New rules: The 4T ushers in a new age of peak power

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum with Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero in the background. Image credit: Presidency of Mexico.

by David Agren.

Former PRI governor Fidel Herrera passed away recently. He was remembered for a sordid administration in the late 2000s, when Los Zetas took over the state. As the recent discovery of a clandestine refinery in Veracruz revealed, the state-crime nexus continues – even with Morena in power since 2018, having ousted Herrera’s Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Herrera scandalized Mexico throughout his term. He won the lottery twice while in office. And coined his trademark phrase: “Estoy ahorita en plenitud del pinche poder” – roughly translated as “I’m at the peak of my f*cking power.” A less polite translation would be a confession to being drunk with power.

The line encapsulated the impunity and abuse of authority during his term in Veracruz, which was followed by the thievery of fellow príista Javier Duarte – under whom Veracruz became a cemetery for journalists.

Morena and its allies in the so-called “Fourth Transformation” (4T) have channeled Herrera’s authoritarianism in recent weeks – even longer, according to critics – as they push as a series of reforms through congress, where they hold constitutional-proof majorities. 

The 16 reforms range from changing wildlife laws to ban the use of captive marine mammals in theme parks to building platforms for boosting state surveillance capacities and a measure to allow National Guard members to seek public office (despite being under National Defence Secretariat command.)

The Law of the National System of Investigation and Intelligence in Public Security Matters, which would give the public security secretariat and National Guard access to personal and biometric databases. Another proposal, the Forced Disappearance Law – to deal with the tragedy of Mexico’s thousands of missing persons – would introduce a “single identity platform.” 

The platform expands on an existing identification known as the CURP – Unique Population Registration Code – with biometric information to become obligatory for all carrying out all government transactions. It would be necessary for private transactions, too. The CURP would effectively become the national ID, replacing the voting cards issued by the National Electoral Institute (INE) – an autonomous agency – which are widely considered the gold standard by Mexicans.

A telecommunications reform, meanwhile, would create a registry of mobile phone users – as past governments have unsuccessfully tried to do.

“They’ll have access to your digital fingerprints, your Amazon purchases, in which hotel you’re staying, your geolocation in real time, with whom you’re meeting,” National Action Party senator Ricardo Anaya ranted.

“Now, with massive cyber surveillance, simulated users, and undercover agents, the military can ‘prevent crimes’ without any complaints, without transparency, and without judicial oversight,” lawyer and commentator Paola Zavala Saeb wrote in El País.

The wave of activity in Congress followed judicial elections June 1 with a turnout of just 12.9 per cent. Candidates aligned with Morena and its founder, former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, also won most of the judgeships – effectively completing a takeover of the courts, which had drawn AMLO’s ire for ruling against his militarization proposals and issuing injunctions against prestige projects. 

The National Electoral Institute validated the election of supreme court, electoral tribunal and disciplinary tribunal justices, though a minority of the INE counselors expressed misgivings with widespread irregularities. Those irregularities included Morena allegedly distributing cheat sheets of its preferred candidates – which even AMLO consulted while voting – polling stations with 100 per cent participation in a low-turnout election and cases of candidates receiving 100 per cent of the vote in some places.

President Claudia Sheinbaum took issue with the INE. She ominously said the counsellors raising concerns with the judicial election: “They are a group of counselors who do not act to fulfill the will of the people ... rather, they have a political position.”

She then channeled her predecessor – who often clashed with the INE – by promising a reform of the INE, which would slash its budget.

Much of Mexico’s political class has been consumed by power of late. The Morena governor of Puebla, Alejandro Armenta, achieved approval of a cyberbullying law, which effectively bans online criticism with penalties of up to three years in prison and fines of up to 30,000 pesos. “I tell you authentically: I do not feel like a monarch, I do not feel like a viceroy, I’m not a feudal lord. I’m a citizen with a mandate from the population who has the obligation to comply with and enforce the law,” Armenta said in defence of his proposal.

Sheinbaum defended Armenta and others in Morena, saying, “Nobody is being censored.”

But commentators pointed out that the judges overseeing cases of alleged cyber bullying – and excesses by Morena governments – were elected on June 1 and appear to be fellow travellers.

Fidel Herrera has died. But this ethos of "Estoy ahorita en plenitud del pinche poder” lives on in the 4T.