MEXICO BEFORE 2018
In Mexico the upper ten percent of income groups have the capital, stocks, bonds, assets, astronomical salaries, the best land and pay almost no taxes. This is BIG BUSINESS. An ally has usually been small business.
In Mexico the three big political parties PRI, PAN, and PRD pretend to fight one another but in Congress vote for the economic policy that favors BIG BUSINESS against most of the middle class, the workers, the Indians, the swelling masses of unemployed.
In Mexico the monopoly TELEVISA works with the regime to control “news” in a country where few ever read anything. TELEVISA spouts propaganda.
This is the “power bloc” of three elements:
BUSINESS--PRI-PAN-PRD--TELEVISA.
Up to 2018 Mexico’s power bloc stood firm. TELEVISA dominated the elections, the PRI and the PAN took turns at “ins” and “outs”. These neoliberal governments favored Big Business: the national minimum wage is the lowest on earth, the unions are run by gangsters, unemployment is over 50 per cent.
THE 2018 ELECTION
Moving into the election year of 2018 the power block seemed firm. The PRI and the PAN expected the July election to run as usual: TELEVISA would bombard the country with lying propaganda to ruin the only real opposition party MORENA, the PRI-regime would commit fraud to boost either PAN or PRI into the presidency, the police would beat down post-election protest.
But three factors had emerged unnoticed. The social networks, panic inside TELEVISA and chaos in the whole country.
Adults under 35 no longer watched TELEVISA and its propaganda but communicated info on their new social networks. The social networks provided alternative info to TELEVISA’S propaganda. Mexico’s population is young. It has turned off the TV set and looks for info on its Iphones. TELEVISA’S ratings plunged. Business turned away from TELEVISA and toward internet for its advertizing. Zillions of profit vanished. Panic inside TELEVISA! So in the 2018 election TELEVISA quietly abandoned its role as propaganda mouthpiece of the PRI-PAN and started covering the election campaigns with real news, including the campaign of the real opposition, Obrador and his party MORENA.
Going into 2018 the nation descended into chaos. The corruption in the PRI, the PAN and the PRD left the public till empty. Without funds health and education withered. Unemployment kept increasing and so crime waves swept the nation. Corrupt governments often worked with the criminals. Girls were grabbed off the streets and sold into forced prostitution rings. Extortion rackets thrived with government ignoring the cries of small business paying protection money. Robbers and muggers multiplied like mosquitos in a swamp. Narcos terrorized one another and murdered muckraking journalists with government cooperation. The gangster governments of Veracruz, Chihuahua, Michoacán, EdoMex, and Guerrero terrorized their populations. Idealistic students often disappeared—their crime was being young.
As the 2018 election campaigns trotted forward the power bloc crumbled.
BUSINESS split. The Council of Mexican Businessmen, one of the richest in the world, roared that Obrador must be stopped at any price—they feared taxation. But the moderate Business Coordinating Council feared the growing chaos and was willing to give Obrador a chance. And small business simply deserted the biggies for Obrador.
The PRI-PAN split. The PRI revealed that the PAN candidate had lied on his obligatory public statement of his weath: he claimed to be only in the middle class but in fact was filthy rich. This was repeated on televisión! The PRI’s police accused the rich PAN candidate’s businesses of washing drug money—with proof. This was repeated on televisión! But the PAN’s candidate accused the PRI’s Mexican president of corruption and roared that when the PAN won the election he would put the President in prison for acquiring illicit property. This was repeated on televisión! On televisión MORENA’S Obrador said nothing, he only said, “I’m honest and just look at the PRI candidate and the PAN candidate. Look at the PRI-PAN’s 30-year record in government.” The PRI and the PAN repeatedly tore each other to pieces as corrupt—on television. Obrador repeatedly said, “I’m honest!” on television. The base of the PRD deserted to MORENA.
The power bloc crumbled like Three Towers hit by an honest airplane.
THE ELECTION RESULTS
In the election the turn out was incredible—70 per cent. 53 percent voted for Obrador—an absolute majority. The religious PAN got 22 percent—the hard core “God vote.” The PRI got 15 percent by cash for its voters, theft of ballot boxes and assassinations.
Most important of all: MORENA won abolute control of the Congress. So Obrador has a big junk of the political power.
He does not have the economic power. That is in the hands of neoliberal Big Business, the neoliberal Central Bank, and the neoliberal IMF. Paying the interest on Mexico’s fantastic debt cuts into funds for education and health.
One more amusing result: in Morelos the exfootball star who grew up in a poor barrio with only a sixth grade education was backed by MORENA in the race for governor. Cuauhtémoc’s campaign? “I’m a poor boy, just like you, and I’m honest.” He won with an absolute majority of the vote.
During the Mexican election Trump had proclaimed that “Obrador was unacceptable” to Washington. On July 1 as Obrador’s landslide smothered the PRI-PAN, Trump did one of his usual flip-flops and congratulated Obrador and said that he looked forward to working with him.