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México is currently going through a time of chaos and uncertainty. President Fox tries to govern with nothing but smiles but can’t seem to accomplish even the minimum of things he promised during his campaign. The principal newspapers of the country rate him as inept. The visible changes are superficial and harmful. The economy is agonizing, having fallen into the NAFTA free trade agreement. All the advantages are on the side of our northern neighbors and the agriculture and manufacturing sectors can no longer compete due to cheap imports.

Crime is on the rise and the drug trade little by little, is corrupting those assigned to combating it. It has reached the point where ex-soldiers have formed their own drug trafficking group and defend themselves well using what they learned in their days a legal soldiers still sporting the same arms. With arms of that caliber it seems that nobody can stop them. Holdups and kidnappings of the normal and express variety are carried out with impunity and it has become common to steal a car with the driver still at the wheel and if the aforesaid driver doesn’t surrender the vehicle promptly, he or she is rewarded with a bullet in the head and makes his or her final trip to the cemetery. The situation in Chiapas garners no mention in the daily papers of the country but that doesn’t mean the problems in that poor and mistreated state don’t exist. For the moment it’s a moot issue but violence in Chiapas could break out at any moment. The Catholic Church has gotten into politics once more and the braying is to be heard during mass and in the media. It would seem that the Protestants are making great inroads and with good reason. They use humanitarian aid before proselytizing. The murders in ciudad Juarez, far from being resolved, continue apace and although much of the focus has been on the murdered women, more men than women have been killed, the difference being that the reasons are made evident given the influence of the drug trade.

The situation of women in Mexico has improved somewhat but inequality and abuse of women and children continues to be a serious problem.
Unemployment is so high that the underground economy “street commerce” as it’s referred to in Mexico, represents a considerable economic force and a loss of income for the legitimate government. Nevertheless, the authorities, instead of correcting the situation, come down even harder on the segment of the population that still pays taxes. The load on the captive taxpayers and legitimate companies, combined with an inept bureaucracy has brought about only evasion and a rebellion in the short term.
In the Federal District, Mexico City, all of the abovementioned bad stuff is made evident and the current mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in his pre-campaign for the presidency of the country, has turned into a first-class demagogue. He keeps focusing on constructing public works whereby he cuts the salary of city workers and diverts funds from other public projects to pay for those works.
He issues hysterical proclamations blaming the federal government and even the US for any errors uncovered in his administration. During the first days of this month of March, a galloping amount of corruption in his administration has been revealed. There is a celebrated video showing am official of the city government receiving a payoff from a businessman in a very compromising manner. His director of finance has fled after it was revealed that the (now) ex-director spent millions and millions of dollars (not pesos) of government funds in Las Vegas. A series of audits of the current and past administrations has begun in order to get to the bottom of the problem although the man insists that it’s all a plot to discredit him.

Lopez Obrador himself, although he vehemently denies it, doesn’t have clean hands. Even though the current scandals reveal a profundity of corruption exceeding what has been imputed to the PRI party that ruled for seventy years, the man shouts to the high heavens that he’s just a simple public servant of modest means. Nevertheless, it’s been revealed that his chauffeur earns a salary almost equal to that of a congressman. Nepotism is ever-present in his administration as well. Still, he carries the masses in his favor and while proclaiming his innocence to those selfsame high heavens, he keeps goading the populace toward acts of violence. Sunday, March 14 in the main plaza (Zócalo) of the capital, he carried on a discourse before a multitude. Supposedly it was to present proof of the plot being perpetrated by the federal government in general and the Secretariat of the Interior in particular. Far from offering any kind of proof, he engaged in a diatribe calling on the populace to support him in his efforts to transform society into a government of the masses. He offered himself as the only hope for saving the country.
According to opinions expressed by experts from Mexico and the Unites States, Lopez Obrador has the best chance of being elected president in 2006. The question is whether the gringos (a term that can signify ire or affection) will permit another Hugo Chavez in a neighboring country. Thus it is possible that there is a dark eminence at work behind the strong revelations that have come out in the last few days.
It’s pretty obvious that the Americans helped Fox in getting elected and it would be a big disadvantage to have a person like Lopez Obrador wielding federal power in Mexico. There are still three years to go before the next presidential elections and it would come as no surprise if an as-yet-unknown candidate were to come to the fore, one who favors the policies of Bush or his successor or most likely, from the same political party as Fox. It’s been rumored that Fox’s wife wants to run for president. It wouldn’t be beyond the bounds of reason although the lady herself has lately been embroiled in scandal,
I offer this brief piece in order to give an idea of what I plan to write in relation to Mexico. In subsequent columns I promise to analyze the current situation in Mexico in depth, its posture with respect to the world and its future possibilities.

A.W.