Mexico’s federalism is under pressure - again
by Gerónimo Gutiérrez.
Andres Manuel López Obrador and to large extent his successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, are criticized for concentrating political power – even to the detriment of democratic principles and norms. This criticism essentially stems from a tendency to overlook – if not undermine – the separation of powers, from dismantling of autonomous regulatory agencies or placing them under direct control of the Executive, and from an explicit decision not to interact or negotiate with opposition parties unless absolutely necessary.
To be fair, these power-concentrating actions have been possible thanks to the fact that, since 2018, Mexico’s ruling party (Morena) and its satellites have enjoyed strong voter support which granted Mr. López Obrador and President Sheinbaum comfortable legislative majorities including the supermajority needed to reform the constitution. In sum, where the current regime appreciates a historic democratic transformation of Mexico supported by the “will of the people”, its critics see the dismantling of democracy from within the regime.
Be that as it may, one development that has received less attention is the centralization of power and the public purse at the federal level of government, something that is not new to Mexico but that had gradually receded over several decades.
Trump is leading the US down Mexico’s troubled path
by Eduardo García.
When I met my American father-in-law nearly 40 years ago, we often ended our long discussions about Mexico’s political and economic troubles with a phrase that seemed to explain it all: malos gobiernos — bad governments.
If Larry Malkin, a fellow journalist, were still alive — he sadly passed away three years ago — we might still conclude our conversations after all these years with that same phrase. But oddly enough, it would no longer apply just to Mexico, but to his country too.
Over the past two and a half decades, Americans have endured a series of poor governments that seem to have eroded the nation’s moral compass, steering it toward decline — a trajectory Mexico has been on for decades on end.
