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The political process and The constitutional election has ended and Claudia Sheinbaum is the first female president of Mexico. We old people believed that we would die without seeing social justice for the excluded. Corruption ruled everything and seemed to be eternal: the return of the PRI in 2012 indicated, with Peña Nieto, that neoliberal corruption as a form of government had come to stay, with new vigor and scandalous extremes, asserting itself as an all-powerful and unquestionable power.
Surprisingly for the corrupt powers, in July 2018 a movement that had been coming for a long time arrived and its powerful wave swept away the last neoliberal government. A new government was then formed and, moreover, a new historical direction was opened for the country, the result of the efforts of a singular leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and millions joined in. Now Claudia picks up the baton accompanied by an even greater number of followers of the Fourth Transformation. The 4T will continue to fulfill its mission. And it will do so by taking it to a new level with the brand new president.
On August 15, at the Metropolitan Theater, we saw Claudia, the owner of the investiture of the first female president, celebrating what she called with realism and precision Victory of the people
His speech, full of concepts and the general features of some government programs, was also a mass communication at times brimming with fluid emotion. A very Mexican mode of communication, part of the culture of the founding mass movements of the nation.
Claudia’s speech, political and defining, exposed the legitimacy of origin, politics and history, of her next government, by linking it as a continuity, at a new level, of the 4T. The electoral victory of June 2 is the product of the same movement that gave life to Obradorism and led to the formation of Morena. Keeping in mind the differences of time and place, the movement also recognizes itself as a continuity of the steps of the people who promoted Independence, the Reform and the Mexican Revolution. These are the fundamental historical sections of the struggles of the people in search of a dignified life for all. It is also the objective sought by the 4T.
If things are like this, Claudia’s government can only be guided by the motto for the good of all, first the poor
This is what she said in her first speech as president-elect. Mexicans will be paying close attention to this argument.
As it is a time of transformation, the president made a succinct summary of the objectives achieved, of public works, of the expansion of the rights of Mexicans, adults, children, young people, of the benefits earned by those at the bottom, peasant communities, workers and their salaries, the demands of the cultures of Mexico. The arrival of Morena to the Executive and Legislative Branches made it possible for the power of the State to begin to operate also in favor of the excluded. The second floor of the 4T can only reinforce and expand that possibility. It is up to Morena to expand its spaces to include new segments of the people in its ranks and support the demands of popular organizations.
If Claudia put effort and passionate spirit into reading the basic lines of what her government will be – insisting that politics is done with love if it is operated in favor of the people –, her emotion became a torrent when she spoke of women: of their eternal neglect, of the way they have been detained, subjugated, hidden, disappeared, and of their tireless struggles to escape from that ignominious place. Struggles to discover what has been covered up, to see and name the truth of their decisive contribution, to point out their real place as protagonists of history, to affirm their equality with men denied for centuries. Claudia’s election will fundamentally change the very lives of women. She has announced it. Not only breaking the glass ceiling, a limited individual claim, but changing the daily life of all women from top to bottom. “With her arrival at the head of the Executive Branch – said Monica Soto, president of the TEPJF, when giving Claudia her certificate of president – Mexico lifts the veil of patriarchy. No more doubt about whether a woman is prepared to govern our country. The first female president of Mexico was democratically elected and with that, this chapter is inscribed in the history, not only of our country, but of the global feminist struggle.”
There is a transformation underway: the neoliberal state has been defeated and we are moving towards the first stages of a welfare state. The main lines of this transformation will govern, fundamentally, the political and economic life of the country. The right in Mexico does not have political parties now, but it has the means. The reformist left has Morena, but it lacks the means. The transformation will decide both issues. The 4T must ensure the continuity of the transformation.
