Mexico did almost all the reforms, but it lacked a consensus project for equitable and sustainable development. Nor has it built an effective and transparent state. And by developing an inadequate and simplistic diagnosis of the problems to be solved, he gives the power to a leader who promises to deepen them. Do not repeat these same mistakes.

Political badyst