La Cartita News

Winning Government To Take Power


Senator Citlalli Hernández, a human rights advocate and Mexican Senator for Morena, recently suffered a bombing attempt on her life. She provides this column via Expansión Política.

One year after the July 1st victory there remain 3 primary objectives: fighting corruption, pacifying the country, and to generate opportunity, writes Mexican Senator Citlalli Hernández. In this article via “Expansión Política”, Senator Citlalli Hernández comments on AMLO administration goals and methods for presidency. Original In Spanish from Citlalli Hernández.

Senator Citlalli Hernández --- It seems like it was just yesterday when the streets of this city and other entities of the Republic were the scene of an unprecedented celebration. Andrés Manuel López Obrador had finally been elected president and this was celebrated.

With an overwhelming majority, more than 30 million individual wills and 52% of the votes, Morena came to power and, for the first time in national history, a new parliamentary majority was constituted that ended the PRI hegemony.

The conditions for fulfilling the promised national transformation were apparently given; I say "apparently" because winning the government when a regime change is set as a goal does not mean in any sense that it has taken power completely. Much less in Mexico where the State and institutions were weakening.

Why?, If I have to respond promptly and briefly, I would say very simply that government power in Mexico has been exercised from a business perspective, which has turned corruption into a political practice. When the State is corrupted, it grants the power and sovereignty that it has to less visible forces.

Corruption in its broadest sense implies the necessary use of the state apparatus in a discretionary - sometimes cynical - way, in order to grant benefits to a group with interests other than those of society as a whole; and that is what the beginning of this regime change has been about: to combat corruption, not only economic, but also the one that has eaten away every space that belongs to the government.

At the beginning of the 'Fourth Transformation', in my opinion, there are three long-term, primordial objectives: combating corruption, pacifying the country and generating opportunities for those who stayed - or were left behind- because of the old regime.

Although these are fundamental actions that have been taken in these months, we can not deny that there are doubts and resistances. Legitimate doubts of those who do not understand what is happening, perhaps accustomed to a unique mold of governing; doubts about the lack of certainty about where certain decisions will take us. But also doubts, unfounded by the resistance, those that should not be lost sight of because they are dangerous in a democracy and come from those who clearly fear losing privileges and have been beneficiaries and accomplices of corruption.

It is evident, in that sense, that there is a systematic effort to discredit the 4T, to say that it is not working or that it is full of errors because that sector wants to preserve the state of things as they were before they lost the first of July.

Therefore, it becomes necessary to understand that, if it took us decades to conquer the government, now it will take years to properly wield that power: in particular over the economically powerful, over the powerful influencers, and power over organized crime that controls some territories, on the cultural domination that has provoked delay in our social development and political participation, among others.

On the day of victory, AMLO called for reconciliation from the bottom up, although at times he over-generalizes and petty opposition uses this to confront him with contempt. However, from the Senate we have made an effort to behave conciliatory, assuming a responsible majority that does not overwhelm.

We said that an authentic democracy would be sought and we had never seen in modern history the Mexican people so enthusiastic in participating in decision-making; neither had a president been so exposed, subjecting to public derision every action he exercises.

Deep changes were promised and the route started. We speak of freedom in all senses and it is exercised - that nobody is afraid when the discussions are polarized - because social diversity is thinking aloud. In that sense, we have sought to give voice to all people in the Upper Chamber: with parity, with progressive rights for women, Afro-Mexican people, indigenous communities, LGBTQ people, among others.

The president-elect pronounced in his first speech that there would be no impunity and warned his own people more than strangers, that there would be no deception, and that's the way it has been (think only of SEMARNAT’s last executive). We fought on the premise that power was not just for a political class and started abolishing privileges.

Anunciamos que cambiaría la estrategia fallida de combate a la inseguridad, entre otras cosas, atendiendo las causas que originan la violencia. Por eso los programas de bienestar desde el Ejecutivo, pero también, tras la reforma constitucional que le dio origen a la Guardia Nacional, con el respaldo de todas las fuerzas políticas en el Congreso de la Unión, en estos días nos estamos poniendo a prueba.

There is little to name a year of victory. Contradictions and mistakes have been made, no doubt - nobody expected a perfect government - but the foundations are being laid to fulfill what was promised and what the citizens voted for.

The majority still reflects the same confidence towards building a government of the 4T (Fourth Transformation), but there has been much resistance from those who have previously exercised power in the shadows; the firmness of the government to regain power and the strategic social force that accompanies that attempt becomes fundamental.

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