AMLO – “Don’t mourn for me, organize”

From today’s El Universal:

(Jorge Octavio Ochoa, my translation)

Before a capacity crowd of supporters on the Mexico City Zócalo, Andrés Manuel López Obrador said today that violence would never end the protests against the presumed fraud of the July 2 elections.

Instead, he called for the creation of 2,445 municipal commissions, 32 state commissions and a national operating committee to continue working through the National Democratic Convention (Convención Nacional Democrática, or CND) .

At the same time, he set next 20 November as the date of the 3^rd National Assembly of the CND.

There is some opposition to the date, some members wanting to hold the convention in July, others on 1 September.

During his talk, Andrés Manuel López Obrador called for a “new social contract, a new economy and a new policy.”

He admitted that falling into the trap of violent protests to the fraud had been a pretext for official repression and intimidation that “opened up fears”.

Had the protests not happened, he added, millions of Mexicans would have supported “real change.

“We reached a crossroad, where lives were lost, there were disappearances, jails, women raped, torture and human rights violations … and we might not be here.

“That is, we have allowed ourselves to fall into a ‘do-nothing policy’ waiting for the next election, when we could be continuing this struggle.”

AMLO never really went away.  Foreign commentators thought it was pure theater when AMLO had his inaguaration as “legitimate president”, and set up his alternative cabinet. Forgetting — or never knowing — that when Manuel Clouthier did very poorly in the 1988 elections, PAN also set up an alternative presidency (Vicente Fox was alternative Secretary of Agriculture), and that street protests and refusals to recognize the official winner is not unheard of in Mexican politics (Fox came to prominence leading a civil disobedience campaign against the PRI candidate who narrowly defeated him in the Guanajuanto governor’s race in 1991). 

Clothier died soon after setting up his cabinet (there are some who say his auto accident was no accident) and Fox didn’t gain the governorship until 1995, so how successful these kinds of actions are is questionable.  Still, there was nothing clownish about the “legitimate presidency”. 

While Clothier seemed to have nothing in mind more than a “think tank” slash “political action committee” for his PANista “alternative presidency”, AMLO is taking it a step further. 

The FAP (Frente Amplio Progresivo) coalition that emerged from his “Benefit of All” electoral front has held together as a united opposition in Congress.  Although the plurinomial system almost guarantees that PAN will remain the largest single congressional bloc, there are signs that some in PRI and the smaller parties, may join the FAP.  PRI chair, Beatriz Paredes Rangel, wants to move the party further to the “left” and in the states, the PRI has been pushing “progressive” legislation to avoid being seen as the party of the past. 

Nominally, at least, AMLO is still heading the FAP.  And, as the coalition’s think tank/PAC/legislative service, it has so far had limited success.  Whether they’ll be able to roll back Social Security changes (the Senate approved a measure that allows social security payments into investment funds) and prevent the outright sale of some PEMEX assets is yet to be seen.

However, by calling for the “National Democratic Convention” (the second was the occasion of AMLO’s Zocalo speech), the FAP — and AMLO — and others — are setting up the country for more changes.  The CND is working out the mechanism of a whole raft of social changes and political actions — investigations into mispending and graft on privatations, looking into cost overruns, an alternative funding source for PEMEX, some legal and constitutional changes. 

What’s going to happen is that the CND will (in July, or September or November) come out with a draft constitution.  I don’t think there will be a constitutional convention, but it will lay out an “anti-neoliberal”  consensus plan, that could peel off enough PRI support to force through some changes… or force Calderón to offer a slightly watered down, semi-corporate friendly version of the CND plans (things like investments in the south, investigations into the cost overruns at the new National Library and dubious “donations” to Marta Fox’s Vamos Mexico).

Mexican politics — after all the shouting (and sometimes shooting) always ends up in a compromise.  Nobody ever came up with a good name for whatever it was that came out of the Revolution, though “socialist” seemed as convenient a shorthand as anything (my favorite is “National Capitalist”, which included a lot of socialist concepts… as opposed to “National Socialist”, which was basically capitalism run amok).  SOMETHING will emerge… and if people want to call it AMLOismo, or Bolivarianismo, or neo-socialist or post-capitalist… let them worry about it after November.  Things will change.  Sort of.