AMLO’s convening power is not held by his adversaries

The massive event that the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador organized in Mexico City supposedly for his sixteenth government report so far in his administration and the fourth and last of this 2022, reminded me of similar acts that The PRI carried out during its years of maximum power and splendor, when the entire political and governmental apparatus of the country was mobilized to ensure that tens of thousands of people gathered in the Zócalo of the country’s capital with a single objective: to listen to what that the president of the republic in turn told them and applaud him over and over again to celebrate the achievements, real or not, of his government.

Yesterday’s event probably managed to bring together more people in CDMX than those that took place during the six-year terms of Lázaro Cárdenas, Manuel Ávila Camacho, Miguel Alemán, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, Adolfo López Mateos, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Luis Echeverría and José López Portillo .

I have no doubt that thousands of people voluntarily attended the march that began at the Ángel de la Independencia roundabout and ended at the Zócalo. Nor do I doubt that thousands of others were forced to attend after being threatened in one way or another by their bosses in some government entity or by their leaders in some social or union organization. And that thousands more received some type of gratification, monetary or in kind, for participating. Let’s not forget that hauling through intimidation or bribery is a practice that the PRI members perfected over the years, a practice that is not strange or immoral to all the ex-PRI members who are today prominent Morenistas, starting with AMLO himself.

We will never know how many of those tens of thousands of people participated voluntarily or were forced to do so, nor will we know the origin and amount of the money that was allocated to rent hundreds or thousands of buses that transported them, the flags and banners they carried, the T-shirts and caps that they were given or the cakes and soft drinks that they consumed.

If to date no one has been able to clarify the origin of the money spent by candidates from all parties to finance their political campaigns, it is less likely that one day it will be clarified where the resources used to finance yesterday’s event came from, where the only star was Andrés Manuel.

For 97 minutes, from 3:00 p.m. to approximately 4:37 p.m., AMLO reviewed the achievements of his government, mentioning numbers and percentages, some not entirely accurate, as all his predecessors did at the time. And, like them, presuming that what he has done surpasses what the rulers of the past did.

Now, the most important thing about what happened yesterday was not the long government report but the march led by Andrés Manuel and the rally in the Zócalo that showed his power and ability to summon tens of thousands of people to massive events, something that their adversaries could not achieve even if they had the resources that were allocated yesterday to promote the voluntary or involuntary assistance of thousands of men and women.

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