Society is the great absentee in the first period of the 4T: Bartra

Martin Hernandez Alcantara

The Journey of the East

Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday March 7, 2023, p. fifteen

Puebla, Pue., Society is the great absentee in the first period of the Fourth Transformation of the country, because although the state apparatus has already been moved a little, which President López Obrador called rheumatic elephantthe active participation of organizations, men and women who until now have limited themselves to remaining as observers of the changes that are taking place, but must join the action as protagonists, warned Armando Bartra Vergés.

By participating yesterday, together with the treasurer of the Federation, Elvira Concheiro Bórquez, in the first conversation of the cycle The present of Mexico and what follows, held in the auditorium of the Faculty of Economics of the Autonomous University of Puebla, the academic and The activist pointed out that, apparently, the social movement that supported the 4T was enough to win the government, but it requires accelerating the transformations.

He offered a list of successes of the 4T, among them the increase in the minimum wage, the reforms to labor regulations, the manufacture of vaccines and the Sembrando Vida program. He considered that the corruption, inefficiency and waste that remain in various areas of the State, as a result of the neoliberal period, have not yet ended.

Bartra Vergés said that economic sovereignty must be recovered, food and technological independence must be achieved. He stated that the principle that the poor come first is correct; however, work must also come first and then capital, the countryside before the city, and these precepts need to be upheld by the society that, paraphrasing the President, he called a rheumatic elephant because of his state of paralysis.

He gave as an example the changes in labor matters made in the last four years, which guarantee freedom of association; however, he considered that up to now it seems that only the mining union takes advantage of them.

He indicated that peasant organizations have collapsed – in his view, partly because the resources of official programs are no longer delivered through their intermediation, but directly to the beneficiaries – and recalled that the last great youth movement was #YoSoy132, which emerged in 2012.

In this logic, Armando Bartra indicated that it is necessary to establish an action program from social organizations, in order to prop it up for the 2024 elections. He also referred to the second stage of the 4T and proposed holding national diagnostic sessions , balance and proposal.

He recalled that the second transitory article of the statutes approved by the Third Ordinary National Congress of Morena establishes that, within a period of 30 days, the National Council must appoint a commission in charge of approving the National Project to deepen the transformation 2024-2030with which the candidates for the candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic must commit.

Five months have passed and the polls from which the candidate will emerge will be in September, so we have less than eight months left to have the National Project (which) must include a consultation with the public, particularly those who sympathize with the 4THe suggested.

For this reason, he proposed holding public forums every week between March and July 2023 with the participation in thematic tables or conversations of social leaders, academics, experts and public officials, which are transmitted in real time and can be consulted electronically, in addition to printing a book with the memories of those days.