Breathe
By Lilian Briseño
We loved each other so much, until we stopped loving each other. This seems to be the logic that has prevailed in Mexican politics at all levels, but especially in the Executive.
The phrase comes to mind because there has been much talk about López Obrador's powerful ascendancy over Claudia Sheinbaum, which can hardly be denied or ignored. However,the big question we are all asking ourselves is whether the former president (whom Claudia continues to call president) will really continue to pull the strings that move the country or whether she will end up imposing her own style of government.
If we accept that history illustrates, we must then go back through our past to see if this premise has been maintained in Mexico or, rather, the arrival to the presidency has ended up destroying relations that at some point were considered solid or friendly between the outgoing and the incoming president.
Alvaro Obregón, for example, fought in the forces of the Constitutionalist army hand in hand with Carranza, but when the latter did not choose him to succeed him in the Executive, the Agua Prieta rebellion forced the president to flee to be finally assassinated in Tlaxcalantongo. The Sonora group, with Obregón, Adolfo de la Huerta and Plutarco Elías Calles would remain in charge of the country.
However, when Obregón had to decide between his two friends on who would succeed him, he chose Calles, which made de la Huerta angry and organized a new rebellion without affecting the final result, but thus ending a camaraderie of years. To a great extent, La sombra del caudillo narrates the clash and the ways and customs that would characterize post-revolutionary politics from then on (with bullets and betrayals).
Shortly thereafter, when Calles was president (1924-1928), Obregón managed to get himself reelected and run for the presidency again, which did not please Don Plutarco, who had other intentions but was forced to accept.
However, once reelected president, Obregón was assassinated by a religious fanatic, although it has not been completely ruled out that it could have been Calles himself who was behind the assassination.
"Haiga sido como haiga sido" (as the classics would say), Calles managed to maintain control of the country for the next six years via the Maximato, and tried to prolong it even more with the appointment of his son-in-law Lázaro Cárdenas.
But this son would also turn out to be a spoiled brat, and would send his putative father far away. Not as far as AMLO's estate, but as far as California in the United States. The once close friends, cronies of the revolution and leaders of the Sonora group, would end up extremely distant, exiled or dead. It would be of little use for them to have come to power based on their friendship.
The fact is that, as things have been in this country, the outgoing president is not generally on good terms with the incoming one, and there are several examples of this even closer than those of post-revolutionary Mexico.
For example, despite having been part of his cabinet and the "chosen one" to succeed him, Luis Echeverría almost ignored Díaz Ordaz after his inauguration, in an attempt to disassociate himself from the massacre of '68.
For his part, Miguel de la Madrid, whom López Portillo 's "dedazo" had "anointed" to succeed him, strongly criticized the corruption prevailing in his predecessor's government, hit him with his slogan of moral renovation and put two of his close collaborators in jail, accusing them of fraud and corruption (Díaz Serrano and "Negro" Durazo). Evidently, the former colleagues did not remain good friends.
Finally, Ernesto Zedillo, who was Secretary of Programming and Budget and Secretary of Education under Salinas de Gortari, would fight with the latter to see who was really responsible for the economic crisis that broke out in the country after the so-called "December mistake". And in an effort to draw a line under the former president, he even put the so-called uncomfortable brother, Raul Salinas, in jail.
Thus, history gives us very clear examples of how even the best of friends fight when power or money is involved. It is not to boast, but those words of historian Daniel Cosio Villegas, in the sense that in Mexico there is a "hereditary sexennial monarchy in a transversal line", still seem to make sense more than fifty years after they were pronounced and after three different political parties have occupied the executive. Gatopardism is what they call it: that everything changes so that nothing changes.
AMLO could not leave power to one of his biological children, but to his putative daughter (as Calles did with Cárdenas) and, in doing so, he handed over, voluntarily or involuntarily, all power to her. Now it is time to wait and see if the past repeats itself and Claudia is empowered or if a new history is written and the former president retains power, a scenario that no democrat would wish for. Time will tell.
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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