Breathe
By Stephanie Henaro
In 2024 we enter the final curve of the six-year term with a number of intentional homicides that exceeds those of the last three administrations, and this is how the country will be handed over.
In the first five years of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, from December 2018 to December 2023, the number of people murdered totals 170,800 and this makes it undeniable that this administration presents a violence never seen before during a government in the country. Under Vicente Fox there were 74,577, under Felipe Calderón 102,859, and under Enrique Peña Nieto 135,471 victims.
If we add it all up, this gives us a total of 483,707 intentional homicides in the last 23 years which is close to the 500,000 that could have died during Mexico's Independence which lasted almost half the time, 11 years.
We are immersed in a war, it cannot be hidden and that is why the next administration should stop denying it.
The country today, and also for a long time, has become a battlefield that makes citizens have forgotten how to live in peace. Every day there are deaths and this only translates into the fact that the maximum gratitude to which someone can aspire, is that "it is not your turn".
The latter is well illustrated by the bloody Christmas in Tabasco -the president's native state-, which reminds us that fear roams the streets, because for organized crime there are no holidays and this only makes us a society of strangers.
We are becoming more and more separated from each other because there is more distrust and this only indicates that the first curve of the next administration will be dangerous, because the last one of this one has been so.
Living without being at peace will continue to be the reality within a spiral of violence that envelops Mexicans and diminishes the quality of life in a trans-sexennial manner, and will cause the next government to inherit an evil for which no vaccine has been found in either bullets or hugs, and which also feeds on daily life in the extra pesos we pay for avocados, lemons, chicken, tortillas and fishing, among others.
They charge us their VAT, because in Mexico death is also taxed. Thus sustaining the owners of a part of the territory in which the State does not govern.
The worst thing is that in some cases it may never have arrived and this generates a greater challenge for the next administration in the final curve of the six-year term.
This is perhaps the greatest geopolitical risk the country will face in 2024, beyond the new government, because the enemy is internal, weakens the state, and will influence the duration of democratic dopamine after the elections.
So, remembering that life is short, how disruptive would it be to talk about legalization, decriminalization or government of certain substances?
It would give the State another option beyond the bloody bullets, the outdated hugs and help as many of its citizens as possible to live a peaceful life.
Violence affects life, including democracy, and creates dangerous curves.
Last one to leave, turn off the light.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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