HispanicVista Columnists
On The Razor's Edge
|
|
|
|
|
HispanicVista Columnists |
|
On The Razor's Edge |
By
Richard N. Baldwin T. /HispanicVista.com
By Richard N. Baldwin T.
/HispanicVista.com
On The Razor's Edge
As this is being penned, no one (including the two leading candidates for the Mexican presidency) knows who will be president. The decision rests with the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF). Regardless of demands for them to do this or that, this independent body will make the decision without influence. As of this writing, there is more than 4 weeks before the deadline of 31 August for them to do so.
We had a national election in which 41 million ballots were cast and the two contenders are separated by slightly more than a 1/2% difference. And it wouldn't take many of the votes cast to be reversed to make a big difference. So the fight is on.
López Obrador (AMLO) from the PRD "demands" a ballot by ballot recount and seems not willing to take anything else. Calderón, of the now ruling PAN, says that he was elected honestly and accepts no recount. I have news for both of them. They will have to accept what the TEPJF rules. There is no appeal process. Both seem to be painting themselves into a corner.
AMLO is organizing gigantic protest marches (which he is very good at) and he stresses to his supporters that the demonstrations should be peaceful. I hope, for his benefit that he can control crowds this large. If he fails in this, he will become a pariah.
Calderón, while saying that there should be no recount, is running around the country building his transition team and possible cabinet. And he says that he wants to build a "coalition" government that reaches across party lines.
Somebody is going to end up with egg on his face.
In some ways the platforms of the two are much the same. AMLO wants to enrich the poor so that they can purchase more and benefit business and by doing that, expand the national market and benefit the country. Calderón wants to give help to business in order that they can hire more workers, and by doing so benefit the country and indirectly expand the national market. The end games are similar. The routes are different.
What neither does is to explain just how they will do that.
If AMLO just plans to dole out money to the poor, that has never worked and never will. If he plans to create more opportunity for the poor to succeed, that will work. This is not to say that the extreme elderly poor don't deserve some sort of safety net.
If Calderón is just planning to make more cheap jobs that pay at just above the poverty level that will leave us just where we are. If he plans to make business more competitive so they can and will pay higher wages, that will work. But we have to get out of the cheap labor market, which is a war that México has lost to Asia.
All of these plans depend on the ability to make the required structural changes necessary in México. That, my friends is the hard part, especially with a fractionated congress where no party has a majority.
Both candidates made serious mistakes in their campaigns. AMLO directed his campaign narrowly to the extreme poor and alienated the middle class and scaring the wits out of the upper class. At the same time, Calderón didn't help things by conducting a dirty smear campaign, which will make any attempt to reach out for opposition support impossible. We are looking at three, if not six years of legislative gridlock.
Where is all of this leading? Is México getting ready to explode? Are we looking for war in the streets? I say no. The Mexican people are better than that.
But our success in the near future will depend greatly on the two candidates to accept, without reservation, the decision of the TEPJF gracefully. By doing that, they will both prove that they are real men and give the respect to those that voted for them that they deserve.