Breathe
By Ivabelle Arroyo
To put the emphasis on the person is a mistake, but it is not easy to ignore the characteristics of the individual who becomes President of a country. If he is young, if he is a woman. If he/she has a lot of experience, if he/she drinks, if he/she professes a religion, if he/she sleeps little.
I understand that these individual characteristics shape certain ways of exercising power, but I also realize that there is no certain causal relationship between virtues or defects and certain desirable behaviors in power. Hitler was orderly and did not drink; while Churchill was a disaster and an alcoholic, but that does not mean that teetotalers will be dictators and alcoholics statesmen. The only thing that this well-known example gives us is the certainty that human character, in all areas, but more so in power, has fractal effects: almost infinite and unanticipated.
So, the gender, age, education and virtues of whoever holds the Presidency in Mexico matter less to me than the institutional characteristics of that Presidency. Is it a chair from which there is omnipotent and unipersonal power? Is it a weak institution, blocked by a lack of governance? I do not feel like either. I would like (what a delight to think of longings) a Presidency that is elected with clear rules and a procedure accepted by all, so that the direction it takes is legitimate. I would like a Presidency that has an echo in the government clockwork; that is to say, that its policies are applied and work, but I would also like a Presidency that is capable of correcting and that is susceptible to being corrected.
I would like a Presidency that articulates the territories and shares with them the direction of the nation in a bidirectional relationship. I would like a Presidency that has a more governmental and less personal face. A Presidency that would be understood as a node, not as a finger. A Presidency that coordinates actions in the face of challenges and catastrophes, rather than a Presidency that sells, produces and buys things.
I would like a responsible presidential authority in the political sense of the term, that is, not as an individual attitude, but as a clear list of powers and consequences of government decisions that can be evaluated.
In short: I don't care so much about the person.
What's more, I don't care much about the match either. What I notice relevant is the clockwork and, fortunately for us, there is no need to invent the black thread. The characteristics of the Presidency that I would like to have today, in 2024 and always are those of a democratically elected, constitutionally responsible Presidency, with counterweights, resources and institutional authority, not personal.
I tell them. More node and less finger.
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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