Breathe
By Barbara Anderson
The president used a phrase from Tin-Tan, a 'va o va' to shore up his emblematic projects, even though he has not
his emblematic projects, although he has not met the deadlines.
Unlike other presidents who accelerate their less popular decisions for the
decisions for the last stretch of their government (the lame ducks),
AMLO has a whole flock that follows him and his ideas to the end.
In political jargon, a lame duck is an official who is in the final phase of his term and who already has a successor elected or with great possibilities of occupying his post. He is called 'lame duck' because between the pressures to walk fast and reach the end of his term with promises fulfilled, he fails to keep pace with the rest of the flock and seems (literally) lame, easy prey for his predators.
In cases where politicians cannot be reelected, being a lame duck is an advantage because they are free to make unpopular decisions or very radical changes without it weighing on their prestige or credibility, because they no longer need it in subsequent elections.
Lame ducks are those presidents who live in a kind of limbo between the time their successor wins the election and the time his or her replacement takes office, especially when there is a change of political color.
In order to avoid 'lame ducks' or politicians in office but without popular validation, in 1933 the United States made a constitutional amendment (the Twentieth) that tries precisely to shorten the time between elections and the inauguration of new officials: the period of 6 months (as it still happens in Mexico) was changed to only three. This week, without going any further, mid-term elections are being held in the United States and the winners will take office at the end of January 2023.
Bill Clinton took advantage of this limp period of only three months to get China to join the WTO and to sign almost 200 pardons and clemencies on his penultimate day as president; Ronald Reagan used this time to put an end to the Cold War. Barack Obama ended his second term 'limping' with the signing of the nuclear agreement with Iran, the resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba and the health care reforms (Obamacare).
The duck from Los Pinos to the Palace
Since the triumph of Andrés López Obrador in June 2018 and in the face of the overwhelming triumph of Morena over the rest of the parties (especially the PRI), although Enrique Peña Nieto had more than six months ahead of him in Los Pinos, having that real power was not useful since both support and popularity already had another owner and another flag.
AMLO quickly began to insert in that semester, before putting on the presidential sash, so that his teams in the outgoing ministries and institutions would not arrive from zero to take office in December.
A kind of due diligence (or velvet transition) where he focused mainly on very relevant issues such as energy (Pemex and CFE), not to mention the renegotiation of NAFTA, which was in the most phlegmatic moment of its renegotiation, death and resurrection under the new name of T-MEC.
Although lame ducks appear in the period between the end of an election and the taking of office, we are almost at that stage in our country, despite the fact that the elections are 19 months away.
The situation was set up by none other than the President himself with his accelerated revelation of the 'corcholatas', of Morena's potential presidential candidates, which has been the kick-off for one of the longest electoral races in recent times.
Of promising geese and ducks of bad step
In his inauguration speech in December 2018, President López Obrador drew from his melancholy memory the phrase 'me canso ganso' popularized by Tin-Tan in the movie "El niño perdido".
Like many other expressions that joined the popular language (such as 'cantinflear') 'me canso ganso' is the folkloric version of 'I'm sure I'll make it', a 'I do it, because I do it' or as its predecessor said "I'll sign it and I'll keep it".
In that speech, the 'me canso ganso' referred specifically to the fact that in three years the corridor from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec would be inaugurated to create an economic corridor -with subsidies and electricity- to promote the installation of productive investments and the generation of jobs.
Almost four years after that announcement, the goose seems to have gotten a little tired because the work is still not 70% complete and this inter-oceanic corridor between the port of Salina Cruz (Oaxaca) and the port of Coatzacoalcos (Veracruz) would be ready by the end of 2023. The tired goose got the math wrong and missed the mark by more than a year.
The Mayan Train 'we are going to finish it in four years, whether our adversaries or the fifi press like it or not. I'm tired, goose," AMLO announced from a purple stage at the end of 2018, and with that phrase (which has become a national meme) he raised cheers and applause. But the dates did not work in his favor either: many of the stretches into which the 1,500 kilometer work was divided presented brakes before judicial injunctions due to the lack of feasibility studies and to an evident ecological damage in areas of virgin jungle and millenary cenotes. The project(which tripled its original budget to $20 billion dollars) could also be inaugurated until December 2023.
Another case of works in a hurry and with an extra budget (46% of the initially announced amount) is the Olmeca refinery (Dos Bocas) in Tabasco, which although it was 'pseudo inaugurated' a few months ago -at a time when it was not flooded-, the truth is that it would also be 100% completed by the end of 2023.
So far, the only work that did deliver on time (but that does not mean that it is a success in terms of traffic or that it has solved the problem of air traffic congestion) was the AIFA, a finished, somewhat disconnected and rather empty airport.
But, in Mexico the goose may be tired, but what it is not is insecure: the candidates who are in line -like ducklings- to fight the 2024 elections have reiterated that these emblematic works of their current leader will not only finish them (in the event that the times of architecture and military engineering are delayed), but that they will consolidate them.
We should not fear, as in other countries, that there will be a 'lame duck' effect in the remainder of this six-year term, because this duck has not stopped quacking since it arrived at its nest in the National Palace.
Many of the deadlines set by President López Obrador to complete his emblematic works have had to be extended. Does he really need to speed up his processes or is continuity assured with some of his "corcholatas"? Bárbara Anderson takes us back to the moment when the stumbling blocks of the person who now governs us began.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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