what is played

It has been a little more than four years of institutional destruction. Even before assuming ownership of the Executive Power, President López has dedicated himself to undermining the institutions seeking to weaken if not even eliminate any counterweight. Each and every one of his actions have been aimed at strengthening his political power. If we add to this his marked intolerance to criticism and that there may even be an attempt to go against his designs, with a Congress that acts in a more than servile way to his dictates and that does not change a comma to his initiatives, It is going to be infuriating, what we have is that this has quickly evolved into an autocracy.

Among the institutions that it destroyed are the National Institute for Educational Evaluation and which it accompanied with the empowerment of unions to ensure their political support at the expense of the quality of education, Seguro Popular and its replacement by INSABI, a monstrosity that was practically born death leaving 15 million people without access to health services, the institutional mechanism for the consolidated acquisition of medicines with the consequent acute shortage and Prospera – Oportunidades that promoted the education of children from the five million poorest families of the country, granting scholarships and direct transfers to the family income conditioned to the infants attending school regularly and periodically to health centers; In addition, it has canceled different programs such as children’s stays and full-time schools. It highlights that everything it destroyed has a negative impact that hurts the poor relatively more.

Additionally, it has also dedicated itself to undermining other institutions that in one way or another hinder it, such as Cofece, which has gone against monopolistic practices in the energy sector, and INAI, which forces it to make public spending transparent. Notoriously, there are the attacks on the INE and the weakening of the budget, an institution that is the heir to the IFE and which is not forgiven for not endorsing its allegation of electoral fraud in 2006 for the simple reason that it did not exist; López cannot accept that he lost the 2006 elections and hence his intention to destroy the electoral authority with the constitutional electoral reform that was not approved because Morena and his hindrances from the Green and Labor parties lost the majority in the 2021 elections. qualified in the Chamber of Deputies; Since they didn’t comply with his tantrum, then there goes the unconstitutional “Plan B”.

Since President López is the head of the Executive Power and having, as I pointed out, a mostly servile Congress of the Union, what he lacks for Mexico to effectively devolve into autarky, a de facto dictatorship, is to have a judicial power subordinated to his desires, whims and tantrums and hence his intention that it be “one of his” who heads the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation. As he affirmed in defense of Yasmín Esquivel accused of having plagiarized his undergraduate thesis: “He has acted with great rectitude and has supported our incursions into the Judiciary.” Like a “Trojan mare”, destroying judicial independence from within.

And it is here where the warning of the Baron de Montesquieu enters who, in 1784, wrote in The Spirit of the Laws when highlighting the importance of the division of powers: “All will be lost, when the same man, or the same body, whether of the nobles or the people, exercise these three powers: that of making laws, that of executing public resolutions, and that of judging crimes or differences between individuals.

What is at stake with the election of the head of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation is the independence of the judiciary in the face of the authoritarian attacks of President López. What is at stake is democracy, the judicial protection of human rights such as freedom of expression and manifestation of ideas, of the press, of association and of religious belief, as well as the guarantee and judicial protection of private rights to property and of the fulfillment of the contracts.

What is at stake today, Monday, January 2, 2023, in the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation is nothing more and nothing less than Mexico and our freedom.

Twitter: @econoclasta