June 04, 2021, (RUETIR).- Ahead of the elections next Sunday, June 6, journalist Von Hildegard Stausberg points out in an opinion piece, published in the German newspaper The world, that the vote “is actually a kind of referendum on the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which governs more and more autocratically ”.
“This is exactly what the president wanted, who acts according to a clear friend-enemy scheme: either you are completely for him or completely against him. Treating your political opponents with respect is not his style.
“AMLO is a master of black and white painting, of sharpening yes or no, of relentless confrontation. He likes to affirm that Mexico is not actually advancing through democratic electoral processes, but only through permanent social mobilization ”, says the text“ This messianism is incompatible with democracy ”, says Hildegard Stausberg.
She adds that the elections “paved the way for this political rebel” from Tabasco, in addition to recalling that President López Obrador was a member of the PRI.
She refers that the president of Mexico “feels as committed to his statistical creed as to his authoritarian understanding of the state, which sponsors Mexicans.”
“When the PRI cautiously allowed more democracy in the 1980s and sought an economic opening, AMLO turned away from it. Three decades later he came to power with his own party (Morena), “ she says.
The historian and specialist in Latin America refer that with the creation of Morena, López Obrador “has been using this in an almost messianic madness to transform Mexico into something that he calls the ‘Fourth transformation’”.
“With his claim for a ‘Fourth Transformation’, AMLO cleverly ascends to another, historically distant level – well above that of ‘normal’ presidents,” she writes.
The journalist mentions that President López Obrador “clearly divides” Mexico into two blocks: “here the people, the good guys, there the rich, the bad guys. And only he can protect people. AMLO thus justifies an unprecedented concentration of all decision-making processes on himself […] Treating your political opponent with respect is not his thing ”
“AMLO thus justifies an unprecedented concentration of all decision-making processes in himself,” she points out.
“The institutional structure of the Mexican Federation is currently experiencing an attempt by the President to completely undermine all independent forces,” she adds.
Likewise, the German publication refers to a discrediting by López Obrador against bodies such as the Bank of Mexico and the National Electoral Institute (INE) that he and his political party members say “are about to break.”
She also mentions “AMLO’s revenge” that occurred quickly, so that “he would no longer extend the mandate of the governor of the central bank.”
“AMLO has long been a thorn in the fact that the central bank, according to its statutes, uses surpluses to pay external debts and does not fill the government coffers as he wanted,” she says.
AMLO has “frankly archaic policies” when it comes to energy
Regarding energy policy, she points out that López Obrador has “frankly archaic policies”, in addition to questioning the role of the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico, for the purchase of refineries and alternative energies.
“This is surprising when you consider the great response to the controversial environmental policy of right-wing populist President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. But AMLO acts as a ‘left-wing populist’ and that until now, has protected him, ”he says.
The armed forces have become a state within a state
She writes that in the López Obrador government, the Armed Forces “have become a state within a state,” and that they are also involved in the fight against drugs.
“It can be said that the president’s tactic of inducing organized crime to be more accommodating by intervening less harshly has failed,” she says.
Union of opposition parties against authoritarianism
The text refers to the union of the PAN y PRI, opposition political parties that make “real resistance” against the Government of López Obrador.
“This is where the voodoo authoritarianism of the president meets real resistance, where his retrograde style of government is rejected, as well as his political messages from the distant past,” she says.
“It is precisely there where the close economic ties between Mexico and the United States are omnipresent. Because the economic alliance, to which Canada also belongs, has created its own dynamic, from which Mexicans benefit enormously. However, so far not all social classes. And from the great reservoir of those who feel abandoned, support for Amlo is fed.
“Consequently, the more educated people, the stronger the rejection of the president,” says another part of the text.
AMLO recommended amulets against Covid-19
In Die Welt it is also criticized that in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, López Obrador recommended that Mexicans use amulets to combat the coronavirus. The journalist refers that official estimates speak of more than half a million deaths from SARS CoV-2 in Mèxico.
She adds that companies, mostly small, “have given up” in the face of the pandemic.
“Ten million people fell below the poverty line again. It will be several years before the growth impulses of time before Covid-19 can be achieved again, ” she says.
It highlights that after assuming office as president of Mexico, López Obrador had increased minimum wages and pensions and to stimulate economic growth, “now he would have to depend more on a new impulse through foreign investment, a practically conceivable scenario, in view of the growing tensions between China and the United States ”.
She refers to “the president’s critics,” who “fear he will use the second half of his constitutionally limited six-year term to run for reelection.”
Source: Ruetir
