When current Mexican president, Lopez Obrador, took the office he stated "I want to go down in History as a good president", then immediately we all mexicans suffered a mobility crisis due to gasoline scarsity. He presumed it wasn't a mistake, that he was combating corruption and "huachicol", which is the term with which they define people, criminal organizations and even corrupt federal employees that steal oil from Mexican oil monopoly called PEMEX. Some reports signaled some american oil tankers full of gasoline were stranded in the Gulf of Mexico, waiting for the mexican government to receive the gasoline. We didn't complain, we all did what was on our hands, the ones who could move in public transportation (which received certain preference), did it; the ones who could stay at home, did it; we made long lines too late in the night or too early in the morning and tried to make the most efficient use of cars just for priority errands. Most of us really want Mexican Corruption to end, we were not there to "tolerate any mistake this president would make" just for being him.
Precedents
During the preceding administration, in hands of Enrique Peña, the construction of a brand new-expensive airport was started. It was a concern for many of us, due to the ecological impact it could have, and for Lopez Obrador's party due to the economical expenses it would imply. Besides the scandalous purchase of a very luxury and expensive presidential airplane that outraged many mexicans because we have to hear, again and again, that there's barely money to cover many of populations needs. To top it off, Peña approved a reform that would allow foreign companies to compete against PEMEX in the market of fuels, which was outrageous because the generation of our grand parents supported the mexican government several decades ago with gold and money, so PEMEX could be nationalized by paying a compensation to foreign owners that were not respecting mexican labor rights at that moment. Oil is an ecological disaster in Mexico, it was outrageous not only because of the disrespect to our grand parents efforts to support the government in gracefully expropriate it, but also because fossil fuels were meant to get less relevance and investment in pursue of a better future for all.
Mexico has always been a violent country in modern times, violent against themselves. We have a long story of struggles citizens vs citizens, criminals vs criminals, criminals vs citizens, and the government itself vs citizens. But it was sensibly exacerbated during Felipe Calderon's presidency, whom was in war vs drug cartels except one, the one his right hand, Genaro García Luna, favored (sentenced to prison this year by a US court). Since 2006 we all call Mexico a narco-state.
Lopez Obrador actions
Countering these policies were Lopez Obrador's campaign flagships, so the ridiculous spectacle started with the sale of the luxury presidential airplane bought by his predecessor. There were no buyers worldwide, so he decided to organize a raffle so all of his followers (for any mystical reason I don't dare to embarrass myself to explain, he has many) could support him to recover some of the expenses he promised he would recover by selling the airplane. Of course, the winner of the airplane would be able to... I don't know, go to Cancun with all her family every three years, or something like that. So the brilliant team behind this president figured out they could instead give the winner some money collected by the airplane-raffle 😂.
The show started to be less funny when violence didn't cease and the president was stating "crime will be solved with hugs, not bullets", some journalists asked the president if there would be a change in the strategy since after more than a year of his administration, nothing was changing and murder numbers were even getting worse; he replied: "I have other data". In some other cases, he used to say "it's the inheritance from previous presidents". He doesn't even seem to feel bad about people's losses, he avoid them with the same despotic attitude his predecessors try to avoid mexicans who approach them demanding justice. Mexican presidents simply seem to be cold-bloded reptiles with no empathy at all.
Some journalists made public videos in which two of Mexico's president's brothers were captured illegally receiving money in yellow envelops for Lopez Obrador's political campaigns. This is a common practice in mexican political parties and one of the reasons we citizens are so tired. Lopez Obrador's response: "the others steal more", or "during Mexican Revolution, people also used to support revolutionaries".
It turned out that the brand new airpoirt Mexico City was going to have was cancelled by Lopez Obrador; which costed millions more than it would have costed finishing it, he didn't save any money at all, he didn't even save any ecological space, because the construction was already started by the previous administration. Instead, he started to build a train in the middle of one of the most important jungles in the planet, the one in the peninsula of Yucatan. The hypocrite doesn't care about ecology, about ethnics, he never did, he's willing to turn Mexico's paradise into Las Vegas regardless Nevada is a desert and Mexico's south is a beautiful paradise like few others and offers desperately needed counter against global warming and priceless biodiversity, that provides a unique lifestyle to the residents that defend the jungle and are being killed under the watch of this pseudo-humanist president for speaking against its devastation.
One of his many slogans is "the poor first", because the illiterate is just able to judge words and not actions, so when he flooded the poorest villages in the state of Tabasco some years ago, to prevent the city of Villahermosa to be flooded during a season of intense storms, it was no surprise his followers didn't feel any cognitive dissonance on the matter, nobody asked "The poor first what?". I don't know what I would have done in that situation to be honest, I truly believe the poor and the wealthy have equal value, and the belongings of the poor could even be more precious to them because it's been tougher to acquire them. Besides it's not the same to be brutally affected by a natural disaster, than by the conscious calculus of a person who did that to them.
One thing I didn't mention in the Precedents is that, former president Enrique Peña was found to live in a very expensive house built and sold by a company with huge contracts with the government. This discovery is what put Enrique Peña in an undeniable spot of corruption and he was disrespected not only by Lopez Obrador's fans, but by almost all mexican citizens and even other world leaders who clearly were uncomfortable when having to deal with him face to face. Guess what, the exact same circumstance was found with Lopez Obrador's administration, specifically, one of his sons, who lived in a mansion in Texas that was built by a company with huge contracts with the mexican government. Despite the unequivocal symmetry of the event, Lopez Obrador fans club didn't react the same way.
The problem is not only his diabolic kid is abusing the president's privileged position to become rich, but many other public servers around the president. There's even a judge named Yasmin Ezquivel in the Supreme Court that has been exposed as a cheater who stole her thesis to get both, her Bachelor Degree and her Ph.D. Mexican president's response "others have caused more damage".
Another case of complete symmetrical comparison, that not even mexican journalists dare to point out too often anymore is García Luna, Felipe Calderon's right hand who was accused and found guilty of nexus with cartels by the american judicial system. López Obrador cries out the corruption of his former competitor and the political party he belonged to; yet, a former general in the mexican army, was accused exactly for the same suspected crimes but was freed by Donald Trump as per request of López Obrador. Lopez Obrador corrupt supporters see a narco-state on Felipe Calderon's administration, but they don't see the same pattern, even more cynical, under Lopez Obrador's.
Even worse, during an interview, one member of the political party of the Lopez Obrador stated that the testimony of one of the drug dealers that was subpoenaed was believable when he mentioned Felipe Calderon knew about García Luna's nexus, but that it was unbelievable when the same person testified López Obrador has received 70 million USD from drug cartels for his political campaigns.
López Obrador keeps saying he won't intervene with other countries internal affairs... but he does every time one of his masters is facing troubles, like Putin in Russia, or Pedro Castillo in Perú. He even dared to suggest he would discourage mexican US residents not to vote for the Republican Party because he feels he has that power. And this happen because his ties with cartels are becoming so clear, that he's giving the US excuses to intervene militarily, needless to say how problematic it would be if american soldiers would kill innocent mexican citizens while arguing they looked pretty much like cartel members, something that already happens nowadays with the mexican army, although nobody seems to make the same scandal just because they are not a foreing army.
Despite all of this, López Obrador without batting an eye keeps saying every morning in his propagandistic state show La Mañanera (that should be illegal): "outside the law nothing, above the law no one", proving some unfortunate but accurate quotes in mexican culture:
"Corruption in Mexico is so deep, that even the term Corruption is corrupted"
- From the book The Imperial Presidency
"Corruption is cultural"
- Enrique Peña Nieto
More on Lopez Obrador corruption (in spanish):
https://youtu.be/xNfVSXFbeUM
Oct 23d, 2023: Lopez obrador attacking the Supreme Court, an independent power (in spanish):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rB5p2SysMI
Oct 31st: Lopez Obrador privatizing assistance to Avapulco due to Otis hurricane catastrophe, he didn't have the will to act swiftly, now he's commanded the army not to allow citizens from other cities to deliver the help themselves, instead the army will be the bottleneck to capture all the donations and will deliver the help in boxes sealed with the logo of his political party. People's reactions (in spanish):
https://youtu.be/07qZLZPisjM?si=0croAXdX1R7zo9BA
- "A government without corruption is useful for nothing":
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Iu5XUrIlUQ8
- January, 11th, 2024: Lopez Obrador hiring experts in hiding fortunes (in spanish):
https://youtu.be/3hD7ppgX6Gs?si=gq9YYUBcW6YKJmsS
- January 19th, 2024; lopez obrador wants to disappear all the autonomous organisms, the pig stated himself is not a tyrant recently on his comedic daily morning show (in Spanish):
https://www.razon.com.mx/mexico/amlo-anuncia-reforma-desaparecer-organos-autonomos-561506
- January, 2024: lopez obrador discloses personal sensitive information about journalists in his power, with a cynical smile blames hackers, ends up supposedly being being an ex-employee whose credentials were not removed from the system (in spanish):
https://elpais.com/mexico/2024-01-30/la-filtracion-de-datos-de-los-periodistas-que-cubren-la-mananera-se-hizo-a-traves-del-usuario-de-un-antiguo-trabajador-del-gobierno.html
Note: This post will be updated with further events, proper references and missing names, like Bartlett, Guevara, and so on, so casual readers could have a condensed place that enlists all of the ludicrous events this cynical administration simply don't care to hide, unlike its predecessors that at least feared a little bit the reputational damage to their own person.
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