Breathe
By Nurit Martínez
The first debate between the three political forces in the run-up to the June 2 presidential election revealed that Mexico faces great challenges in the areas of social development, education and health, as well as in the fight against gender violence and corruption, due to the lack of clarity in the proposals.
Beyond the fact that the format of this first debate organized by the National Electoral Institute (INE) was not the most adequate to know in depth the alternatives of Claudia Sheinbaum, Jorge Máynez and Xóchitl Gálvez in terms of social development, the format they chose left a great void of what awaits Mexico.
The first block in which we could have known a little more about each aspirant in their own voice was asked to be used to present their proposals on the agreed topics, but the strategy of the war rooms provoked the three of them to launch their first darts, accusations and adjectives against each other.
They were dedicated to follow the script drawn up from the National Palace, another to keep smiling and the last one to concentrate on ordering their cards to launch attacks at the same time that they made proposals. It is well said that he who serves two masters with one is bad.
In this sea of distractions, the three missed the opportunity to expose the pending social development agenda. The two candidates and the candidate repeated what they have already prescribed to us in a month of campaigning through their spots.
The format of so many segments and questions made it impossible to address in detail these first two pillars of the country's development.
They are part of the pending agenda of this government, which with its Fourth Transformation overturned the structure and organization of the education and health systems. It is impossible to say which of the two is more broken at the end of the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The educational system shows a deterioration not only in learning levels as a result of the reform of curricula or the way in which free textbooks were processed and reformed, but also has the impact of the omissions during the pandemic.
Let's not talk about the deteriorated infrastructure or the neglect to promote the use of technologies for education.
Faced with this, the candidate of Morena and its allies, Claudia Sheinbaum, once again prescribed her proposal to solve all this with scholarships and the expansion of opportunities for high school and undergraduate education. In addition to repeating that the programs she promoted in Mexico City will be replicated in the country, such as expanding support for early education.
The Movimiento Ciudadano candidate, Jorge Máynez, highlighted his proposal to create one million spaces for young university students with the collaboration and alliance of private institutions.
While the candidate of the opposition alliance, Xóchitl Gálvez, proposed that there will be universal access to education up to high school, the re-delivery of tablets with internet to students and the expansion of university offerings.
None of the three candidates indicated how to make their proposals possible, much less how to finance them, nor how to resolve the major pending issues, such as the lack of infrastructure in rural areas where there are still hundreds of classrooms under trees and with improvised materials; in others there is no water, no electricity and teachers do not arrive due to the lack of recognition of these positions before the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit.
In relation to teachers, it is only recognized that they lack a secure training and updating program, but there is nothing about the way in which in some areas there has been a loss of clarity in the registration and assignment of positions by means of a knowledge test. Doubts grow about the return of assignment through sale, inheritance or union favors.
That is to say, to get to the bottom of what has happened in these years in terms of education and to solve the pending issues of the past is what still needs to be exposed. Undoubtedly, this was not the committed scenario to deepen and present itself to the voters.
In terms of health, the official candidate Claudia Sheinbaum gave us again the same recipe: to strengthen IMSS, ISSSTE and IMSS-Bienestar, she rejected the return of Seguro Popular that her adversary Xóchitl Gálvez enunciated.
The opposition candidate presented her proposal for the Mi Salud card to bring public resources to patients in order to have medical services and medicines even in the private sector. Jorge Máynez promised a universal system of medicines and preventive care from birth, in addition to financing his proposals with taxes on the tobacco industry.
So general that we are left in uncertainty in two key sectors. Without health and education, the pillars of development are limited for the future.
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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