N
new lion has a new constitution
since last October 1st. No one asked for it nor was it the subject of debate in citizen or political forums. Just as the governor sent it, it was approved fast-track by Congress in a first round; in the same way, it was approved in its second and last version, whose changes with respect to the first were minimal and equally harmful in several aspects.
Vice of origin of this new document was the lack of a constituent power. There was no call to integrate this deliberative body with free citizens and through democratic methods. The current legislature attributed this role to itself in exclusive terms; that is to say, a constituted power decides to change the Constitution that governs it and the one that it swore to respect, incurring in an evident conflict of interest and without mediating anything other than the occurrence of the current governor of wanting to leave a mark historical
of its management. A management less factual than media.
Article 59 of that constitutional text establishes that the referendum will be convened by the state Congress, at the request of the governor, 33 percent of the members of the Congress itself, or by the citizenry, in issues of state importance
. That is, the call new constitution
did not cover for the governor or for Congress a statewide issue
. Or that legal rhetoric goes on the one hand and the actions of politicians on the other.
As the Morenista deputy Jessica Martínez (one of the insular congresswomen who voted against the new constitution) has pointed out: having reformed 10 percent of the articles that were modified would have been enough, since just under 90 percent of the 1917 Constitution literally reproduced. Its writing was completed by copying contents of the Constitution of Mexico City. The changes made, by way of updating, have to do with business jargon (frequent are the words quality, excellence, competitiveness, resilience, entrepreneurship). Also with the reduction or disappearance of rights (gender parity was limited to certain circuits and the right of women to have an abortion under conditions of professional medical care was made a crime) in exchange for introducing others as ethereal as the right to enjoy the benefits of science and technological innovation
.
To these Rights
Others were added that do have legal and social logic, such as the right to have sufficient, healthy, acceptable, accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use
. It is a pity that this right has not been in force for the thousands of people who had to –and should– fight for a place in long lines in order to have a bucket, sometimes at infamous distances, of the water carried by a pipe.
advertised as new social pact
, the document is nothing but the fruit and imposition of a small group of technocrats. The logic of the pact or social contract is, moreover, a myth inherent in all the constitutions that the West inherited from the Enlightenment. But there are those, like the federal one of 1917, that respond to vast popular movements with specific demands from certain sectors. Its content responds to needs felt by a very considerable proportion of the population and for this reason the term of pact is justified. The one passed and approved by the Congress of Nuevo León does not have these characteristics.
If it is serious that the authorities replace the law with their naked will, it is more serious that their authoritarian acts do not find opposition; in this case, neither politics nor citizenship. The project for the integral modification of the Political Constitution of Nuevo León of 1917 was not the subject of debate in educational institutions, in trade union, business, or neighborhood organizations; neither was it in the political parties – neither in the traditional ones nor in the one that is said to be different. Not even in Congress.
Sociology has not wondered to what extent, in a society under a republican regime, free citizens are assuming a mentality of vassals in the face of such a pronounced social asymmetry between one class and another that cradle is destiny. In Nuevo León, social differences are becoming more marked. The ultra-rich make up a supreme caste, to which no individual belonging to lower strata could have access. This is recognized or at least intuited by those who are part of those strata. For the same reason, their attitude towards everything that this caste means, thinks or decides is a reason for submission and even reverence.
For example, the Citizen Participation Law is a dead letter, except for a fraction of that caste, which is the power behind the government. Submission, which can translate into apathy or retaliation, extends to other dimensions of life in the polis. Xi Jinping is right when he says that capital generates political power and political power generates capital.
