Reforms from Salinas to Peña, to legalize corruption: AMLO

Nestor Jimenez and Emir Olivares

Newspaper La Jornada
Friday, August 5, 2022, p. 5

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador criticized the constitutional reforms approved from the six-year terms of Carlos Salinas de Gortari to that of Enrique Peña Nieto, made to legalize corruption, injustice and theft.

As one of the main examples, he presented the one created by the Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT) to regulate the sector.

That institute is controlled by the so-called preponderant economic agents. It is supposed to be created to combat monopolies, but with this constitutional reform they have more power than the President of the Republicwarned the president.

He also regretted that said modification prevents the State from accessing a concession to offer free Internet service in the country, and it is only allowed to operate in places where companies in the industry do not have coverage, since it is considered unfair competition.

After challenging his opponents to show some modification that he has endorsed for the benefit of the people, the conservative bloc of that period, presented in the morning at the National Palace a list of 19 of the 136 reforms that he considered “drafted by slogan and by way“, where potentates, politicians, officials and legislators demanded the benefit of individuals, regardless of the public interest.

Said argument, he pointed out, is expressed in his book Towards a moral economy, from which he resumed the aforementioned list, which he ordered to be presented on a screen in the Treasury room, in response to one of the questions asked at yesterday’s conference.

He stressed that although many of the reforms have been reversed in his six-year term, with others it has not been achieved, because they were left well tied and you cannot resort to decrees for this, he added.

Of the 19 adjustments to the Constitution that he analyzed, six correspond to the Salinas government; Zedillo’s, five; Fox, one; Calderón, two, and the rest to Peña. From the first, in 1989, and with laws endorsed either by the PRI, PAN, PRD, or by said parties as a whole, it was established the sale of important public companiesas well as the privatization of banking and adaptations for the alienation of ejidal lands, which led to the existence today of huge estates in the hands of supposedly immensely wealthy ejidatarios, and thousands, if not millions, of the original owners of the properties were dispossessed.

He also questioned the changes in the rail system and for the generation of electricity by individuals; the Fobaproa; the adjustment to the mining law, which mainly benefited the companies Peñoles, Grupo México and Carso; the expansion of VAT, first to 15 and later to 16 percent; the increase in ISR and the creation of the Afore system with high commission charges.

Of those that were created with the so-called Pact for Mexico, he recalled that it gave rise to the energy reform, to deliver 20 percent of the country’s oil potential to national and foreign companies and individuals, as well as allowing the unlimited increase of private participation in the generation of electricity.

For this reason, he concluded that although the conservatives They already took off the mask, before they pretended that they were different. However, he explained, they already voted together for all the reforms to the Constitution that affected the people, the workers, and benefited national and foreign minorities..

Regarding his management, he insisted that there are still two or three initiatives pending to be endorsed to counteract the previous reforms, but he acknowledged that it is complicated and difficult by the votes required in Congress, before which the opponents they closed; They are on strike. In any case, he will maintain the initiatives, he ratified.