With the inordinate praise of the group that has controlled the IFE-INE Since 1990, the political process in Mexico has wanted to be sold as a transition of Mexico to democracy, based on the characterization of the regime of the AT 1929-1977 as authoritarian, but without recognizing the democratic legitimacy that was based on the absence of an active opposition.
In a July 2007 conference in Hidalgo, titled “Political change in Mexico” (italics in the original), José Woldenberg drew in a paragraph the political scenario of Mexico as that of democracy in the country of wonders: “a multi-party and competitive regime, limited presidentialism, independent powers among themselves, growing autonomy of the different levels and also of the social groups and their organizations, highly competitive elections, non-restrictive electoral laws and above all the decision of who governs is in the hands of the citizens”.
However, in 2007 the president of the council had to be dismissed in a shameful way. IFELuis Carlos Ugalde, for the partial handling of the 2006 presidential elections, cyber fraud with the authorization of the Institute via the use of algorithms by the brother-in-law of PAN candidate Felipe Calderón, the use of negative campaigns allowed by the electoral authority ( AMLO is a danger to Mexico, it was Calderón’s central campaign) and other irregularities.
The transition and democracy have been brilliant myths established by Woldenberg’s political discourse and the entire intellectual group that seized control of the Electoral Institute. However, nine profound electoral reforms have been carried out from 1977 to 2022 and the electoral system remains exactly the same: greater respect for the vote, but with electoral structures that continue to be manipulated as in the old days of the AT.
Despite having arbitrarily appropriated the concept of transition to democracy, in reality Woldenberg has only been right in characterizing the electoral modifications under the conceptualization of “political change” and not of transition to democracy, while the détente have always been led by the AT and then for him PRI-PAN not to build a republican democracy, but to reduce the political harshness marked by violence.
Woldenberg recognized that the great transitional reform was the one of 1977 that expanded the party system, with the legalization of the Mexican Communist Party that was politically sponsoring the armed guerrillas. However, that reform only expanded the legitimacy of the ATbut it did not create democratic conditions: the PRI system recognized municipal victories of the PANbut he orchestrated electoral fraud in Chihuahua in 1986 to prevent the PAN victory in the governorship of an entity of high historical significance for the Mexican Revolution that represented the ATa fact that Enrique Krauze summed up with certainty as “patriotic fraud”.
The transitional reform of 1977 did not prevent –on the contrary: it legitimized– the electoral fraud of 1988, which led to the electoral reform of 1989-1990 that created the IFE as a disguised Federal Electoral Commission; The new electoral structure allowed the PRI in 1991 to rebuild the stumbling block of 1989 and rise with a full car, violating all the guaranteed democratic rules.
The 1996 electoral reform that gave autonomy to the IFE It allowed the opposition victory in 1997 and 2000, but not as the practice of a new form of electoral politics, but because of the political decision of President Zedillo and the demands of the United States for electoral détente. In this context, the IFE was central in the electoral irregularities against López Obrador from 2005 to 2007 and hid the dismissal of Ugalde for having participated in the irregularities of 2006, with evidence that the IFE endorsed the electoral irregularities -the Monex case, among others- that allowed the irregular and partial election of Enrique Peña Nieto in 2012. And the INE that was born from the neoliberal reform of the Pact for Mexico in 2012-2014 imposed by agreement PRI-PAN the appointment by dedazo of Lorenzo Córdova Vianello as presidential adviser.
Historically speaking, Mexico never had a transition nor did it establish a true democracy, rather the intellectual generation that appropriated the electoral structure –woldenberismo- sold the discourse of a transition to democracy that never existed and that was left alone in decisions of electoral adaptation to benefit the PRI and the PAN.
Politics for dummies: Politics sometimes fools politics.
The content of this column is the sole responsibility of the columnist and not of the newspaper that publishes it.
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