Mexican politics: Democracy Exhausted

Column of Sergio Aguayo
La Reforma, June 30, 2010
Original in Spanish at: Se Agotó
[Sergio Aguayo is a Professor at the Center for International Studies of the College of Mexico and an author of many books, including El Panteón de los Mitos, about the US - Mexico relationship from the 1940's to the mid 1980´s.]

The assassination of Rodolfo Torre Cantú in Tamaulipas once again confirms that the principal achievement of the transition to democracy is exhausted. What now?

Democracy is rigorous. To function properly, it requires a minimum of ecomomic and physical security. It has been ten years since there was a change of parties in the Presidency and we continue being a country of poor people and billionaires, while violence overwhelms understanding. They executed Torre Cantú. Why did they do this, or what did they want to do? We´ll never know. Instead of certainties, they will overwhelm us with versions that will serve as walls for building the chapel of Saint Impunity, stepsister of Saint Death (Santa Muerte, the saint of the narcotraffickers).

In 2000 we thought that we had arrived at the Olympus of credible elections. In 2006, we became disillusioned, and in the 2010 elections we observe with amazement how elections are controlled by a few. Let's not delude ourselves. Citizens are bit players of the big electors: the bureaucracies of the parties, governors, some businessmen and unions, organized crime. They fight so fiercely because they are betting for positions, budgets and business. There is no fairness, control over money or certainty, because the electoral bodies are subjugated or frightened. And now we see how the ballot box is the modern version of the sacrificial stone.

Everything considered, we are back at the beginning of the transition to democracy. Those opposed to the established order have three ways to proceed: take up arms, continue believing that redemption will come in some way by means of the vote, or insist on the daily defense of rights under adverse conditions. I reject violence, and in the current conditions, I will continue to annul my vote. It would be masochistic to continue to focus ourselves so much on elections when democracy is also constructed in other ways. All we have left is permanent commitment.

Let´s start rewriting history. It is false that the parties were the protagonists of the transition. They did something, of course, but society had much more prominent participation. So much so that the parties could compete at the polls after the social movements in which the parties had a marginal role. The student movement of 1968 and the Dirty War led to the reforms of 1977, and the Zapatista and civic rebellions of 1994 led to the 1996 legislation. These electoral reforms both brought the parties to prominence and enriched them, such that having the lead, they stopped worrying about gaining the authority that is granted by citizens. Up until today, the parties are a burden, not a vanguard.

Organized society is the vanguard of the future. It ought to rethink itself, renew itself and reactivate itself. Among its tasks is the identification of those who corrupt public life in many ways. Also, it needs to put pressure simultaneously on the organizations  charged with protecting rights. These organizations are the natural allies of citizens, althought at times they do whatever is possible to ignore them.

In my native Jalisco, in the city of Guadalajara, there is a member of the city council named Gamaliel Ramírez. Kicking soccer balls with an aura of celebrity has allowed him to hold various public offices through his party, PRI. By means of a swap of candidates, he now serves as city councilman for the Green Environmental Party of Mexico. Although the "Green" "Party" proclaims, in its Declaration of Principles, "respect for all manifestations of life," some days ago Gamaliel Ramírez condemned the gay pride march in Guadalajara because they marched, "out-of-sync, almost semi-naked; because we don't want a Guadalajara suffering from AIDS."

This isn't the first time that he made a homophobic statement. When looking for votes in 2009, he disqualified gays, calling them "a ball of fags," "abnormal" and "harmful things." The Institute for the Electoral Process and Citizen Participation of the State of Jalisco allowed these statements to pass, of course. Those affected were right to file a complaint with the National Council to Prevent Discrimination. Those who lead this ought to make a clear, direct pronouncement.

There are many other causes for which to fight. There will not always be justice, but it is a dignified way to endure a failed democracy while, in some spaces the conditions for the flourishing of fair and credible elections are created. Today, this way has already been exhausted.

Miscellany


I'll be in Oaxaca on the eve of the election to support the Civic Alliance in its heroic defense of fair play in the election. Collective reflection is needed and it is a way of expressing my being fed up with the abuses and cynicism of Ulises Ruiz, who has exceeded the limits of decency. Clearly, I don´t do this out of sympathy for PAN or PRD, which now wander about like "crybabies" when they were accomplices in the destruction of democratic culture.

Collaborator: Rodrigo Gonzalez Peña